The legal team that secured a landmark $6 million ruling against Meta and Google over addictive social media design has set its sights on a new target: America’s biggest sportsbooks. Jennifer Hoekstra, a partner at Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, has filed a personal injury lawsuit against FanDuel and DraftKings in Massachusetts. Her argument? The platforms are deliberately engineered to hook vulnerable punters.

The case centres on an unnamed plaintiff who wagered $3 million on FanDuel between 2023 and 2025. What started as casual betting spiralled into what the lawsuit describes as “an unmanageable addiction”. Cost him his job. Landed him in therapy. Both operators assigned him VIP hosts as his play intensified, a practice that’s become a focal point in multiple recent lawsuits.

The Product Liability Angle

Hoekstra’s strategy mirrors her successful approach in the social media case: frame the platform itself as a defectively designed product that causes physical harm through addiction. “They develop and personalize themselves to the individual user,” she told ESPN. “When you log in, the algorithm knows who you are and what you’re interested in. It pops up, so it becomes more addictive for that person.”

Rather than pursuing economic damages for gambling losses, Hoekstra is focusing on the physical and psychological harm caused by what she characterizes as intentionally addictive design. It’s a clever pivot. Could sidestep some of the legal hurdles that have tripped up previous cases, or at least give them a fresh angle to work with.

The Revenue Reality

The lawsuit makes a pointed business argument, citing Connecticut research showing that 51% of sports betting revenue comes from just 2% of players, those classified as problem gamblers. Previous litigation against DraftKings revealed that 42% of the company’s total revenue flows from approximately 3.8% of its user base. Those figures paint a picture of an industry model built on the heaviest losers, whether the operators want to admit it or not.

Worth knowing: this isn’t the first rodeo for either operator in Massachusetts. DraftKings paid a $450,000 fine in the state for allowing credit card deposits, a clear violation of local regulations. But those cases dealt with specific rule breaches. This one’s different, asking fundamental questions about the platforms themselves.

An Uphill Battle

Despite the high-profile legal team and compelling statistics, the path forward looks bumpy. Courts have consistently ruled that gambling companies owe no duty of care to compulsive gamblers. Just this week, a Pennsylvania judge dismissed a similar lawsuit against DraftKings, writing bluntly that the company “has no duty of care to protect Plaintiffs from spending too much money or from developing or fueling a gambling addiction.”

That ruling specifically addressed the VIP host issue. The judge found that encouraging bets doesn’t create a fiduciary relationship, since punters ultimately place wagers of their own free will. The VIP hosts aren’t making betting decisions or exercising control. They’re offering customer service to high-value players, full stop.

The legal landscape here is tricky. Traditional gambling law assumes player agency, that adults choosing to bet bear responsibility for their choices. Hoekstra’s team is trying to reframe that assumption by focusing on how algorithmic targeting and personalization might fundamentally alter the equation. Whether courts buy that argument remains to be seen. The social media precedent suggests there’s at least a path worth exploring, even if it’s a narrow one.

Another lawsuit filed this week featured two plaintiffs who lost over $2 million combined on the platforms. With multiple cases now working through the courts, the industry’s watching closely to see if the legal winds might be shifting on operator liability.

What the team thinks

Sheena McAllister says:

While the Massachusetts lawsuit will certainly generate headlines, the real test will be demonstrating that these platforms fall outside existing responsible gambling frameworks rather than showing user losses alone. From a regulatory perspective, both FanDuel and DraftKings already operate under state licensing requirements that mandate player protection tools, which distinguishes them significantly from the social media cases. The outcome could nevertheless push US regulators toward more prescriptive design standards similar to what we’ve seen evolving under UKGC guidance around game design and safer gambling.