FanDuel and DraftKings Are in Court Arguing Their VIP Programs Don’t Fuel Addiction. Come On.

Terry Thompson wagered $22 million with DraftKings and FanDuel over five years. He lost $1.8 to $2 million of it. His last documented bet was a $10,000 DraftKings parlay this past February. Christopher Sage lost around $175,000 across both apps.

Both men are now suing. FanDuel and DraftKings’ response, filed in Philadelphia court this July, amounts to: not our problem.

FanDuel’s attorney argued that “courts around the country have held that there is no duty of care to protect customers from their own lawful wagering.” Translation: you placed the bets, pal, not us. They’d also like the whole thing moved to arbitration, away from a jury that might actually read the receipts out loud.

None of this happens in a vacuum. Sportsbooks already blanket every broadcast with betting odds and bonus offers; the VIP program is just the version of that ad campaign that follows you home and already knows your account balance.

The receipts get worse from there. The Public Health Advocacy Institute’s complaint says both books assigned Thompson and Sage personal “VIP Hosts.” Real employees. Their job was calling, texting, and mailing gifts to keep the two of them betting. One plaintiff says his host reached out up to 100 times a day, gambling or not. The suit alleges FanDuel and DraftKings use AI to flag exactly which customers are losing the most money, then route them straight into that pipeline.

Then it gets weird. FanDuel VIP manager Bryttanni Morgan sent Thompson a personalized Cameo video in November 2024: Bryce Harper wishing him a happy Thanksgiving “extra special,” courtesy of his VIP host. Harper had no idea what it was being used for.

“I did not know FanDuel would do this,” Harper wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “I did not consent to it, and FanDuel had no right to do it.”

A Phillies MVP, used as a prop to flatter a guy who would eventually text his therapist about suicidal thoughts and sell his own company to cover the hole.

Congress noticed. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Paul Tonko, and Rep. Valerie Foushee sent FanDuel’s CEO a letter on August 10 demanding the company kill its VIP program entirely. Written answers are due August 24.

Regulators are already circling elsewhere. Massachusetts is now teaching high schoolers what a parlay actually costs before they ever place a bet. Congress already went after sports betting’s integrity crisis the leagues wouldn’t fix themselves earlier this year.

That’s the whole defense in one screenshot. Industry-leading safeguards for Congress. No duty of care for the judge.

Nobody knows how a Philadelphia judge rules on a motion to dismiss. These get filed and denied constantly, and this one might be no different. What isn’t really up for debate is what a VIP program is built to do: find the customers betting the most and losing the most, then make sure they keep going. Thompson and Sage have a documented disorder, not a character flaw. The lawsuit’s actual question is whether “you agreed to the terms” still means anything when the terms were engineered against you by name.

FanDuel and DraftKings built loyalty programs the way casinos have for sixty years, then handed the guest list to an algorithm. Acting stunned that someone’s asking who’s responsible for what happens next is the real bad beat here.