LGCB gives DraftKings 30 days to answer AI targeting questions

Paul Liberman told the Louisiana Gaming Control Board on Thursday that DraftKings does not use artificial intelligence to target losing bettors. The board heard him out. Then it voted unanimously to extend his company's license by four months and handed him a list of seven conditions he has 30 days to satisfy.

The conditional extension runs through February 19. The full renewal hearing is scheduled for February 18 — which means Liberman's answer to the AI question will need to hold up before a board that has already signaled it is not satisfied with the one he gave in Baton Rouge.

The board's concern traces to a New York Times investigation alleging that DraftKings uses AI to identify and target customers who are losing money. Liberman acknowledged that the company maintains financial records on all customers and can distinguish winning bettors from losing ones. He denied that the company uses that data to target the latter. Board member Ronald Sholes asked him directly whether DraftKings had the ability to identify losing gamblers. The answer was yes. The follow-up — what happens with that identification — is what the next 30 days are meant to resolve.

Chairman Chris Hebert drew the distinction that matters legally: news reports are not regulatory findings. The board is not acting on a verdict. It is acting on an incomplete investigation, which is a different posture and one that carries different obligations. Assistant Attorney General Delancey Houston told the board that the Gaming Enforcement Division had recently discovered that certain shareholders holding five percent or more in DraftKings had not submitted to suitability review. One shareholder had requested institutional investor status. That determination has not been made.

The suitability gap is the quieter problem. AI generates headlines. Undisclosed shareholders generate enforcement exposure. The board needs both resolved before it issues a full renewal, and the February 18 hearing date gives it a fixed point to work toward.

What the LGCB is doing sits within a recognizable regulatory pattern. A board confronted with incomplete information on a licensee it cannot afford to remove from the market — the operator is active, the tax revenue is flowing — reaches for the conditional extension. It is not exoneration and it is not revocation. It is a demand for documentation with a deadline attached.

The legal standard the board is applying is the one embedded in Louisiana's gaming licensing framework: a licensee bears the burden of demonstrating continued suitability. That burden does not shift because an investigation is ongoing. It remains with DraftKings. The February hearing is where the board decides whether that burden has been met.