Source: NYT > Business (paywall)
DraftKings deploys machine learning to identify which customers are most susceptible to promotional offers—essentially optimizing for players likely to develop problem gambling behaviors—while declining to apply the same predictive power to identify and protect at-risk users. This exposes the asymmetry in how gambling companies use consumer data: sophisticated modeling is profitable when it drives acquisition and retention of high-loss players, but suddenly cost-prohibitive when it could reduce harm. The gap between what's technically possible and what's commercially incentivized shows how "personalization" in gambling operates as a mechanism for extracting value from cognitive and behavioral vulnerabilities rather than serving consumer interests.