Abdelrahman
When Lisa D’Alessandro and her spouse finalized the purchase of their new house in New Jersey, her joy was short-lived. Just two days later, as lenders requested financial information for their mortgage, she was shocked to find their savings account was empty, and their credit card was fully utilized.
It was a Wednesday in November 2023 when D’Alessandro’s husband mentioned he needed to retrieve something from his mother’s residence. While preparing dinner for their two young sons, she messaged him inquiring about his return time.
“When will you be home? I’m going to start dinner,” she remembers asking. His reply was, “I sent you an important email that you need to read.”
“At that moment, my heart just dropped,” said D’Alessandro, 32. “I sensed that something was very wrong.”
In the email, her husband revealed his hidden and crippling gambling addiction, stating he had squandered all their finances on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Panicked, D’Alessandro hurried to their bank, where she learned their accounts—including those containing the proceeds from her 2021 home sale and baptism gifts for their children—were drained and overdrawn.
It all started to make sense, she explained. She had recently faced difficulties accessing their bank details, primarily managed under her husband’s name, as the passwords had been changed without her knowledge.
“I realized it was he who had altered all the passwords,” she recounted.
The very next day, she filed for divorce. Her husband never returned to her grandparents’ home, where they were staying after selling her house in 2021.
In December, she initiated a lawsuit against DraftKings and its New Jersey casino affiliates, representing herself and their two children, claiming the company actively contributed to her husband’s addiction by enticing him with bonuses, incentives, and gifts, thereby fostering and intensifying his gambling dependency.
Once the VIP has their hooks in them, it escalates to unimaginable levels.
Matthew Litt, attorney
According to the lawsuit, between 2022 and 2023, DraftKings placed D’Alessandro’s husband in a “VIP group,” where specialized hosts engage with high-spending clients, offering rewards, credits, and gifts to encourage continued gambling.
The legal action asserts that from January 2020 to January 2024, her husband, referred to in the lawsuit by his username “Mdallo1990,” deposited and lost escalating amounts of money on the sports betting platform, including close to $1 million that she claims rightfully belonged to her and their children.
By 2022, he deposited three times his salary into his DraftKings account, which surged to over 440% in 2023, as alleged in the complaint.
The lawsuit claims negligence, conversion, and breaches of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, seeking the return of the funds she asserts were rightfully hers and her children’s, which were lost without her consent.
The complaint indicates that her husband frequently received communications from VIP hosts. These hosts, employed by gambling companies, provide high-spending clients with incentives such as betting credits, merchandise, and event tickets to enhance their betting experience.
According to the lawsuit, DraftKings trains its staff to recognize signs of gambling problems and should have identified her husband as a problem gambler based on his gambling patterns, which displayed “exponentially higher amounts and frequencies.” Instead, the complaint alleges he continued to receive promotions.
In 2020, her husband’s average monthly deposits on DraftKings were around $2,000, which soared to an average of $64,715 monthly by 2023, despite an annual income of approximately $175,000. Additionally, his betting frequency surged from about 1,600 bets per year in 2020 to over 14,000 in 2023.
“While an average person might have one or two transactions a day, at the peak of his addiction, he had between 80 to 100 transactions daily,” stated D’Alessandro, referencing the deposit records she has later obtained.
D’Alessandro argues that had DraftKings conducted income verification, they would have recognized that his salary couldn’t sustain such levels of gambling, indicating that the funds came from elsewhere. “Shouldn’t the company be held accountable for the families and children of addicted gamblers?” she questioned.
“People can drink excessively at bars, but at some point, bartenders must stop serving them,” she noted. She expressed concern that there are currently no equivalent measures for online betting platforms, even against obvious signs of addiction.
Her attorney, Matthew Litt, emphasized that he does not argue that casinos or sportsbooks bear full responsibility for their players’ actions. However, he insisted, “Responsibility must be shared.”
The Guardian reached out to DraftKings for comments regarding D’Alessandro’s legal action, but a representative did not provide a response.
As of now, DraftKings has not submitted a formal response to her allegations, with a deadline to do so set for March, according to Litt.
D’Alessandro’s legal battle is one of many initiated by Litt against gambling companies, alleging that VIP programs and hosts exploit gambling addiction among clients. Litt receives numerous reports from individuals struggling with gambling issues, many of whom disclose interactions with VIP hosts.
“One does not reach such devastating outcomes without assistance from these hosts,” Litt stated. “That’s the unsettling trend in these cases; once VIPs entrap someone, the situation often escalates dramatically.”
Currently, D’Alessandro is concentrating on rebuilding her financial stability, recovering her children’s funds, and settling debts. She also aims to raise awareness about the profound effects of gambling addiction on families.
“My earnings, which I believed were allocated to household expenses, ended up funding DraftKings instead,” she lamented. “After years of striving to support my family, this has dealt a severe blow to my children’s future.”
D’Alessandro reflected on the painful realization of her husband’s addiction, revealing instances where he placed bets while she was in labor with their second son, coinciding with the Super Bowl that year, and how he neglected to pay the hospital bill from that birth, which she discovered crumpled in a backpack after he departed.
“I never had any indication of this situation. He concealed it exceptionally well,” she shared. “This addiction is so deceptively pervasive, as it is accessible on your phone anytime, anywhere, rendering it undetectable within the household.”
D’Alessandro also found DraftKings-branded items, including whiskey glasses, personalized postcards from his VIP host, and a trophy inscribed with “the crown is yours,” hidden in his home office closet.
“These gambling firms strive to give their players a sense of achievement,” D’Alessandro observed. “The most disturbing item he received was the trophy; it’s meant to symbolize a winner, yet it really marks you as a significant loser due to the extensive losses incurred.”
Currently, she resides at her grandparents’ home with her two sons, both under four years old. “Without my family’s support, I’d be left homeless. That is how dire this situation became.”
