A social thing
Kevin Vo, now 25, had never gambled before placing his first bet on basketball games through FanDuel three years ago. He had just secured his first job, in finance, and he had some money to play with.
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“I honestly fell into the peer pressure of my friends: like, literally all of them posting their parlays (on social media),” Vo said.
A parlay combines two or more individual bets into one, and all conditions must be met for the bettor to win money — a high-risk, high-reward strategy Vo found compelling.
Like Ethan, he watched games with friends who had all bet on the outcome and participated in group chats dedicated solely to the bets of the day. Vo’s casual pastime escalated in a matter of months.
“Every single day I would have a parlay,” Vo tells CNN.
Vo originally bet only on sports he knew well, but as he got deeper into the betting apps, he began putting money on options he knew nothing about. At one point he dove into Polish basketball, betting on games he couldn’t even watch.
“I was down a couple grand at one point. I was able to make it back. And then that all kind of fell down,” Vo said.
Vo spent months up and down with his wins and losses – and finally walked away when he was down only a few thousand and had just moved into his own apartment.
In an email to CNN, FanDuel outlined several ways it acts to prevent harmful gambling: the ability to set deposit limits and alerts, sending users a monthly statement with their financial status in the app, a review system triggered by activity like too many hours spent on the site or attempting to come back from big losses, and self-exclusion programs that include the offer of a free mental health assessment.
“We work to identify signs of harm and engage with the user to prevent that harm from happening,” said Cory Fox, FanDuel’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Sustainability.
DraftKings has similar safety measures in place, and it invites users to set limits with a pop-up page immediately when creating an account.
“These resources are introduced at sign-up and reinforced throughout the customer journey,” Lori Kalani, DraftKings Chief Responsible Gaming Officer, said in an email to CNN. “It’s more fun when it’s for fun—and that’s the experience we aim to deliver.”
