Lawmakers Tell FanDuel Its VIP Answers Were Misleading and Incomplete

Three Democrats have come back at the operator with eight more questions and a 17 September deadline, saying it "appears to be promoting addiction". The first round produced a $158 million responsible-gaming figure and, they say, no answer on the thing they actually asked about.

• Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Representatives Paul D. Tonko of New York and Valerie P. Foushee of North Carolina wrote to FanDuel chief executive Christian Genetski on 3 September, saying they "remain unconvinced that FanDuel is making an active effort to protect bettors from harmful gambling and instead appears to be promoting addiction"
• They describe the company's 14 August reply as "misleading and incomplete", and have set eight further questions with a deadline of 17 September
• The specific gaps they identify are whether FanDuel sent videos of other athletes to VIP bettors, and whether it targeted gamblers who were on losing streaks
• FanDuel's August response said it was "committed to being a transparent and cooperative partner", cited $158 million spent on responsible gaming in 2025 and noted it operates a licensed sportsbook in 26 US jurisdictions
• The inquiry began with a personal video greeting from the baseball player Bryce Harper, recorded through the paid service Cameo and sent by a FanDuel VIP manager in 2024 to a bettor reported to have lost more than $1.8 million

The Second Letter Is About the Answer, Not the Original Incident

Three congressional Democrats wrote to FanDuel's chief executive on 3 September, renewing an inquiry into the company's VIP programme and rejecting the response they received last month. Senator Richard Blumenthal was joined by Representatives Paul Tonko and Valerie Foushee.

Their language is unusually direct for a letter of this kind. They said they "remain unconvinced that FanDuel is making an active effort to protect bettors from harmful gambling and instead appears to be promoting addiction". They characterised the company's 14 August reply as misleading and incomplete, and gave it until 17 September to answer eight further questions.

What they say was dodged is specific. The lawmakers wanted to know whether FanDuel had sent videos of other athletes to VIP customers, and whether the company targeted bettors who were on losing streaks. Neither, on their account, was directly answered.

FanDuel's reply had led with scale rather than specifics. It said the company was committed to being a transparent and cooperative partner, cited $158 million of spending on responsible gaming in 2025, and noted that it operates a licensed online sportsbook in 26 United States jurisdictions.

The origin of the inquiry is a single interaction. In 2024 a FanDuel VIP manager sent a customer a 21-second personalised video greeting from the baseball player Bryce Harper. The greeting was recorded through Cameo, the paid service on which public figures record personalised messages to order, so this was a marketing purchase rather than a partnership arrangement with the player. The recipient, Terry Thompson, is reported to have lost more than $1.8 million with the sportsbook, and the reporting describes a customer who concealed the extent of those losses from his family.

Answering a Question About Targeting With a Spending Figure Is the Problem

The $158 million responsible-gaming figure is real money and it is also not responsive. The lawmakers asked whether the company identified customers on losing streaks and directed VIP attention at them. A total spent on harm-prevention programmes cannot answer that, because the two things are compatible: an operator can fund substantial safer-gambling infrastructure and simultaneously run a retention function that treats a heavy loser as a high-value account. That is precisely the tension VIP schemes create, and it is why the question was asked in that form. By replying with an aggregate, FanDuel has converted a narrow factual inquiry into a broad one about its intentions, and invited a second letter that is harder to answer than the first.

VIP Schemes Are the Last Major Compliance Exposure in US Betting

British operators went through this a decade late and expensively. The UK Gambling Commission's largest enforcement actions have repeatedly turned on VIP management: customers granted enhanced service and hospitality while affordability and source-of-funds checks lagged behind their losses. The result was a rewritten code of practice on high-value customers, and it arrived only after regulators obtained the internal records. American sportsbooks have so far avoided that scrutiny because state regulators licence and examine operators individually and none has made VIP practice a systemic question. A congressional inquiry is not a regulator and cannot compel much, but it does something a state licensing review does not, which is create a public record that fifty regulators can read. Any operator running a VIP desk in the United States should assume the questions asked of FanDuel this month will be asked of them next year, and should be able to answer the losing-streak question in writing.

The Cameo Detail Cuts Both Ways

It matters that the Harper video came through Cameo, and it should be stated plainly because the alternative reading is unfair to the player. Harper did not endorse a sportsbook's retention strategy; he recorded a paid personalised message, which is what the service exists for. But the mechanism is exactly what makes the practice worth examining, because it means a VIP manager can buy celebrity contact off the shelf, cheaply and at will, and deploy it at whichever customer the account team judges worth retaining. There is no sponsorship negotiation, no compliance review of the athlete relationship, and no obvious control point. Sports leagues currently police their athletes' formal gambling partnerships closely and their Cameo appearances not at all.

FanDuel has two weeks to answer eight questions it has already tried to answer once. The gap between the money it spends on harm prevention and the behaviour of its retention desk is now a matter of public record either way.