DraftKings Uses AI to Hunt Down Losing Gamblers

I would be genuinely surprised if they weren't.

My data science graduate program had a class that analyzed major data science success stories. The very first one covered how Caesar's Entertainment built models and ran experiments to identify their "most valuable customers", figure out how to predict when they were getting ready to leave the casino, and intervene with incentives and perks designed to get them to stay and keep gambling. And also how all of their competitors rushed to implement their own programs in response.

Look at it from the casino's perspective: their entire business model is centered on exploiting quirks of human psychology to separate people from their money. Expecting prosocial behavior from them is like expecting a squirrel to ignore your bird feeders.

I like how you have to be an accredited investor to get involved with riskier investment instruments but you can be a total moron with no money and lose whatever you have left betting on sports and prediction markets.

Btw it’s not just those two, add iGaming into the mix which is cell phone gambling glammed up in Candy Crush form. Leeches, all of them.

Somebody said (I think it was FrostPrime) roughly: Gambling is genuinely the scariest drug, I actually think it's worse than cocaine and it's just right there on your phone.

I think that really framed the issue well to me. Imagine having an addiction problem and having to carry the problem substance around with you 24/7.

Man, who would be so stupid to get addicted to gambling?

Oooh, Claude is giving me a free spi... reset until October 22? Maybe I will stay on their Max plan. My tokens aren't getting me as far as previously, maybe I should buy another plan? Man, I just got this one new startup idea, I know this will be the one where investors will love me. I can feel it. C'mon Opus, just one more session... come ooon...

“Gambling company leans into its target demographic”

I worked with a state lottery that did similar things. Their target demographic was the “every day players” that would compulsively buy at the gas station.

I quit that job because it seems to be morally wrong.

Betting apps are just this taken to the extreme, I feel for people with this addiction but it’s not going away anytime soon.

They are about to get kicked out of Massachusetts due to this behavior. Love that for them.

Chronic losers, says the article. Not whales. That's unexpected. I'd thought that those big gambling sites were parimutuel, where the counterparty is other bettors and the site just takes a cut. Horse racing tracks and prediction markets work that way.

The house can't lose, and doesn't care who wins. The odds keep changing as bets come in and the odds rebalance.

Apparently that's not true for sports betting.

A 2024 study out of Connecticut found that 1.8% of problem gamblers in the state accounted for 51% of sports betting revenue.[1]

[1] https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DMHAS/Publications/2023-CT-FIN...

I frequently get DraftKings ad on YouTube featuring Kevin Hart and Nick Jonas, they're pushing the information that it is now legal in every state.

I also get loads Polymarket and Kalshi ads. Polymarket seems to have invested tons into featuring mega celebs like LeBron in one of their ads. Other ads feature influencers showing off how to trade and such. More obnoxious part is that these companies pay influencers to talk about trading and winning live on streams- without disclosing they're paying those influencers.

Polymarket even set up fake website where influencers showed they were winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. You wouldn't find those bets on the real Polymarket website.

Calling online casinos “prediction markets” doesn't mean they get a moral exemption.

Using AI to attract people with gambling addictions and those most likely to lose money is rotten.

I hope our industry develops an immune response that creates real friction to those building and funding these things.