FanDuel sent Bryce Harper video to VIP bettor with gambling addiction

FanDuel sent a 21-second personalized video from Bryce Harper to Terry Thompson, a bettor who says he has a gambling addiction and lost $1.5 million on wagers he placed with the company. Thompson also reportedly wagered $18.5 million with FanDuel and earned VIP status, a tier that came with perks such as champagne, Super Bowl tickets and, in late November 2024, a message from one of baseball’s biggest stars that addressed him by name and mentioned his young son.

The video stands out because there is no evidence Harper had an official partnership with FanDuel, and no other example has surfaced of an active athlete recording a personal message for a sportsbook VIP customer. That makes the exchange more than a strange marketing flourish. It shows how sportsbooks can use celebrity access, personal attention and status rewards to keep heavy bettors engaged even when those customers have already been flagged by their own behavior as vulnerable.

The episode lands in a sport that has tightened its own rules around gambling. Major League Baseball’s Rule 21 and its sports-betting policy remain the league’s formal guardrails, and in June 2024 MLB permanently ineligible Tucupita Marcano and suspended four other players for gambling violations. The league later moved again in November 2025, announcing pitch-level betting limits of $200 and excluding those wagers from parlays, a narrow restriction aimed at one of the fastest-growing and most abuse-prone corners of the market.

That backdrop matters because the American betting boom has been driven by mobile apps, live wagering and constant in-game prompts since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that opened the door for state-by-state sports gambling. Public-health experts have warned that the combination of frictionless betting and high-frequency promotions can turn gambling into an addiction problem as much as an entertainment product. FanDuel’s own sportsbook pages illustrate the tension: they promote VIP and rewards programs tied to customer activity while also advertising responsible-gambling resources and hotline references. In practice, the same app that tells users where to get help is also rewarding the people who gamble the most.