Sports betting companies prey on customers who lose the most money, but they place strict limits on those who consistently beat the house, CBS News reported Monday.
Sports gambling companies reward their biggest losers, gifting them VIP access to sporting events and signed memorabilia, according to CBS News. These same companies place severe limits on customers who win big, effectively cutting off those who consistently make winning bets on the platforms, the network said.
“You’re exploiting the losing bettor, you’re taking advantage of them, and guys like me get shown the door,” professional gambler Mike Manning told CBS News.
American sports bettors have wagered more than $700 billion since 2018, when the Supreme Court allowed for legalized sports betting in its ruling on Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, according to Legal Sports Report.
Of that revenue, 86% is contributed by 5% of users, according to advocacy group QuitGamble.
How the online sportsbooks treat their customers largely depends on whether those spenders are winning or losing. Neither FanDuel, DraftKings nor BetMGM responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Manning bets using advanced analytical models; after registering for all the major sportsbooks, he started winning on every single one. Sportsbooks immediately limited the amount of money Manning could bet, CBS News reported. DraftKings limited Manning to $25 per wager. BetMGM restricted his limit to $5.
Professional gambler and responsible betting advocate Isaac Rose-Berman reported that he is unable to bet more than $15 on a prop bet through Fantatics.
Conversely, sportsbooks offer the biggest losers VIP status.
“I put three or four hundred thousand into DraftKings in a span of a few months,” a recovering gambling addict Joe Early told ProPublica. While Early’s losses were mounting, DraftKings allowed him the opportunity to play basketball on TD Garden’s court with Celtics players. Early claims to have lost over $100,000 betting on DraftKings.
Former South Carolina attorney Chris Swett stole $2 million from his law firm to fund his gambling addiction, CBS News reported. Swett lost over $1 million on FanDuel in a two-year span, and as soon as he began losing tens of thousands of dollars a month, FanDuel connected Swett to a VIP host who began giving him tickets to NFL games when he bet big.
Sports betting has quickly become America’s most expensive pastime. Americans wagered $166 billion on sports in 2025, Yahoo Finance reported. That’s more revenue than the movie, book, music, concert and museum industries brought in combined. Furthermore, this figure doesn’t factor in the rapidly growing prediction market, which raked in $55 billion by July. Of this revenue, $19 billion was spent on contracts involving sports. These markets are under scrutiny for being unlicensed sports gambling, and ahead of the midterms, the markets are anticipating legal resistance to their status as non-sports gambling institutions.
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