Massachusetts Sports Betting AI Review Targets DraftKings

Regulators in Massachusetts want to know exactly what sportsbooks are doing with predictive technology behind the scenes. Chair Jordan Maynard told the Gaming Commission’s September 24 public meeting that staff will open a Massachusetts sports betting AI review, starting with DraftKings and widening to every licensed operator in the state. The move followed a published investigation into how the Boston-based company uses machine learning to shape its promotional offers. The Commission has found no violation so far, and it framed the work as fact-finding rather than enforcement.

What Set the Massachusetts Sports Betting AI Review in Motion

An investigation published on September 19 alleged that DraftKings directed employees to build a model capable of flagging customers most likely to accept a promotion and then lose money on it. The reporting drew on interviews with more than 40 former staff, internal company materials and customer wagering records. DraftKings pushed back, rejecting any suggestion that its marketing unfairly targets players.

Those claims landed in the operator’s home state, where the regulator already had artificial intelligence on its agenda. Maynard asked Executive Director Dean Serpa and his team to approach the company directly and establish what actually happened. He described AI technologies as evolving fast across society, adding that the Commission shares “the concerns over their application.” Talking to DraftKings forms the first stage of the Massachusetts sports betting AI review, but it will not be the last.

The Elasticity Score Behind the Concern

One detail has drawn more attention than the rest. Descriptions of the company’s internal systems referenced an “elasticity” measure, a score built to estimate how much additional money a customer would wager after receiving a bonus.

Plenty of businesses run models like that, and in most retail settings nobody blinks. Gambling changes the calculation, because the product carries real harm potential for a minority of customers, and a score that predicts extra spend also predicts extra loss. That tension sits at the center of what regulators now have to untangle.

The State Already Wrote AI Into Its Betting Rules

Massachusetts has a head start here, because its wagering regulations already name the technology directly. Under 205 CMR 257.02, operators cannot use patron information to promote betting through any algorithm, automated decision-making system, machine learning model or AI tool that they know, or should reasonably expect, could make their platform more addictive. Licensed books also have to analyze patron data as part of their responsible gaming programs and report trends back to the Commission on a regular basis.

The groundwork goes back further than this month. The Commission funded research from the UNLV International Gaming Institute, released in November 2025, which mapped current and potential AI applications across marketing, player acquisition and responsible gaming. One of its recommendations called for a dedicated internal role or task force to track how licensees deploy the technology. Regulators acted on that advice, and the resulting AI task force will take part in the work ahead.

The Massachusetts Sports Betting AI Review Reaches Every Licensee

DraftKings simply happens to be first in line. Every sportsbook holding a Massachusetts licence can expect questions about how it applies AI and machine learning to promotions, customer acquisition and responsible gaming tools. That scope matters, because the same modelling techniques circulate across the industry through shared vendors, shared talent and shared playbooks.

Commissioner Paul Brodeur argued that the issues raised deserve a closer look, while pointing to the state’s existing regulatory language as a genuine advantage. He also noted that the potential for AI to exploit customers appears in any customer-facing business, so gaming regulators are grappling with a problem that reaches well beyond their own sector.

What Happens After the Fact-Finding

Serpa and Commission staff will gather information first, then report back. Only after that will commissioners weigh up any changes to the regulatory framework, and Maynard was careful to keep that decision open rather than promise new rules. The Commission wants the facts on the ground before it writes anything new.

Regulators elsewhere have good reason to watch closely. Massachusetts is running this exercise with an AI clause already on the books, so the outcome will reveal something useful about how much such language actually catches once you apply it to a live commercial system. If the answer turns out to be “not much,” other states drafting similar provisions will want to know why. If the answer turns out to be “quite a lot,” operators across the country have a compliance question waiting for them.

For now, DraftKings faces questions rather than penalties. But the Massachusetts sports betting AI review has set a precedent that other jurisdictions can copy cheaply, and the technology under examination is not going to stand still while regulators catch up.