The bonus goes to whoever will lose more: DraftKings has selected players with a model since 2023

Scoring customers by future revenue is standard marketing. The bookmaker’s model predicts not a purchase, but someone else’s loss.

How it works. Since 2023, DraftKings has trained a model on customers’ betting records to find those who will start playing more often and lose more in response to a promotion. It assigns each player a score: the higher it is, the more money the person will leave behind for every bonus they receive.

Those selected are brought back to betting with free bets and bonuses. A second former analyst described the same logic to NYT anonymously. “Lose more, and we’ll give you more so you keep playing.”

Around 70% of DraftKings’ promo-spending decisions are made by AI models. The company cited that figure in February 2026, seven months before the investigation.

On 24.02.2026, the bookmaker cut roughly 5% of its staff (according to analyst Jordan Bender) and expected to save about $30 million a year, framing the restructuring as an AI bet. Internally, the models help engineers with code, draft legal opinions, and prepare bid submissions.

Six former employees confirmed to NYT that the selection of likely losers for promotions continued to be refined. Another four said the company slowed and shut down attempts to use the same technology to predict who would develop an addiction.

What DraftKings says. The company rejects suggestions that its marketing is unfair or targets the wrong customers. Promos, it says, go to people who use the platform consistently and actively, not those who have lost a lot.

The share of promo decisions made by the model is growing, according to the company itself.