You told yourself you would just check the scores. Then you told yourself you would only bet on games you were already planning to watch. Then you told yourself you would stop after you won back what you lost last weekend. The app sent you a notification at 7:03 on a Tuesday morning with a same-game parlay and a profit boost that expired in four hours, and you placed the bet in the parking lot before walking into work. You began lying about where the money was going. You took a cash advance on a credit card you opened specifically so your spouse would not see the transactions. You felt a physical sensation in your chest when you opened the app, something between dread and electricity, and you opened it anyway, sometimes forty or fifty times in a single day.
When you finally told someone what was happening, maybe a therapist or a doctor or a person on a crisis line at three in the morning, they may have told you that you were experiencing gambling disorder. That it is a recognized diagnosis with neurological changes visible on brain imaging. That it was not a failure of willpower or character. You may have felt relief, and then you may have felt something else: confusion. Because you are not someone who ever set foot in a casino. You never bought a lottery ticket every week or played poker in a basement somewhere. You downloaded an app that was advertised during every single football game you watched. You saw it on billboards. The commercials had celebrities and the tone was fun and the message was that this was entertainment, something casual, something everyone was doing.
What happened to you was not bad luck. It was not a genetic predisposition that was waiting to emerge. The lawsuits filed against DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM allege that it was the result of specific design decisions, algorithmic targeting practices, and promotional strategies that these companies deployed while internal data and published research showed the addiction risks of app-based sports gambling. This article explains what the litigation alleges, what the scientific record shows, and who may qualify to hold these companies accountable.
What Happened
Gambling disorder is a behavioral addiction recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is characterized by persistent and recurrent problematic gambling behavior that leads to clinically significant impairment or distress. People with gambling disorder experience intense preoccupation with gambling, need to gamble with increasing amounts of money to achieve the desired excitement, and repeated unsuccessful efforts to control or stop gambling. They continue despite serious consequences: financial devastation, relationship destruction, job loss, and in some cases, suicidal ideation.
What this looks like in real life is checking your phone compulsively, sometimes hundreds of times per day. It is the inability to watch a sporting event without having money on the outcome. It is borrowing from friends or family under false pretenses. It is maxing out credit cards, draining retirement accounts, taking out loans with predatory interest rates. It is the collapse of a marriage because of lies about money. It is the loss of a job because you were placing bets during work hours or because you could not focus on anything except the live odds updating in real time on a screen you kept returning to like a physical compulsion.
People describe a feeling of being trapped inside a cycle they cannot exit. The apps are always available, always open, always offering a new promotion or a new bet type or a new reason to deposit more money. The losses create a desperate urge to win it back immediately, and the apps provide instant opportunity to do so. The wins create a surge of dopamine and the belief that the next bet will deliver the same feeling. The variable reward schedule, where wins are unpredictable and intermittent, is one of the most powerful mechanisms for establishing compulsive behavior in the human brain.
The Connection
Mobile sports betting apps are designed in ways that research shows increase the risk of addiction. Unlike traditional gambling, which required a person to physically travel to a casino or betting parlor, these apps are available 24 hours a day on a device that most people carry in their pocket. The barrier to entry is eliminated. The moment of reflection that might occur during a drive to a casino is removed. The bet can be placed instantly, in private, with no social friction or observation from others.
The apps use push notifications to prompt betting behavior throughout the day and night. These notifications are often timed to moments of high vulnerability: during live sporting events, after a loss when a user has not placed a bet in several hours, or in the early morning when impulse control is lower. A 2022 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found that push notifications from gambling apps were associated with increased frequency of gambling sessions and higher rates of disordered gambling symptoms among users.
The apps offer live in-game betting, which allows users to place bets on events that unfold moment by moment during a game: the outcome of the next pitch, the next play, the next possession. This creates a continuous cycle of risk and reward that can extend across the entire duration of a sporting event, transforming a three-hour game into hundreds of individual gambling opportunities. A 2021 study in the International Gambling Studies journal found that in-play betting was associated with higher intensity of gambling, greater spending, and increased gambling-related harm compared to traditional pre-game betting.
The platforms use algorithms to personalize promotions, odds boosts, and bonus offers based on user behavior. The lawsuits allege that these algorithms are designed to identify users who are losing money and to offer them incentives to continue betting. The apps track every click, every deposit, every bet, every loss, and every moment of hesitation, and they use that data to optimize what the industry calls engagement but what the lawsuits describe as exploitation of compulsive behavior.
The platforms offer easy access to credit, often allowing users to deposit money instantly via linked bank accounts, credit cards, or even lines of credit provided directly through partnerships with financial companies. This removes a natural stopping point that might otherwise occur when someone runs out of available cash. A person experiencing gambling disorder can lose thousands of dollars in a single evening without ever confronting the tangible exchange of money.
What The Lawsuits Allege They Knew
The lawsuits filed against DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM allege that these companies were aware of the addictive potential of their platforms and made deliberate design choices that increased the risk of gambling disorder among users. According to complaints filed in multiple jurisdictions, these companies had access to internal data showing patterns of compulsive use and financial harm, and they used that data not to intervene or warn users, but to refine their systems to maximize user retention and spending.
The complaints allege that the companies were aware of decades of published research on gambling addiction and the specific risk factors associated with continuous, rapid-cycle betting. A landmark study published in the journal Addiction in 2008 identified electronic gambling machines and online gambling as higher-risk formats due to the speed of play and the removal of natural breaks in the gambling session. Research published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors in 2015 demonstrated that the structural characteristics of gambling products, including event frequency and the use of near-miss outcomes, significantly influence the development of problem gambling.
According to court filings, the companies launched their mobile sports betting platforms in numerous states beginning in 2018, following the Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. NCAA that struck down the federal prohibition on sports gambling. The lawsuits allege that as these companies expanded aggressively into new markets, they deployed marketing strategies that targeted young adults and casual bettors who had no prior history of gambling, using advertisements that portrayed betting as a routine part of sports fandom rather than a high-risk financial activity.
The complaints cite testimony given before state legislatures during the legalization debates in which company representatives provided assurances about responsible gambling measures and player protections. The lawsuits allege that the actual implementation of these measures was inadequate and that the companies prioritized growth and revenue over user safety. According to documents described in the litigation, internal company metrics tracked user lifetime value and loss rates, with algorithms designed to maximize deposits and betting frequency among the most active users, a group that research suggests is disproportionately composed of individuals with gambling problems.
A 2020 report published by the International Center for Responsible Gaming, cited in several complaints, found that approximately 5 percent of sports bettors account for nearly 50 percent of total sports betting revenue, a concentration that suggests the business model relies heavily on individuals who are betting at levels consistent with disordered gambling. The lawsuits allege that the companies were aware of this dynamic and that their marketing and product design decisions were intended to exploit it.
The litigation references a 2021 study published in BMJ Open that analyzed sports betting advertising during televised sporting events and found that viewers were exposed to gambling advertisements on average once every three minutes during live sports broadcasts. The lawsuits allege that DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM were among the heaviest advertisers and that this saturation marketing was designed to normalize gambling and encourage frequent, impulsive betting behavior.
What The Lawsuits Say About Concealment
The complaints allege that the defendants engaged in practices designed to minimize public awareness of the addiction risks associated with their platforms. According to the lawsuits, the companies promoted a narrative of sports betting as entertainment and skill-based analysis, downplaying the reality that the vast majority of users lose money over time and that a significant minority develop patterns of compulsive use that meet clinical criteria for addiction.
The lawsuits allege that while the companies included responsible gambling messaging in certain portions of their apps and websites, these warnings were placed in locations where they were unlikely to be seen by users actively engaged in betting. According to the complaints, the responsible gambling tools such as deposit limits and self-exclusion features were difficult to locate, required multiple steps to activate, and were not offered proactively to users whose betting patterns indicated high-risk behavior.
The litigation alleges that the companies used marketing language and promotional materials that obscured the nature of the odds and the mathematical reality that the house edge ensures long-term losses for the vast majority of bettors. According to court filings, promotional offers such as risk-free bets and odds boosts created the illusion of favorable conditions while maintaining underlying structures that guaranteed profitability for the platform. The lawsuits claim that these promotions were specifically designed to encourage new users to develop betting habits and to re-engage users who had reduced or stopped their betting activity.
The complaints allege that the companies funded research and industry groups that promoted narratives favorable to the expansion of legalized gambling while minimizing the public health risks. According to the lawsuits, some of this funding was not transparently disclosed, and the research produced under these arrangements was used in lobbying efforts and regulatory proceedings to argue against stricter consumer protections. The litigation characterizes this as an effort to shape public policy and scientific discourse in ways that prioritized industry growth over user safety.
The lawsuits also allege that the companies entered into partnerships with professional sports leagues, media companies, and celebrities that further normalized gambling and embedded betting content into sports coverage in ways that made it difficult for consumers to distinguish between editorial content and promotional material. According to the complaints, these partnerships were part of a broader strategy to make sports betting appear ubiquitous and socially acceptable, reducing the perceived risk and increasing participation among populations that might otherwise have been cautious about gambling.
Why Your Doctor May Not Have Told You
Gambling disorder is underdiagnosed and often misunderstood in clinical settings. Many primary care physicians and mental health professionals receive limited training on behavioral addictions, and the rapid expansion of legalized sports betting has outpaced the medical community's awareness of the specific risks associated with mobile betting apps. If you saw a doctor for anxiety, depression, insomnia, or stress during the period when you were struggling with gambling, it is possible that the underlying cause was not identified, particularly if you did not volunteer information about your betting behavior.
There is also a cultural narrative that frames gambling as a personal choice and gambling problems as a matter of individual responsibility rather than a foreseeable consequence of product design. This narrative makes it less likely that clinicians will ask about gambling behavior during routine assessments, and it makes it less likely that patients will recognize their own behavior as a medical condition rather than a personal failing.
The lawsuits allege that the defendants contributed to this gap in clinical awareness by promoting a public image of sports betting as low-risk entertainment rather than a product with significant addiction potential. According to the complaints, the normalization of betting through advertising and sports media partnerships created an environment in which both clinicians and patients were less likely to view problematic gambling as a serious health concern requiring intervention.
Additionally, the speed with which mobile sports betting expanded following legalization meant that many of the public health systems and clinical protocols that exist for other forms of gambling had not yet been adapted to address app-based betting. The lawsuits allege that the companies launched their products in new states without adequate coordination with public health authorities and without ensuring that resources for gambling addiction treatment were available and accessible to users who developed problems.
Who Is Affected
The lawsuits are being brought by individuals who developed gambling disorder after using mobile sports betting platforms operated by DraftKings, FanDuel, or BetMGM. If you used one of these apps and you experienced a pattern of behavior that included an inability to stop or reduce your gambling despite serious negative consequences, you may be affected.
The qualifying criteria generally include having created an account and placed bets through one of these platforms, experiencing financial losses that were significant relative to your income or assets, and suffering harm such as debt, relationship damage, job loss, mental health deterioration, or other serious life consequences as a result of your gambling behavior. The timeline of use matters. The lawsuits focus on the period following the widespread legalization of mobile sports betting, beginning in 2018 and continuing to the present.
This includes people who never had a gambling problem before using these apps. It includes people who thought they were engaging in a casual, recreational activity and found themselves unable to stop. It includes people who hid their betting from family members, who borrowed money or liquidated assets to cover losses, who experienced panic or shame or desperation related to their gambling behavior.
You do not need to have been formally diagnosed with gambling disorder to qualify, though a diagnosis or treatment history can be part of the documentation. You do not need to have self-excluded from the platform or contacted customer service about a problem. Many people who develop gambling disorder do not seek help or disclose their behavior until the consequences have become severe, and the lawsuits account for that reality.
The lawsuits include claims on behalf of individuals in states where mobile sports betting was legalized and where these companies were licensed to operate. This includes states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, and many others that legalized sports betting following the 2018 Supreme Court decision. If you used one of these apps in a state where it was legally available and you experienced harm, you may have a claim regardless of whether you still live in that state.
Where Things Stand
Lawsuits against DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM alleging liability for gambling disorder and related harms have been filed in multiple state and federal courts. These cases are in various stages of litigation, with some in early procedural phases and others advancing toward discovery, the process by which internal company documents and data are disclosed. The legal theories underlying these cases include product liability, negligence, fraud, and violations of consumer protection statutes.
The litigation alleges that the design and operation of these platforms constitutes a defective product that is unreasonably dangerous, that the companies failed to warn users of known risks, and that they engaged in unfair and deceptive practices in their marketing and user engagement strategies. The complaints seek damages for financial losses, emotional distress, and the cost of treatment for gambling disorder, as well as injunctive relief requiring changes to platform design and marketing practices.
There is no global settlement at this time, and the defendants have denied liability. The companies have argued in court filings that users are responsible for their own betting decisions, that the platforms include responsible gambling tools, and that gambling disorder is a complex condition with multiple contributing factors. The litigation is ongoing, and the outcome will depend on the evidence disclosed during discovery and the legal standards applied by the courts.
Some cases are being coordinated through multidistrict litigation or consolidated proceedings, which allows for more efficient handling of common factual and legal issues. Attorneys representing plaintiffs are conducting investigations and gathering evidence, including expert testimony from addiction researchers, data scientists, and former employees of the companies. The timeline for resolution is uncertain, as complex product liability and consumer protection litigation can take years to reach trial or settlement.
New cases continue to be filed as more individuals come forward with allegations of harm. The legal landscape is evolving as courts begin to address novel questions about the liability of digital platforms for behavioral addictions and the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks to protect consumers from predatory design practices.
What This Means
If you lost money you could not afford to lose, if you lied to people you love, if you felt trapped inside a compulsion you could not name or control, what happened to you was not a personal failure. The lawsuits allege that it was the outcome of a system designed to keep you engaged, to maximize the amount of money you deposited, and to exploit the neurological vulnerabilities that make certain product features addictive. The research on gambling disorder and the structural characteristics of high-risk gambling products has existed for decades. The complaints allege that these companies had access to that research, that they had internal data showing patterns of harmful use, and that they chose profit over safety.
You were not weak. You were not reckless. You were targeted by algorithms that tracked your behavior and optimized your exposure to the most compelling and dangerous features of the platform. The lawsuits allege that this was deliberate, that it was profitable, and that it caused documented harm to thousands of people who believed they were simply participating in something that had been made legal, normalized, and culturally ubiquitous. What you experienced has a name, a mechanism, and a corporate origin story that is now being examined in courts across the country.