Key Points
- FanDuel SVP Cory Fox told Congress on 14 August that VIP managers face stricter oversight than standard customers, not weaker.
- In March 2026, the Public Health Advocacy Institute brought a lawsuit against FanDuel, DraftKings, NFL, and Genius Sports, which directly drew analogies between the two industries.
- The MLB’s collective bargaining agreement is set to expire in December 2026, but it currently permits players to promote authorised sportsbook operators; three legislators now seek this loophole closed prior to negotiations on a new agreement.
A 21-Second Video That Reached Washington
A personalised Thanksgiving video, 21 seconds long, did something that years of regulatory debate could not. It put a name, a face, and a story at the centre of a US Congress investigation into sportsbook VIP programmes.
First baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, Bryce Harper, made the video using the Cameo service at the end of 2024. He named a FanDuel user, Terry Thompson, mentioned his son, and wished him an “extra special Thanksgiving.” He later added that he did not know who the person was, did not have an idea that the recording would be used as a VIP offer by FanDuel, and had no clue about the deal between Cameo and the company operator. When the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed the whole truth about it in July 2026, it presented one fact which stunned readers – Thompson bet $18.5 million on FanDuel, lost more than $1.5 million, and mortgaged his house several times selling shares of the investment company he established within 20 years.
Three members of Congress moved within weeks. A letter from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, along with New York Representative Paul Tonko and North Carolina Representative Valerie Foushee to the CEO of FanDuel Christian Genetski, described the scenario as “very disturbing” and requested written responses to eight specific questions before 24 August 2026. On the same day, they individually wrote to the MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred and the MLBPA Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer, asking for the cessation of players’ endorsements to sportsbooks.
Four days later, FanDuel replied.
What FanDuel Told Congress, and What It Actually Means?
The letter, authored by SVP of public policy and sustainability Cory Fox on 14 August, was not a short holding statement. FanDuel contested the core assumption driving the congressional complaint: that being labelled a VIP customer means weaker protections.
“FanDuel goes well beyond what state regulations require because we believe that setting the industry benchmark for responsible operations is not only the right thing to do, it is essential to building a sustainable and trusted industry that replaces the illegal one currently operating in the United States,” Fox wrote.
The letter makes three assertions that have been widely reported uncritically by the media. First, the issue of compensation for VIP account managers was raised. FanDuel informed the legislature that VIP account managers are salaried employees, and there is no direct correlation between their pay and the amount their clients bet or the outcome of the bets. This point is critical. In other gambling markets, VIP managers have traditionally operated on commission structures, whereby they benefit directly from ensuring that high rollers continue betting.
The second claim covers pre-screening. Before any customer receives a VIP invitation, FanDuel says it reviews their full account history, including responsible gambling notes, fraud flags, chargebacks and any previous VIP participation. A customer who tells FanDuel at any point that they have a gambling problem is, according to the letter, “immediately and permanently excluded from every FanDuel product.”
The third covers active monitoring. VIP managers receive extra responsible gambling training, use faster internal escalation channels when a customer’s behaviour raises concern, and include responsible gambling tool links in every email they send to VIP customers.
The Data FanDuel Cited, Checked
The letter by Fox has been made with the help of statistics provided by Flutter Entertainment, which is the parent company of FanDuel. During the 2024-25 NFL season, some 3.5 million customers of FanDuel had been using the MySpend dashboard, which is a product designed to track players’ spending habits and encourage them to set betting limits. The Play Well initiative by Flutter has allocated $139 million for responsible gaming during 2024 for research, player protection tools and operator education. The Play with a Plan campaign of FanDuel was launched in January 2026.
FanDuel is also one of the founding members of the Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA). Collectively, ROGA members have committed more than $20 million for research on responsible gambling, a cross-operator self-exclusion database and an independent certification standard involving third-party audits.
The numbers are real. The question lawmakers are circling is different: whether internal tools and industry associations are sufficient when a VIP manager can still arrange a personalised celebrity video for a customer who had already displayed signs of serious financial harm.
The Questions FanDuel Did Not Answer
Fox’s letter, for all its detail, did not address the most specific failure the Harper story exposed. It did not explain how VIP manager Bryttanni Morgan came to organise the Cameo recording, what internal approval process was followed, or why Thompson remained an active VIP customer while reportedly showing signs of harm for an extended period. The letter describes systems designed to catch these situations. The Harper case suggests at least one slipped through.
The litigation running alongside this dispute makes the gap harder to ignore. In March 2026, the Public Health Advocacy Institute filed a product liability lawsuit in Philadelphia on behalf of Thompson and fellow plaintiff Christopher Sage against FanDuel, DraftKings, the NFL and data company Genius Sports. The complaint argues that the platforms deliberately use artificial intelligence and machine learning to maximise addictive in-game microbetting, comparing the approach directly to the tactics used by the tobacco industry. By July 2026, FanDuel and DraftKings had both filed for dismissal, arguing they do not sell a “product” under Pennsylvania’s consumer protection law and that the claims fall outside the two-year statute of limitations.
That legal argument sits in an uncomfortable place next to the congressional response. In court, FanDuel says it offers a free app with no product liability. In Congress, it says its safeguards are among the strongest in the US market. Neither position is dishonest. Together, they reveal exactly the boundary dispute that lawmakers want resolved through legislation rather than letters.
The MLB Rule That Made the Video Legal
Lost inside the controversy is a detail with wider consequences. MLB’s collective bargaining agreement, set to expire in December 2026, currently allows players to sign endorsement deals with licensed sportsbooks, provided they do not explicitly encourage bets on baseball games. Harper’s Cameo clip, as a personal greeting rather than a promotional advertisement, sat within that permission. He broke no rule.
The congressional letter to Manfred and Meyer argued that the rule itself is the problem. “This incident raises broader concerns that players are not prohibited from such endorsements and highlights a systemic failure rooted in the deep enmeshment between leagues, teams, and sportsbooks,” the letter stated. With CBA negotiations already under way, lawmakers are pressing for a prohibition before a new agreement locks existing terms in for another cycle. As of 14 August, neither MLB nor the MLBPA had issued any public comment.
Expert Analysis: What a Letter Cannot Fix?
FanDuel’s defence holds up on its stated terms. Salaried hosts, pre-screening, behavioural monitoring and escalation protocols are genuine structures, not invented for Congress. The question that the letter cannot answer is structural, not procedural.
The very nature of a VIP program makes a personal connection with the top-paying clients. While paying salaries and conducting training once per quarter, an account manager who develops a close relationship with a fragile gambler will create a situation which cannot be handled even with data dashboards. The Harper video is not a failure of the system in the way a non-triggered alert is a failure of the system. It was a VIP manager performing his duties to make the most valuable client feel special. The problem was not in the tool. The problem was in the target.
That is the argument Congress is making, and it is one FanDuel has not yet found a way to answer. The 24 August deadline for the company’s formal responses to all eight questions has now passed. Whether lawmakers are satisfied with what they received, or begin drafting legislation that forces structural changes across the entire US sports betting industry, will define the next chapter for every operator running a high-roller programme in a licensed US market.
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