An investigator posed as a problem gambler. DraftKings made him a VIP

These sites claim to have safeguards in place to address problem gambling, including betting limits and helplines. However, despite these protections, both sites are being sued for their addictive nature — and one ProPublica reporter’s experience may highlight why that’s the case.

Here’s what the ProPublica investigation found, along with tips on how people at risk can spot a gambling problem of their own.

Problem gamblers may be pushed to bet more

Jake Pearson, a ProPublica reporter, spent weeks gambling on DraftKings with the goal of presenting himself as a problem gambler. His actions exhibited classic signs of addiction, including making large bets on a single game, jumping from sport to sport and transferring more money regularly to bet.

Pearson wanted to see what would happen, and what he found may not come as a surprise.

At first, the site seemed to be doing the responsible thing. According to the ProPublica article, after losing an impressive $4,500 in 24 hours and then depositing extra funds, Pearson received an in-app notification saying: “Take a loss? Now take a beat.” The notification directed him to the company’s “responsible gaming” center.

The problem is, even as Pearson explored tools to restrict his gaming time and limit deposit amounts, DraftKings reportedly sent him four promotional alerts. And this was part of a pattern of marketing that allegedly targeted him to gamble more when he suffered big losses.

In fact, after he lost thousands in just over a week, DraftKings offered him the chance to join the VIP program. This program offered cool perks, but he had to qualify. And he discovered he could become a VIP faster by making riskier bets. After three weeks and $5,800 in deposits, Pearson made it in.

Now, promotions and the addition of other features, like an in-app casino, meant Pearson was gambling more than ever.

While a similar attempt at FanDuel did not result in VIP status, the reporter wrote in ProPublica that he’d been left with a key takeaway applicable across the board. The “’responsible gaming’ prompts that were served to me were no match for the product design pushing me to do more gambling.”