Boston charity files claim in Philadelphia over ‘unwinnable’ promotion that requires a spend of several hundred thousand dollars.
A US public health charity has accused the online gaming company Caesars Entertainment and its bricks-and-mortar partner, Harrah’s Philadelphia, of luring new online gamblers into what it calls an “unwinnable” promotion that forces excessive betting before any winnings can be withdrawn. Moreover, in its claim lodged in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the Boston-based Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) alleges that the offer breaches Pennsylvania gaming law and puts customers’ mental health at risk.
The claim centres on a headline promise of a “$2,500 deposit match” for people opening a Caesars Online Casino account. According to PHAI, this eye-catching pledge is somewhat undermined by terms that require new customers to stake – and therefore possibly lose – a staggering USD 375,000 on eligible casino games within just seven days. If that threshold is not reached, the claimant argues, no funds may be withdrawn.
PHAI contends that such mechanics amount to Caesars “rewriting the laws of the Commonwealth”, trapping novices in a frenetic chase for a bonus that is “unattainable and therefore impossible to win”. The organisation is asking the court to declare the promotion unlawful and to bar the company from running similar offers in future.
MOST EGREGIOUS
Mark Gottlieb, PHAI’s executive director and a veteran of tobacco-control litigation, portrayed the action as part of a broader attempt to insert public health standards into an industry he believes is expanding faster than regulators can cope with. “We know the gambling industry, with the assistance of the American Gaming Association (AGA) and the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS), is aggressively attempting to push the legalisation of online casino gambling across the United States. Thus far, the seven states with online casino gambling seem ill-prepared or unwilling to regulate the wild tactics of the industry. This promotion, engineered by Caesars, is among the most egregious we have seen to date,” he said.
Dr Harry Levant, PHAI’s director of gambling policy and a qualified addiction counsellor, went further, accusing the operator of acting “with impunity” and ignoring statutory protections. “It is unconscionable for a gambling company to knowingly require people to gamble excessively and put their mental health at risk as a condition to cash out their winnings. More importantly, nothing in Pennsylvania’s gambling rules or laws permits a casino to refuse payment unless and until customers begin gambling to excess. This is dangerous to Caesar’s customers, immoral, and just plain wrong,” he said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed by Andrew Rainer, a former Massachusetts assistant attorney-general who now heads PHAI’s Center for Public Health Litigation.
PHAI’s president and founder, Professor Richard Daynard, best known for pioneering lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers in the 1990s, drew a direct parallel with that earlier fight. “The mission of the Public Health Advocacy Institute is to protect public health and advance social justice. The days of the gambling industry disregarding public health and safety are coming to an end. When Caesars doesn’t play fair, it puts players’ health at risk,” he argued.
The Caesars claim is the third major gambling case PHAI has launched in 18 months. A class action accusing DraftKings of unfair bonus practices was filed in Massachusetts in December 2023, with a state judge refusing to dismiss that suit in August 2024. Two months later the charity sued the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, alleging that the regulator had failed to collect and release anonymised behavioural data required under Section 97 of the Expanded Gaming Act 2011 – data, PHAI says, that is vital for independent harm-analysis but has “yet to be collected” from operators.
DO THE MATH
At the heart of this latest claim lies a striking mathematical example designed to illustrate how, in PHAI’s view, the Caesars promotion sets players up to fail.
Assume a customer sits at a digital blackjack table wagering US 10 a hand and playing at a reasonable pace of two hands per minute. The customer will be disbursing USD 1,200 an hour so, to reach the USD 375,000 wager requirement within the seven-day window, that player would have to remain at the virtual table for 312.5 hours – equivalent to an impossible 44 hours’ play every single day.
Gottlieb called the arithmetic “a vivid demonstration of predatory design”, adding: “The math alone demonstrates the predatory design of Caesars’ conduct and if the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which has allowed this to go on for years, is incapable of applying the law and protecting the public from Caesars, we at PHAI must turn to the courts to put a stop to this injurious malfeasance.”
Regulators across the United States are still feeling their way through the rapid spread of online casino gambling since the first states legalised it in 2013. New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Connecticut and, most recently, Rhode Island have each put their own codes in place, but PHAI argues that enforcement has not kept pace with marketing innovation. Academic studies published over the past decade repeatedly link aggressive bonus mechanics to excessive spending and – particularly among younger men – an elevated risk of gambling addiction.
Should the claim succeed, Caesars could be compelled to refund losses incurred under the contested promotion and to revise its marketing across Pennsylvania.
