DraftKings Pays $3m To Settle Connecticut Marketing Investigation

July 13, 2025
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DraftKings has agreed to return more than $3m to players and pay a $50,000 penalty in a second high-profile settlement announced by Connecticut regulators in as many months.
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DraftKings has agreed to return more than $3m to players and pay a $50,000 penalty in a second high-profile settlement announced by Connecticut regulators in as many months.

The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) announced the agreement late on Thursday (July 10), ending a longstanding investigation into alleged violations of its marketing rules by one of the state’s two licensed online casinos.

According to the settlement order, state officials opened three investigations between October 2021 and December 2023 into DraftKings' bonus offers that allegedly violated Connecticut regulations.

To settle the complaints, DraftKings has now agreed to refund more than $3.01m to some 7,075 Connecticut players that participated in the bonus offers and also pay $50,000 into a state fund used for consumer education and consumer-protection enforcement efforts.

Going forward, DraftKings’ bonus offers in Connecticut must abide by specific restrictions that include a requirement to clearly display any playthrough requirements greater than one time the value of the bonus.

An existing education hub for online casino players also must be promoted to Connecticut customers on a regular basis, while DraftKings’ marketing staff involved in any activities in Connecticut must undertake annual training related to state-specific requirements.

“Gaming operators must clearly communicate the terms of any promotion to their customers, including requirements to wager a certain amount or other conditions to obtain a promised award,” said Kris Gilman, director of the DCP’s gaming division.

DraftKings did not concede any wrongdoing in the settlement order, which shows that the company began an administrative appeal process in January 2023 after the DCP initially ordered the operator to stop all advertising of bonus offers of any kind in Connecticut. 

“DraftKings is committed to operating in compliance with all regulatory requirements. We value our relationship with the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection and will continue to work collaboratively with them,” a DraftKings spokesperson told Vixio GamblingCompliance of the settlement.

Misleading Game Features Also In Focus

The order published on Thursday is a relatively rare example of a regulatory settlement in excess of $1m in the U.S. online market and comes around six weeks after an unrelated settlement that saw High 5 Games pay more than $1.4m to restore its vendor license to supply game content to the DraftKings and Mohegan Sun/FanDuel online casinos in Connecticut. 

High 5’s license was originally suspended when regulators determined that its operation of the High 5 Casino sweepstakes platform violated Connecticut gaming laws and misled players that the offering was legal. The company was required to return more than $640,000 to Connecticut players and pay a penalty of $800,000.

Connecticut is one of a number of states with formal regulations on the books that require sports betting or iGaming operators not to misrepresent any bonus offers as being free or otherwise include misleading or unfair conditions.

But Connecticut policymakers have more recently sought to take the restrictions on misleading advertising a further step forward by also applying them to how online casino games themselves are presented.

As highlighted by Vixio’s Technical Compliance Tool, the DCP in December updated Connecticut’s technical standards for iGaming to prohibit any online casino games that use the word “free” to describe game features such as free spins that still require money to be wagered.

Related restrictions were also included in new legislation proposed by the DCP that was signed into law last month by Governor Ned Lamont.

One provision of Senate Bill 1235 will expressly ban any online casino game that displays “any in-game verbiage or graphic” that is inaccurate, confusing or misleading, obscures any material fact, or that may induce gamblers into betting in any greater quantity or amount.

The same legislation, effective October 1, also revises the state’s enforcement powers related to non-compliant advertising by granting the commissioner of the DCP authority to order ads to be withdrawn within ten days of being aired and granting the operator an opportunity to appeal.

Operators may be fined up to $100,000 per day if they fail to comply with an order to remove any ad in violation of state law.

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