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The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has unanimously rejected DraftKings’ bid to void $934,137 in payouts, ordering the operator to honor a string of interlinked parlay wagers placed during the 2025 MLB American League Championship Series (ALCS). The vote was 5–0, with commissioners indicating the responsibility for the error rested with the sportsbook that accepted the bets.

DraftKings told regulators the wagers should never have been available in the first place and argued the customer acted unethically by exploiting what it called an “obvious error”. Commissioners pushed back on that framing during the public discussion.

How the error happened and why the bets were “connected”

According to reporting on the case, an internal DraftKings trading/configuration mistake incorrectly marked Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes as a non-participant, which prevented the platform from triggering safeguards that normally block correlated selections in a same-market parlay. That allowed a bettor to combine multiple Lukes “series hits” thresholds (such as 5+, 6+, 7+, 8+) into the same builder-style wager at boosted odds.

The bettor placed 27 wagers totaling about $12,950. Lukes ultimately played in the series and finished with enough hits to cash the majority of the slips, producing a total win of $934,137 that DraftKings sought to partially unwind after the fact.

DraftKings’ void request fails after unanimous 5–0 vote

DraftKings proposed a partial-void approach that would have dramatically reduced what it owed, but Massachusetts regulators declined to retroactively re-grade bets that were accepted by the operator’s system. Coverage of the meeting notes commissioners describing the mistake as effectively a “cost of doing business”, while also criticizing DraftKings for alleging unethical behavior without substantiating it.

The decision lands amid wider scrutiny of sportsbook controls, especially around bet builders and correlated parlays. For Massachusetts, the message was straightforward: if a licensed operator takes the wager, it carries the burden of its own internal errors, especially when the bettor did not manipulate the system, but simply used what was offered.

Source: https://www.aol.com/articles/massachusetts-orders-draftkings-pay-934k-175522307.html