FanDuel has told Congress that roughly 30 personalised videos featuring athletes and entertainers sent to VIP customers during the past two years were customer-appreciation gestures, not efforts to induce further gambling.
In its third response to congressional requests about the videos and its VIP programme, the company said the Cameos were neither commissioned nor sent to prompt continued wagering. It described the programme as offering enhanced service and encouraging customers who choose to bet to use FanDuel rather than a rival platform, while saying its goal was to maintain a healthy customer base rather than maximise wagering activity.
As our Oct. 7 report detailed, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Paul Tonko and Valerie Foushee had asked FanDuel for copies of the videos and records identifying their recipients, the reasons they were sent, the safeguards used by VIP hosts and the service used to obtain them.
The lawmakers remain concerned that VIP perks can exploit people experiencing gambling addiction. Their inquiry followed reporting on a 21-second Cameo message from Philadelphia Phillies player Bryce Harper sent to FanDuel VIP customer Terry Thompson. Thompson reportedly wagered $18.5 million on FanDuel over six years and lost $1.52 million; he has sued FanDuel and DraftKings, alleging that VIP hosts encouraged betting and contributed to his addiction and financial losses.
Blumenthal, Tonko and Foushee said FanDuel’s assertion that the videos did not encourage continued gambling was contradicted by the Harper video being sent to a customer who had lost about $1.5 million on the platform. Harper said he recorded the message through Cameo without knowing FanDuel would use it as a reward for a gambler.
FanDuel said the video gestures were governed by the same problem-gambling and responsible-gaming standards as its marketing and advertising. Its framework uses automated and manual tools to identify possible gambling harm, including real-time check-ins and machine-learning alerts for deposits that diverge from a customer’s established pattern.
The company said VIP account managers are trained to identify concerning statements, including requests for exclusion or language suggesting a risk of self-harm, and escalate them to its Responsible Gaming team. FanDuel said it can help customers close accounts, direct them to tools that reduce play, or suspend and limit accounts where addiction is suspected.
It declined to provide some account-level material sought by Congress, including wagering histories, wins and losses, requests to limit play and responsible-gaming reviews, citing obligations to protect customers’ personal and financial information. FanDuel Predicts was also running a 90-day VIP-program trial that did not include Cameo videos.
The dispute comes as a study of 383 U.S. sports bettors found celebrity endorsers can increase both responsible-gambling intentions and betting intentions.
