Today, a court in Boston released its decision DENYING DraftKings’ Motion to Dismiss a class action filed last December alleging that its $1,000 signup bonus was an unfair and deceptive marketing practice and constituted false advertising.
Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, which filed the action and represents the proposed class, noted that, “this decision will allow the case to proceed to the Discovery phase where we have the opportunity to depose those involved with the deceptive promotion and collect internal communications to gain insight into how it was developed and executed.”
Richard Daynard, the Institute’s president and Northeastern University Distinguished Professor of Law added that, “this bogus promotion, designed to lure customers into an addictive trap, required new users to risk large amounts of money and gamble hundreds of dollars each and every day in order to qualify for credits that could only be used for more gambling. We think this will be an easy case to prove.”
“The very sort of gambling this promotion requires of new customers including a $5,000 deposit and gambling $15,000 to $25,000 over a limited time, is not, by any definition, responsible play. Instead, it’s a recipe for initiating addiction. Yet DraftKings hypocritically exhorts its customers to ‘gamble responsibly’ in every advertisement. I don’t believe that’s what they actually want,” said Dr. Harry Levant, the Institute’s director of gambling policy.
Gottlieb added that, “sports gambling carries enough risks without adding to them with false advertising and deceptive promotions to dupe customers into signing up.”
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for December 10th of this year.