Louisiana grants DraftKings four-month licence extension to February 2027

The Louisiana Gaming Control Board granted DraftKings a four-month extension of its gambling licence on 15 October, postponing a renewal that had been expected to cover five years. The decision followed the discovery that some shareholders with stakes of at least 5% had not undergone suitability investigations.

DraftKings' current licence had been due to expire on 10 November. It is now valid until 19 February 2027, with a new hearing scheduled for 18 February.

Chris Hebert, who chairs the LGCB, told the board that nothing clearly showed DraftKings had done anything wrong, calling the outcome a "measured regulatory response." Delancey Houston, an Assistant Attorney General, informed the board that the Louisiana State Police Gaming Enforcement Division had become aware of the suitability problem only shortly before. A single shareholder asked to be treated as an institutional investor.

Board members used the hearing to press DraftKings executives on whether AI was being deployed to spot problem gamblers and to pursue customers who were losing money without proper notice. A New York Times investigation had prompted this scrutiny; it reported that the company applied machine learning to customer betting data to find users more likely to keep gambling and lose money after receiving promotional offers.

Paul Liberman, a co-founder of DraftKings, pushed back on the idea that the technology was aimed at customers who were losing. "We do not use AI in any way to target losing gamblers by any means," he told the commission.