Class Counsel for Families of Problem Gamblers Secures $700K in Charitable Relief From DraftKings and FanDuel

When FanDuel and DraftKings rose to dominance in daily fantasy sports, they drew not just recreational players but people with serious gambling problems. Spouses and family members of those players found themselves watching household savings drain through accounts they had no ability to close or restrict. A group of six named Family Member Plaintiffs joined the sprawling multidistrict litigation already consolidating hundreds of daily-fantasy claims before Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. in Boston, asserting that both platforms violated gambling laws and failed to protect households from predictable financial harm.

Heninger Garrison Davis took on the representation of those family members, with W. Lewis Garrison Jr. and Taylor C. Bartlett serving as class counsel. The litigation had already been running for years under MDL No. 16-md-02677 when the firm negotiated separate resolutions with each platform.

FanDuel settled first, reaching an agreement in principle in April 2021. Under the FanDuel settlement, the company agreed to donate $375,000 to national responsible-gaming organizations and to eliminate the burdensome proof requirements that had prevented spouses from placing exclusion requests on problem gamblers' accounts. Previously, a spouse was required to prove joint ownership of the financial account or document the existence of unpaid child-support or financial obligations before FanDuel would act. The settlement removed those barriers.

DraftKings settled separately in early 2022. It agreed to donate $325,000 to approved national responsible-gaming organizations and to implement a parallel account-restriction process in 12 states, allowing spouses and authorized family members to block access or set deposit limits on a problem gambler's account. The six named plaintiffs each received up to $1,250 as service awards.

Judge O'Toole granted final approval of both settlements on June 8, 2022. In May 2022, Heninger Garrison Davis sought $335,000 in attorneys' fees from the court, which Law360 reported was the negotiated sum the firm's attorneys sought for shepherding the family-member claims to resolution. The combined $700,000 in charitable contributions went to organizations focused on gambling-addiction treatment and prevention.