DraftKings under fire for Sports Betting Championship failures
US giant refunds full $10,000 buy-in for customers as betting market impacted by technical issues and stake limits
DraftKings has come under pressure for its misfiring technology after issues plagued the operator’s Sports Betting Championship over the weekend.
The event, which kicked off on Friday 5 November in-person in Weehawken, New Jersey, and online in 10 other states, was quickly fraught with technical hitches as customers flooded Twitter with complaints.
Some contestants were unable to place bets at all, with some limited to wagers of just $1, while other users were able to place whatever bets they wanted to.
@DK_Assist @DKSportsbook
I cannot make a bet for the contest?? Not even $1 pic.twitter.com/VF0Ni7vost— shoebox (@jjss64) November 5, 2021
Contestants had joined the event with a $10,000 buy-in, of which $4,500 went into the $2m prize pool and $500 to DraftKings, with the first placed contestant set to win $1m.
As frustrations continued to grow at the malfunctions, users called for DraftKings to suspend the tournament.
The Boston-based operator was seemingly looking down the barrel of another controversial Sports Betting Championship having been chastised in 2019 for an overlap of the final NFL games of the weekend, which meant some bets weren’t recorded on time, much to the frustration of contestants.
The hits keep on coming.
Their severe limiting and profiling of certain customers has crossed over to the contest. Now the world can see first hand just how many people are limited by this joint. https://t.co/XwjQ1ufvio
— spanky (@spanky) November 6, 2021
Looking to appease frustrations, DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello spoke with DraftKings-owned sports betting television network VSiN on Saturday 6 November.
Avello said: “Last night we kicked off the contest and unfortunately there were some betting markets that were affected and contestants were unable to place their bets and this was consistent for all the users.
“What we decided to do was to make our customers whole. If you went bust last night, and you’re out of money, you’re out of the contest.”
With the technical complications, DraftKings elected to close the contest ahead of schedule which led to further frustration from contestants who had been holding back on wagering until the second day of the tournament.
Avello continued: “That’s correct [the contest is closed]. For obvious reasons but anybody that got in it yesterday is in it and we closed it as of last night [Friday 5].”