Once the VIP has their hooks in them it then goes to those astronomical levels.

Matthew Litt, attorney

In 2022 and 2023, according to the complaint, DraftKings assigned D’Alessandro’s husband to a “VIP group”, where so-called “VIP hosts” engage high-spending customers and offer perks, credits and gifts to reward them – and encourage continued gambling.

The lawsuit claims between January 2020 and January 2024 her husband – identified in the lawsuit only by his username “Mdallo1990” – deposited and lost increasing amounts of money on the sports betting app, including nearly $1m she claims belonged to her and their two children.

By 2022, he deposited 300% of his salary into his DraftKings account, according to the complaint – and over 440% in 2023.

The lawsuit alleges negligence, conversion, and violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, seeking reimbursement for the funds she says belonged to her and her children and were spent without her knowledge or consent.

D’Alessandro’s husband received frequent messages from VIP hosts, according to the complaint. These hosts – used by operators across the industry – provide heavy-spending gamblers with incentives, such as betting credits, merchandise and even tickets to events, to use their platforms.

The lawsuit claims that DraftKings trains employees to identify signs of problem gambling and thus should have recognized D’Alessandro’s husband as a problem gambler based on his gambling activity, which the complaint said showed “exponentially higher amounts and frequencies”. Instead, the complaint states he continued to receive incentives.

The lawsuit states that in 2020, D’Alessandro’s husband deposited a mean average of $2,000 a month on DraftKings, which increased each year and by 2023, the deposits soared to an average of $64,715 a month, despite him earning roughly $175,000 annually. His betting frequency also jumped from about 1,600 bets per year in 2020 to over 14,000 in 2023.

“Where a normal person would have one or two transactions a day if that, his transactions a day, at the highest rate of his addiction, were between 80 to 100,” D’Alessandro said, according to deposit data she has since obtained.

Had DraftKings verified his income, D’Alessandro says, the company would have seen that “his salary alone couldn’t have been funding that level of addiction, so it had to be coming from other sources,” she said. “Where is the company’s responsibility to the families and children of addicted gamblers and other foreseeable victims?

“People can go to the bar and drink till they’re blue in the face, but at some point, a bartender has to stop serving them,” she said, noting that in many states bars and bartenders can face legal and civil consequences for serving visibly intoxicated individuals. But she said that there is “nothing here currently when it comes to online betting apps, even when they are visibly addicted”.

D’Alessandro’s attorney, Matthew Litt, said that it will never be his argument that casinos or sportsbooks are 100% responsible for the actions of their players. But as things stand, “100% of the responsibility falls on the gambler”, he said. “There’s got to be a sharing of that responsibility.”

The Guardian sent DraftKings a list of questions regarding D’Alessandro’s lawsuit. A spokesperson for the operator did not comment.

DraftKings has not yet filed a formal response to D’Alessandro’s complaint. It has until March to do so, according to Litt.

D’Alessandro’s lawsuit is among several filed by Litt against gambling operators, alleging that VIP programs and their hosts have exploited his clients’ gambling addictions. Litt says he frequently hears from problem gamblers, many of whom say they have interacted with VIP hosts.

“You just don’t get to these catastrophic levels without it,” Litt said. “That seems to be the trajectory of almost all of these cases, once the VIP has their hooks in them it then goes to those astronomical levels.”

Currently, D’Alessandro is focused on rebuilding her savings, restoring the funds in her children’s accounts and paying off debts, she said. She also hopes to raise awareness about gambling addiction and its impact on families.

“My income, which I thought went to paying bills, actually went to DraftKings,” she said. “I’ve been working since I graduated to be able to provide for my family, and this feels like a major setback for my children. It feels like they are in a compromised position.”

D’Alessandro said it was heartbreaking to learn details of her husband’s addiction. He had been placing bets while she was in labor with their second son, which coincided with the Super Bowl that year, for example, and never paid the hospital bill from the birth. She found it crumpled in a backpack after he left.

“I never suspected anything. He hid it so well,” she said. “It’s such an insidious addiction, because it’s on your phone, you can do it from anywhere and nobody knows what you’re doing because we’re all on our phones.”

D’Alessandro also discovered DraftKings-branded merchandise including whiskey glasses, hand-signed postcards from his VIP host and a trophy-esque prize with “the crown is yours” written on it, stashed and hidden in a closet in his home office.

Sports betting companies try “to make their players feel like they’ve won something”, D’Alessandro said. “The saddest thing they mailed him was this trophy, and it’s like, the biggest winner, but really you’re the biggest loser because you’ve spent so much money.”

She is still living at her grandparents’ home with her two sons, both under four. “If I didn’t have my family, I would be on the streets. That is how severe this went.”