This article was updated on August 15 after DraftKings sent a follow-up email.
It’s not the biggest headline to contain DraftKings’ name this week, but the operator’s customers were confused by an erroneous email that suggested they would be getting a bonus bet for a wager they didn’t place.
DraftKings sent an email on Tuesday night to registered account holders suggesting that a bet on a golf tournament had been settled using a “dead-heat reduction” after multiple golfers tied for the winning position. As a result, users were ostensibly being gifted a bonus bet as a “one-time courtesy.”
The problem was that many of the recipients had placed no such bets. The fact that the email didn’t even name the event the bets related to didn’t exactly shed more light on the situation.
The concern among recipients fearing a data breach or other nefarious activity sparked a rush to log into accounts, prompting an outage.
At first, DraftKings did not send any follow-up correspondence directly to the recipients of the email, instead posting a general update on social media that said customers should “disregard” the email.
“You may have received an email regarding this past weekend’s golf tournament and the ‘Dead Heat’ rule that was inadvertently sent more broadly than intended. Please disregard that email.”
However, overnight on Wednesday night, more than 24 hours after the erroneous email was sent out, the operator distributed a clarifying follow-up email that assured customers that their account security was not breached.
Whether or not any users who actually had placed such a bet would still get the bonus bet was unclear.
According to some replies to DraftKings’ post on X, the email even managed to reach people who do not have an account with the operator, although that claim is unverified.
SBC Americas reached out to DraftKings but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
DraftKings endures double-bogey day
The wayward email was sent on the same evening, within hours, that DraftKings announced it was scrapping its plan to tax winning bettors in some jurisdictions.
The company announced that the planned implementation of a surcharge of roughly 3-5% on winning bets in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Illinois on Jan. 1, 2025 will no longer be moving forward.
