Online sports betting company Draft Kings is using AI to target customers who are most likely to place losing bets and respond to gambling promotions. This is a form of online behavioral advertising, which personalizes ads based on collected data. EFF has long argued that all behavioral advertising should be banned.

According to the New York Times, Draft Kings uses customers’ betting records to train a machine learning model to find losing gamblers. Once found, these customers receive targeted advertising designed to lure them back to place more bets—bets Draft Kings thinks will be losing ones. Those considered “problem gamblers” are highly likely to be targeted by this model.

Predatory online behavioral advertising isn’t new, but companies’ use of AI to process data and target customers has magnified its harms. AI operates as a black box, driving continuous data collection. A direct consequence is that data collected for targeted ads is sold to insurance companies, banks, and law enforcement agencies such as CBP and ICE.

Draft Kings seems to use solely “first party data,” highlighting that policy solutions limiting only third-party data sharing are insufficient. EFF believes that all behavioral advertising should be banned to reduce the incentive to collect behavioral data.