You downloaded the app because everyone else had it. A few dollars on a Sunday game, something to make watching more interesting. It was entertainment, you told yourself. Just a hobby. Then the notifications started coming faster. Bonuses if you placed another bet. Free money if you kept playing. Risk-free bets that somehow always led to one more wager. Before you understood what was happening, you were checking the app during work meetings, lying about bank balances, placing bets on sports you had never watched before just to chase what you had lost.
When you finally told someone what was happening, when the credit cards were maxed and the savings were gone, you felt a shame so complete it was hard to breathe. You thought this was a character flaw. A lack of willpower. A moral failing that set you apart from everyone else who could apparently use these apps without losing everything. Your doctor may have mentioned gambling disorder, a recognized psychiatric condition, but by then the damage felt irreversible. The relationships broken. The financial devastation complete.
What you may not know is that lawsuits filed across the country now allege that what happened to you was not an accident. Court filings claim that major sports betting companies including DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM designed their platforms using research on addiction and compulsive behavior, then deployed those features most aggressively toward users showing signs of problem gambling. The litigation alleges these companies had data showing exactly who was losing control and made business decisions to keep those users engaged.
What Happened
Gambling disorder is a psychiatric condition recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It looks like this: you cannot stop betting even when you want to. You chase losses, convinced the next wager will make you whole. You lie to family members about how much you have lost. You feel restless or irritable when you try to cut back. You have risked relationships, jobs, or financial stability because of gambling.
For people who develop this disorder through sports betting apps, the progression can be swift. Unlike casino gambling, which requires travel and planning, mobile betting is available every moment of every day. You can place a bet in bed at 2 AM. In the bathroom at work. While driving. The barrier between impulse and action collapses to nothing.
What distinguishes this from recreational betting is the loss of control. You set limits and break them within minutes. You deposit money you need for rent. You feel a high when you win that has become the only relief from anxiety that now dominates your waking life. When you lose, the desperation to recover those losses overrides every other priority. The shame becomes its own trap: you keep betting to fix the problem that betting created, spiraling deeper into debt and isolation.
The financial destruction is often staggering. People report losses of fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, even several hundred thousand dollars in a single year. Retirement accounts emptied. Homes refinanced. In some cases, people have reported stealing from employers or family members, conduct completely inconsistent with their prior behavior, driven by a compulsion they could not control.
The Connection
The lawsuits allege that sports betting apps were engineered using established research on behavioral psychology and addiction to maximize continued play, particularly among users most vulnerable to compulsive gambling.
According to court filings, these platforms employed several specific mechanisms alleged to create and exploit addictive behavior. The apps provided immediate access to betting at all hours, eliminating the natural pause that occurs when gambling requires physical travel. They sent frequent push notifications, often timed to moments when users had not placed recent bets, with offers framed as free money or risk-free wagers.
The litigation points to design features adapted from social casino games and slot machine research. These include variable reward schedules, where wins are unpredictable and therefore more psychologically compelling than consistent payouts. The apps displayed near-misses prominently, showing users how close they came to winning, a feature that research has shown triggers the same neural response as an actual win and drives continued play.
A 2019 study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors found that smartphone-based gambling was associated with higher rates of problem gambling compared to traditional forms, in part because of continuous availability and the ease of chasing losses. Research published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions in 2020 documented that push notifications and bonus offers significantly increased betting frequency among users already showing signs of problem gambling.
Court filings further allege that these platforms collected granular data on user behavior, tracking patterns such as increasing bet frequency, growing deposit amounts, longer session times, and late-night betting. The lawsuits claim this data allowed the companies to identify users exhibiting signs of gambling disorder and that instead of intervening, the platforms intensified marketing to these high-value customers.
The complaint describes features such as one-click betting, which removed friction from the wagering process, and in-app credit that obscured how much real money was being spent. According to the litigation, these design choices were not incidental but were the result of testing and optimization aimed at increasing user engagement and revenue, even among those showing compulsive behavior.
What The Lawsuits Allege They Knew
The timeline described in court filings paints a picture of companies that, according to the litigation, understood the risks of gambling addiction and made calculated decisions about how to manage, or not manage, those risks.
The lawsuits allege that as early as 2018 and 2019, when these companies were expanding aggressively following the Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. NCAA that opened sports betting nationwide, internal data showed that a small percentage of users generated a disproportionate share of revenue. According to the complaints, this high-revenue segment overlapped significantly with users displaying markers of problem gambling, including frequent large deposits, extended betting sessions, and repeated attempts to chase losses.
Court filings claim that DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM each had access to research, some of it conducted in international markets where sports betting had been legal for years, documenting rates of gambling disorder and identifying vulnerable populations. A 2018 study from the UK Gambling Commission found that approximately 24 percent of online gamblers showed signs of problem gambling, a rate significantly higher than land-based gambling.
According to documents referenced in the litigation, the companies received warnings from responsible gambling advocates and from some regulatory bodies about the risks of unrestricted mobile betting. The lawsuits allege that despite this knowledge, the platforms prioritized user acquisition and engagement over meaningful safeguards.
The complaints point to specific promotional strategies that allegedly targeted problem gamblers. Filings describe how users who had just experienced significant losses would receive immediate offers for deposit bonuses or risk-free bets, tactics the lawsuits claim were designed to keep these users engaged at their most vulnerable moments. The litigation alleges that customer data was used not to identify users in need of intervention but to refine marketing that would maximize lifetime value from each user.
Court documents cite testimony and depositions indicating that the companies employed behavioral scientists and data analysts who understood principles of operant conditioning and compulsive behavior. The lawsuits allege that this expertise was applied to increase betting frequency and session length, with full awareness that a subset of users would develop symptoms of addiction.
The litigation further claims that the companies were aware of voluntary self-exclusion rates and patterns of users repeatedly setting deposit limits and then overriding them, both signals of loss of control. According to the complaints, rather than treating these signals as red flags requiring intervention, the platforms allowed users to easily bypass their own safeguards, often with minimal delay or verification.
What The Lawsuits Say About Concealment
The court filings allege that the sports betting industry engaged in a coordinated effort to downplay addiction risks while lobbying for favorable regulatory treatment.
According to the lawsuits, the companies funded responsible gambling initiatives that the litigation characterizes as public relations efforts rather than substantive harm reduction. The complaints claim these programs were designed to create the appearance of corporate responsibility while the core business model remained unchanged. Court filings allege that the companies pointed to features such as deposit limits and self-exclusion tools in marketing materials and regulatory filings, but made these tools difficult to find and easy to bypass.
The litigation describes alleged lobbying efforts in state legislatures where the companies sought licensing. According to the complaints, the companies submitted testimony and research minimizing addiction risks and emphasizing economic benefits such as tax revenue and job creation. The lawsuits claim that in several states, the companies successfully lobbied against stricter responsible gambling requirements, including mandatory cooling-off periods, limits on promotional offers, and proactive intervention when users displayed compulsive behavior.
Court filings also allege that the companies entered into partnerships with sports leagues and media outlets that created financial incentives for those entities to promote betting and normalize constant engagement with the apps. According to the lawsuits, these partnerships were structured to make gambling seem like a routine part of sports fandom, targeting younger demographics who research shows are at higher risk for developing gambling disorder.
The complaints claim that when problem gambling did receive media attention, the companies emphasized personal responsibility and framed addiction as a pre-existing condition in a small number of users rather than a foreseeable consequence of platform design. The lawsuits allege this framing was misleading because internal data, according to the litigation, showed much higher rates of problem gambling among app users than the companies publicly acknowledged.
Additionally, court filings describe alleged efforts to fragment regulatory oversight. The lawsuits claim the companies took advantage of the state-by-state legalization process to avoid uniform national standards for consumer protection, resulting in a patchwork of rules that the complaints allege allowed harmful practices to continue in many jurisdictions.
Why Your Doctor May Not Have Told You
Gambling disorder remains underdiagnosed and poorly understood in general medical practice. Unlike substance use disorders, where there are physical signs and established screening protocols, gambling addiction is behavioral and often hidden. Many primary care physicians have limited training in recognizing it.
The lawsuits allege that the sports betting companies contributed to this knowledge gap. According to court filings, the industry funded research and messaging that emphasized individual responsibility and pre-existing vulnerability rather than product design. The litigation claims this framing influenced how gambling disorder was discussed in medical and public health contexts, making it less likely that physicians would consider the role of app features in creating compulsive behavior.
Furthermore, the complaints allege that the rapid expansion of legalized sports betting outpaced the development of clinical guidelines and physician education. Court filings claim the companies marketed heavily and acquired millions of users within months of entering new states, while medical communities had little infrastructure to identify or treat gambling-related harms.
For many users, the shame associated with gambling losses prevented them from disclosing the behavior to their doctors. The lawsuits allege that the companies understood this dynamic and designed their platforms to operate in isolation from other aspects of users' lives, with no integration with healthcare systems or requirements for third-party monitoring.
The litigation also points to the normalization of constant betting through sports media partnerships. According to the complaints, this ubiquitous marketing made problem gambling seem like a personal failure rather than a public health issue, reducing the likelihood that physicians would ask about it and that patients would raise it.
Who Is Affected
If you used DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, or other sports betting apps and developed symptoms of gambling disorder, the litigation may be relevant to your experience.
This looks like: You downloaded a sports betting app after legalization in your state. You started with small wagers but found yourself betting more frequently and in larger amounts. You received frequent notifications and promotional offers. You set deposit limits but overrode them. You chased losses, convinced you could win back what you had lost. You lied to family members or friends about your gambling. You experienced financial harm, including depletion of savings, credit card debt, or loans taken to cover gambling losses. You felt unable to stop despite wanting to, despite promises to yourself and others, despite consequences.
The lawsuits describe users who had no prior history of gambling problems. People who used the apps casually at first and found the behavior escalating beyond their control. People who experienced depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts as the financial and relational consequences mounted. People who felt that what was marketed as entertainment became a compulsion that dominated their lives.
You may meet criteria for gambling disorder as defined by the DSM-5 if you experienced four or more of the following in a 12-month period: needing to gamble with increasing amounts of money, feeling restless or irritable when trying to stop, repeated unsuccessful efforts to control gambling, frequent preoccupation with gambling, gambling when feeling distressed, chasing losses, lying to conceal gambling, jeopardizing relationships or opportunities because of gambling, or relying on others to provide money to relieve desperate financial situations caused by gambling.
This condition affects people across all demographics. The lawsuits describe plaintiffs who were professionals, parents, people with no prior addiction history. What they shared was exposure to platforms that, according to the litigation, were designed to create the very behavior that destroyed their financial stability and well-being.
Where Things Stand
Litigation against DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and other sports betting companies is proceeding in multiple jurisdictions. As of early 2025, lawsuits have been filed in states including Massachusetts, New York, and others where mobile sports betting became legal in recent years.
The complaints generally allege negligence, consumer protection violations, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and in some cases, fraud. Plaintiffs claim the companies designed addictive products, targeted vulnerable users, and failed to implement adequate responsible gambling measures despite knowledge of the harms.
Some cases have been consolidated into multidistrict litigation to coordinate discovery and pretrial proceedings. This process allows plaintiffs' attorneys to share evidence, including internal company documents, data on user behavior, and testimony from former employees and industry experts.
The litigation is in relatively early stages. Discovery is ongoing, with court filings indicating that plaintiffs are seeking internal communications, research on platform design, data on user behavior and revenue segmentation, and records of responsible gambling program implementation. The companies have moved to dismiss some claims, arguing that users were aware of the risks of gambling and that the platforms included responsible gambling tools.
There have not yet been major settlements or trial verdicts in these cases, but the volume of filings is growing. Attorneys representing plaintiffs have indicated that they are reviewing thousands of potential claims from individuals across the country who experienced gambling disorder and financial harm after using these apps.
The legal theories in these cases draw on precedent from tobacco and opioid litigation, arguing that companies cannot market addictive products while denying knowledge of addiction risks, and that designing products to maximize compulsive use constitutes a breach of duty to consumers.
Regulatory developments may also influence the litigation. Some states have begun implementing stricter responsible gambling requirements, including mandatory spending limits, enhanced self-exclusion programs, and restrictions on promotional offers. The lawsuits allege that the companies resisted these measures and that earlier implementation could have prevented significant harm.
For individuals considering whether to participate in the litigation, the process typically begins with a consultation with an attorney experienced in this area. Documentation of gambling activity, financial records, and medical or counseling records related to gambling disorder can be relevant to establishing a claim.
What happened to you was not a failure of willpower. It was not bad luck. It was not a pre-existing weakness that set you apart. The lawsuits allege it was the result of deliberate design choices made by companies that had data showing exactly what their platforms were doing to people like you. They watched the patterns, according to court filings. They saw the escalation, the late-night sessions, the increasing desperation. And the litigation claims they built their business model around it.
You were not gambling recreationally and losing control because of some flaw in your character. According to the allegations in these lawsuits, you were using a product engineered to override your ability to stop. The shame you carry does not belong to you alone. It belongs, the litigation alleges, to the companies that turned your vulnerability into profit and called it entertainment.