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A New Jersey father of two reportedly stole from his wife and two small children in an effort to fuel his out-of-control gambling addiction. And now DraftKings, one of the largest sports betting apps in the U.S., is being sued for $1 million.
Lisa D’Alessandro says her husband, only identified by his DraftKings user name (“Mdallo1990") in the court filing, allegedly funded his habit by maxing out her credit cards and draining their young childrens’ savings accounts, which were funded entirely by gifts they had gotten for Christmas, their birthdays, and their baptisms, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained by The Independent.
In it, D’Alessandro, 32, accuses the online sportsbook of having “actively participated” in furthering her now-estranged spouse’s gambling problem, coercing him into wagering “exponentially higher amounts,” with increasing frequency, until he was a full-blown addict.
The complaint goes on to detail how "Mdallo1990" began using the online platform in 2020. That year, he never gambled more than $3,775 in a single month, according to D’Alessandro’s complaint. However, by 2023, Mdallo was completely hooked, betting as much as $125,000 a month, the complaint states.
“You think you’re building a nest egg for yourself and your family, and it turns out it’s gone,” D’Alessandro’s attorney, Matthew Litt, told The Independent. “This was a middle-class family. A lot of it remains on a credit card, and the rest of it is just gone.”
D’Alessandro and the children, who are both under the age of 10, are now “doing the best they can” to recover, Litt said. “They’re trying. They’re fighting, for sure.”
Speaking to The Independent, a source insisted that regulated sites like DraftKings have mechanisms in place to assist those with gambling addictions, noting this may not be the case with your run of the mill Pay Per Head bookies.
DraftKings is alleged to have continually mined user data to pinpoint potentially lucrative prospects like "Mdallo1990", and flagged the father of two as a good target. DraftKings would routinely invite him to join its “VIP Private Group,” and assigned a team of “VIP Hosts” to “extract as much money” from him as they could, the complaint continues.
The four VIP hosts looking after Mdallo knew that he was married with children, and knew that he was a problem gambler, because they spoke with him almost daily by text, telephone, or email, the complaint states. The hosts began by providing Mdallo incentives such as free bets and credits to cover his losses, in addition to gifts and trophies “for depositing money and gambling at levels far beyond his means.”
DraftKings declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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