Does Your Sportsbook Know You Have a Gambling Problem?

What New York proposed

Two staff memos went before the Gaming Commission on October 9, both written by Edmund C. Burns and both tied to Governor Kathy Hochul's 2026 State of the State agenda.

The first, "Safeguards for at-risk mobile sports wagering patrons," is modeled on a rule New Jersey proposed in September 2025. Every mobile sportsbook would have to name a "responsible gambling lead," keep a list of at-risk customers, and run an automated system that flags an account for a "due-diligence review" when it hits any of 11 specific triggers (plus any the company or the commission adds). New York's version adds something New Jersey's doesn't have: the review must assess a bettor's "financial vulnerability," not just their play.

If the review finds someone at risk, the draft lays out three phases:

1. An email pointing to limits, cooling-off periods, self-exclusion, account closure and outside resources.
2. A mandatory video the bettor must watch in full before placing another wager.
3. A live phone or video call from the responsible gambling lead, who must provide contact information for a licensed counselor. If three calls at least 24 hours apart go unanswered, the account is suspended until the conversation happens. If the call confirms the risk, the account is closed and the bettor is referred to problem gambling resources.

The second proposal is broader. It would bar every gambling business the commission licenses, and their affiliates and vendors, from using "any automated decision system or algorithmic profiling, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, or generative systems" that processes individual data to "select, customize, time or deliver any promotion, bonus, offer, odds, limit, message or product recommendation, regardless of purpose or effect," or to "suggest any wager, wager type or wager amount." Human sign-off doesn't create an exemption, and under the draft, "patron consent does not waive" the ban outside a narrow opt-in for horse racing apps.

It would not end promotions. Offers made uniformly to every eligible customer, on published terms, stay legal, as do systems built for fraud prevention, age checks, or responsible-gambling interventions "designed to reduce, and do not promote, wagering." The draft also carves out "volume-based loyalty tiers," so programs that reward how much you bet could continue.

Commission chair Brian O'Dwyer was blunt, according to ProPublica: "The industry is on notice by me and this commission that they need to solve this problem. If the industry does not address it, then we will address it and they may not like the solution that we come up with." He also acknowledged "the limitations of this proposal." Both rules now enter a 60-day public comment period before a final vote, for which no date has been set.

Why now: two investigations in September

The plans were first published in March and drew dozens of public comments. Their formal introduction, ProPublica noted, came on the heels of two investigations.

On September 26, ProPublica published reporter Jake Pearson's account of spending 10 weeks deliberately betting like someone in trouble. He chased his losses and, in his words, kept "repeatedly tapping my bank account." "I'd deposited $21,600 into my account in less than eight weeks," he wrote, "exhibiting just about every sign of compulsive gambling there is, according to my expert consultants."

The first alert he got had nothing to do with how he was betting. New York requires one once a customer's deposits reach $2,500. Across the experiment he counted in-app notices about his betting on 14 of the 71 days he gambled, while promotional pushes sometimes came six in a day. At 5:01 p.m. on the day after he lost nearly $1,800 in a single night, an invitation arrived to try out for the app's VIP program. After three weeks and $5,800 in deposits, he had a personal concierge. By the company's own metrics, he wrote, he "didn't even register for a manual review." Its chief responsible gaming officer told him the system "worked the way it was supposed to." A second app he tested put up more speed bumps (six "Reality Check" reminders in one night and a refusal of one oversized bet) and didn't invite him into a VIP tier.

About a week earlier, a New York Times investigation by Alex Klavens, Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Vrentas reported that one of the country's largest sportsbooks built a machine-learning model in 2023 to predict how promotions would turn into customer losses. It scored casino customers on "elasticity," drawing on "how frequently they played, their daily account balances and how much they typically lost compared with how much they bet." A former analyst summed up the logic: "If you lose more, we give you more, so you keep playing more." A separate internal project to flag customers who might need intervention was shelved in early 2025. The company's responsible gaming chief told the Times "it wasn't evidence-based." The company says its promotions go to "customers who demonstrate sustained, engaged use of our platform, not toward customers based on their losses."

Regulators in Maine and Michigan have since said they're reviewing some of the issues those stories raised, according to ProPublica.

The bar sits where the damage is already done

Put the dollar triggers next to what ordinary betting looks like. A September 16 report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli put the number of unique mobile sports wagering accounts in 2025 at 7.2 million. "The average amount wagered per account that year was $3,500, with an average amount per wager of $42." The proposed wagering trigger is $1 million in 90 days. (We looked at the rest of that report in 7.2 million accounts, 2,545 calls for help.)

The three dollar triggers carry an exemption, too. Under the draft, if a sportsbook has already reviewed a bettor's proof of funds in the previous 60 days, it doesn't have to run another review. That treats the big numbers as a question of whether someone can afford the action, which isn't the same question as whether they can stop.

New Jersey's text has softened in a similar direction. A version of its rule that the state's Division of Gaming Enforcement posted this month, labeled as an adoption, adds a sentence the 2025 proposal didn't contain: "No single trigger is necessarily determinative," and operators "retain the ability to assess the situation in the context of all available information." A trigger opens a review. The company still decides what the review means.

None of this makes the rules pointless. Both states call the triggers "minimum standards" and encourage companies to set lower ones. A mandatory live call and a path to account closure would be a real change from a pop-up. But if you're waiting for a sportsbook to tell you something is wrong, know where the line has been drawn, and who gets to read the result.

The list is also a mirror

Here's the part of the rule worth reading closely if you bet. Strip out the dollar figures and what's left is a plain-language description of losing control, written by regulators looking at account data. The draft doesn't cite the DSM-5. But set its behavioral triggers beside the nine DSM-5 criteria for gambling disorder and the overlap is hard to miss. (The mapping below is ours, not the commission's.)

There's also a thought pattern these stories expose, and it's worth naming because it keeps people betting: if it were really a problem, someone would have stopped me. The app didn't flag me. The bank didn't call. I got upgraded, not cut off. But a VIP invitation is a marketing decision, not a health assessment. In ProPublica's test it arrived the day after the reporter lost nearly $1,800 in one night.

Being under every threshold doesn't mean you're okay, either. These numbers mark where a company has to open a file, not where harm begins. Gambling disorder is defined by four or more of nine criteria in a 12-month period, and none of them has a dollar figure attached.

What to do with this today

1. Run the list on your last 30 days. Honestly, without the "but." If two or more rows describe you, take our self-assessment. It takes a couple of minutes and doesn't ask who you are.
2. If you've opened the self-exclusion page and backed out, that hesitation is the signal. Finish it. A state program typically covers every licensed online operator in the state at once, which no single app's tool can. Find your state's program, and read how self-exclusion works first if it feels like a big step.
3. Close the accounts and block the apps. A dormant account kept "just in case" is a door left open. Our guide to blocking gambling apps covers phones, browsers and payment methods.
4. Treat a bonus after a loss as a trigger, not a gift. New York wants to ban personalized offers. You don't have to wait for the vote: unsubscribe from everything, then close the account the offers come from. If someone at a sportsbook has your phone number, read the VIP host trap.
5. If a sportsbook ever does reach out, treat it as confirmation, not an accusation. Ask them to close the account. Then talk to someone who doesn't work for a sportsbook.
6. Tell one person. A partner, a friend, or a room full of people who've been there at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, in person or online.

What these rules can't reach

Both proposals apply only to companies the commission licenses. Offshore sites and federally regulated prediction markets sit outside them, the same self-exclusion gap we've covered before. And the comment period has only just opened. The Responsible Online Gaming Association, an industry group whose members include the largest sportsbooks, asked that the triggers "avoid displacing or disrupting the mature, data-driven behavioral risk assessment systems already in use." From the other side, gambling reform advocate Brianne Doura-Schawohl called them regulations "that are nothing more than giving the appearance of reform and not effectuating actual change."

Whatever version passes, the most useful part of it is already public: a list of the signs that someone's betting has stopped being a choice. You can read it before your sportsbook does.

If that list describes you or someone at your table, free, confidential help is here. Our urgent help page lists the national problem gambling helpline, crisis lines and same-day options by state, reachable by phone or text, 24 hours a day.

Sources

• New York State Gaming Commission, Public Meeting Book, October 9, 2026. Staff memos of October 5 and October 8, 2026, and draft text of proposed 9 NYCRR Part 5404 (use of artificial intelligence for wagering purposes) and 9 NYCRR 5330.34(d) (identification and support of at-risk patrons). Source for every trigger, the three intervention phases, the withdrawal rule, the AI prohibition, the consent language and the exemptions
• NYS Gaming Commission, October 9, 2026 meeting. Agenda and meeting documents
• New York Proposes Rules to Further Restrict Online Sports Betting to Curb Addiction. Jake Pearson, ProPublica, October 9, 2026. Unanimous vote, Brian O'Dwyer quotes, 60-day comment period, industry and advocate responses, Maine and Michigan reviews
• ProPublica's 10-week first-person test of sportsbook safeguards. Jake Pearson, ProPublica, September 26, 2026. Deposits, notices, VIP timeline, company responses
• ProPublica's summary of takeaways from the 10-week test. ProPublica, September 2026. Opt-in safeguards, promotions versus notices
• New York Times investigation into a sportsbook's promotion-targeting model. Alex Klavens, Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Vrentas, The New York Times, as syndicated by Boston.com, September 21, 2026. The original is paywalled; quotes are from the syndicated text
• New Jersey Register, 57 N.J.R. 2230(a), proposed N.J.A.C. 13:69O-1.2A. New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, September 15, 2025. The New Jersey proposal New York's rule is based on
• N.J.A.C. 13:69O-1.2A rule text, posted as an adoption. New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, October 2026. Source for the "no single trigger is necessarily determinative" language
• DiNapoli: New York Sees Surge in Mobile Sports Betting and Jump in Problem Gambling Calls. Office of the New York State Comptroller, September 16, 2026. 7.2 million accounts, $3,500 average wagered per account, $42 average wager
• DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria: Gambling Disorder. American Psychiatric Association criteria as reproduced by the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. The nine criteria and the four-in-12-months threshold. Gambling disorder is coded 312.31 in DSM-5 and F63.0 in ICD-10