Massachusetts Denies DraftKings Void Request, Leading to $934K Win For Sports Bettor

• The Massachusetts Gaming Commission unanimously denied a request from DraftKings to void a sports bet win that resulted in $934K for a patron
• DraftKings claimed a technical error caused by a trader led to a patron placing 27 parlay wagers on MLB player Nathan Lukes‘ hit total in the ALCS
• The total stake was $12,950 with a potential liability of $934,147.83 for the patron

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An individual DraftKings trader has likely cost the sports betting company more than $934,000, as the Massachusetts Gaming Commission unanimously declined a request from the company to void 27 parlay wagers placed on an obvious error from a Massachusetts patron on Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Nathan Lukes and his performance in the ALCS.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission today unanimously denied a request from DraftKings to void 27 parlay wagers from a single patron for a total stake of $12,950 on Lukes notching at least eight total hits in the ALCS. Due to an error from a DraftKings trader, the user was able to bet the highest hit threshold for Lukes, eight or more hits in the series, at inflated odds by parlaying lesser hit thresholds for the series that “added no independent element of chance.”

“It’s the cost of doing business. You have be diligent in your offerings…this is an obvious error for DraftKings. The in-house controls should have caught this error,” Massachusetts Gaming Commission Nakisha Skinner said.

Taking Advantage of an Error?

According to Andrew Steffen, compliance operations manager of sports wagering for the MGC, the Massachusetts patron placed the parlays through DraftKings online sportsbook on Oct. 15, 2025. A DraftKings trader incorrectly misclassified Lukes as a “non-participant” instead of a “player,” which bypassed safeguards against parlaying correlated selections from the same market.

This allowed the customer to place parlay combinations on Lukes having five-plus, six-plus, seven-plus, and eight-plus total hits in the ALCS, which effectively created a single inflated wager on Lukes having eight or more total hits in the series.

The patron bet on Lukes having eight or more total hits in the ALCS, and then added separate legs of him having seven or more hits, six or more hits, and five or more hits in the series, as if uncorrelated.

The patron placed 27 parlays on Lukes’ ALCS hit total, adding an unrelated, but heavily favored moneyline leg to make each parlay slightly different. For example, in one parlay on Lukes’ hit total for the ALCS, the patron also included a moneyline leg on the heavily favored Kansas City Chiefs to defeat the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, Oct. 19.

Lukes would appear in all seven games for the Blue Jays in the ALCS, totaling nine hits.

The patron won 24 out of his 27 parlays. Of the three that lost, the patron included college football moneyline wagers on Clemson, Florida State, and Miami.

This resulted in the patron winning a total of $934,147.83.

DraftKings discovered the issue on Oct. 16, 2025, removed the markets, left the patrons’ wagers unsettled, and notified the MGC of the error. The company submitted a void request to the MGC on Oct. 29, seeking to void the correlated lesser legs while settling the remaining portions.

Pete Harrington, director, legal at DraftKings, told the MGC it is a matter of “fundamental fairness” to other patrons who bet the markets honestly.

“There are patrons who across jurisdictions bet this market honestly by just selecting eight-plus hits and obtaining lesser odds for doing so. This patron was able to obtain higher odds with no additional risk, which is somewhat fundamentally unfair to other patrons,” he said.

He noted it was clear to DraftKings that the patron knew what they were doing, as their actions indicated an “extreme deviation from standard behaviors.” The patron made seven deposits on Oct. 15, 2025, for nearly $13,000, which exceeded his lifetime deposit total of just $7,000 on the platform.

The customer also violated DraftKings’ house rules, Harrington said, which prohibit repeat betting and betting on markets with obvious errors.

DraftKings also believes a relative of the patron made similar bets in New Jersey. Harrington reported there were equivalent bets made on the same date and time in New Jersey, taking advantage of the same DraftKings error.

“For all intents and purposes, we believe this customer was engaging in fraud. It’s deceptive behavior, with the intention to unethically gain at DraftKings expense. We don’t believe that behavior should be rewarded or encouraged,” he said.

But, DraftKings recognizes that it is not without fault in this manner, Harrington said. The operator proposed paying out the customer on the “exact same basis as every other patron who placed their wager honestly on the odds of eight-plus hits, just voiding the lesser included selections.”

This would have paid the patron $84,242.53, with an additional $11,500 returned in voided staked funds, for a total of $95,742.53.

“We believe this is the appropriate resolution here, which would result in a payout to the customer. The customer violated the house rules. There are clear rules that basically say you cannot repeat bet, you cannot wager on a market and then add a high-probability market to evade where there is a clear error to further exploit. That’s why we are suggesting removing the legs that actually would have created the error and allowing the customer to get a payout of many multiples of their stake. Despite the fact that I believe there would be a basis, whether you would approve or not, to allege that pursuant to the rules the wager is voidable,” he said.

Disagreed on Obvious Error

Commissioner Eileen O’Brien disagreed on the assertion that an obvious error occurred in this situation.

“I am still in the camp I have been in all along when we drafted this reg. An obvious error to me is a factual and legal impossibility. I don’t believe this is an obvious error. I think this was an advantage to the patron that he took,” she said.

There also seems to be a disagreement as well in terms of whether there was an attempt from the patron to take advantage of the system, or to be dishonest in the process, O’Brien said.

“I take issue with casting aspersions on a patron, calling them dishonest, making allegations about relatives, etc. There was none of that evidence presented to sports wagering. I am being asked as commissioner to make a decision on the record before me,” she said.

Skinner agreed, saying it was incumbent on DraftKings in this instance to provide all the evidence and information it had available on the incident for the commission to make a thoughtful decision.

“You’re discussing evidence that you have, that Commissioner O’Brien pointed out, that there may have been malfeasance on the part of the patron and another patron in a different jurisdiction. That would have been helpful to consider…you have to make the case for us to help us make the decision on the request,” she said.

Commissioner Paul Brodeur said the MGC should not be negotiating settlements between operators and patrons. If DraftKings wants to take additional action around customer relations, he said, that is something to be worked out between the patron and operator.

The MGC’s choice, he said, is to void or not.

“This is not to necessarily try to create some kind of settlement that might run afoul or run outside of our regulations.”