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Three members of Congress told Major League Baseball and the players union Monday, Aug. 10 to stop letting players appear in sportsbook marketing.
Sen. RIchard Blumenthal, D-Conn. and Reps. Paul Tonko, D-NY, and Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., laid it out in a letter to commissioner Rob Manfred and Bruce Meyer, the union’s interim executive director. They want an end to the policies that made what they called a predatory promotion possible. They gave both sides until Aug. 24 to answer five questions. The letter was published by NBC in Philadelphia.
The tipping point was a promotional video that featured Bryce Harper.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported July 9 that a FanDuel VIP host sent a personalized greeting from the Phillies star to Terry Thompson, a Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, man who lost $1.5 million betting with the company. Harper recorded the 21-secoond message in November 2024 through Cameo, the site where fans pay celebrities for personal video. He used Thompson’s name. He mentioned Thompson’s son.
Harper said July 13, hours before the Home Run Derby in his own ballpark, that he had no idea what he was part of. The request came with a short script, he said, and he read it in good faith. He would not have made the video had he known FanDuel’s intent, or anything about Thompson.
The lawmakers said that doesn’t settle it. Players cannot be used to lend legitimacy to VIP programs built to exploit the most vulnerable fans, they wrote, no matter what those players know at the time.
Those programs are the loyalty tiers sportsbooks reserve for their biggest losers. A host calls. A host texts. Perks arrive. Thompson wagered $18.5 million with FanDuel starting in 2020, according to a lawsuit the nonprofit Public Health Advocacy Institute filed on his behalf in March in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court against FanDuel and DraftKings.
The five questions the lawmakers put to MLB and the union ask:
- Where each side stands on players seeking sportsbook endorsements as the labor deal is renegotiated
- How they will put fan safety ahead of gambling revenue
- Whether the current policy is enough to keep players out of predatory VIP programs
- Whether players will be taught what their participation costs fans
- Whether they will ban players from personalized sportsbook marketing outright
Baseball’s current labor agreement lets players do promotional work with betting operators, so long as they don’t lend their name, number, image or likeness to encourage betting on a game. That agreement expires Dec. 1.
The same three lawmakers sent a second letter Monday to FanDuel CEO Christian Genetski. It demands the company shut down its VIP program and poses eight questions with the same Aug. 24 deadline.
FanDuel has said its employees are trained to spot and flag signs of problem gambling, and that it keeps strengthening its consumer protections.
Blumenthal and Tonko have been at this for three sessions of Congress. Their SAFE Bet Act, which would set national standards for sportsbook advertising and affordability checks, has never made it out of a House committee.