On the Clock: FanDuel Misrepresents to Bettors How Much Time Remains in Live Sporting Events, Class Action Says [UPDATE]
Last Updated on July 21, 2022
September 29, 2021 - Judge Grants FanDuel’s Bid to Dismiss Case
The proposed class action detailed on this page has been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo, who tossed the case after finding that FanDuel’s terms of use expressly disclaim any obligation to provide “accurate real-time information.”
In an eight-page order, Judge Bucklo called “perplexing” the plaintiff’s reliance on a provision in FanDuel’s terms of use that says, in pertinent part, that bettors “may not at any time be able to see or otherwise be provided with the most up-to-date information in relation to the relevant event” and that FanDuel “shall not be liable for any delay in relaying up-to-date information.” The judge stated that the plaintiff “articulates no basis for construing these provisions to mean the opposite of what they say on their face” and similarly failed to offer “any basis for declining to enforce the plain language of these exculpatory provisions.”
“For at least these reasons, plaintiff has not alleged a viable breach of contract claim,” the opinion and order reads.
Judge Bucklo also shot down the plaintiff’s Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Trade Practices Act claim, writing that it is “simply a redressed version of [his] breach of contract count.” Lastly, the judge found that the plaintiff’s unjust enrichment claim did not work because Illinois law makes recovery unavailable when the conduct at issue is the subject of “an express contract between the plaintiff and defendant.”
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FanDuel has provided to online bettors “materially false and misleading” information about how much time remains in live sporting events, a proposed class action alleges.
The 33-page complaint claims defendant Betfair Interactive US, the company behind the popular sports betting platform, regularly understates the amount of time remaining in a given live sporting event as a way to “induce” customers to make wagers that “are more likely to lose, and/or that are riskier” than if they’d been given accurate, real-time game details.
As a result of FanDuel’s conduct, the plaintiff, an Illinois resident, and proposed class members (i.e. those who the suit looks to cover) have “made and lost wagers they would not have made had they known the truthful, actual time remaining” and real-time score for a given live sporting event, the complaint alleges. In the alternative, the plaintiff and proposed class members, had they had accurate real-time data on a given sporting event, would have wagered on the contest’s “over” and won the bet, rather than making and losing on an “under” wager, the lawsuit argues.
FanDuel is alleged in the lawsuit to have violated consumer protection laws in each state in which it offers online sports betting and cost hundreds of thousands of customers millions in wagers.
“The accuracy of the real-time information provided by FanDuel on its platform and displayed at the time Plaintiff placed his live wagers was critical to the determination of the risk and reward associated with a given wager and whether to place his bet on the ‘Over’ or the ‘Under’ option,” the suit reads.
Place your bets
FanDuel has since July 2020 offered in 10 states sportsbook, daily fantasy sports, casino and horse racing betting products for free through its app, the case begins. While sports betting is legal in 20 states, FanDuel, according to the suit, accepts bets in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia and Michigan. Bettors in those states can engage in live wagering, or place money on the “totals,” “unders” and “overs” for a sporting event while the event is underway, the complaint explains:
The ‘Totals’ or ‘Over/Under’ bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number in a given game (usually the combined score of the two teams), and the bettor’s [sic] wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or lower than the number.”
Displayed in the FanDuel app are the elapsed time, score and odds of a given wager for a given sporting event on a supposedly real time-basis, the case says. The plaintiff claims to have started using FanDuel in late February 2021, in particular to place bets on the “unders” for NCAA men’s college basketball games.
How much time is left?
At the center of the lawsuit is a March 1, 2021 college basketball game between New Orleans and Incarnate Word, an event for which the plaintiff claims he made a number of bets based on FanDuel’s allegedly false representation of the elapsed time in the contest. The complaint includes screenshots from the plaintiff’s phone that were purportedly taken at 8:52 p.m. and 8:53 p.m.
The first screenshot, the case says, shows six minutes remaining in the second half of the New Orleans/Incarnate Word game:
The second screenshot, supposedly taken a minute later, purports to show there remained eight minutes in the second half of the same game, a time when wagers on the “over” and “under” were still being accepted:
Based on the time-of-game-remaining information provided by FanDuel, the plaintiff, the lawsuit says, placed a number of bets on the “totals” or “unders,” in particular that the combined score of the New Orleans/Incarnate Word game would be less than a given number.
The case alleges the plaintiff made all of his wagers “based upon false reporting by FanDuel of the elapsed time and, in some cases, the then scores of the live sporting events.” As the suit tells it, the accuracy of the real-time game information provided by FanDuel and displayed on its betting platform is critical to a bettor’s assessment of risk and reward for a given wager and can very well influence whether money is put on a game’s “over” or “under.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim the plaintiff, after placing a number of live bets after the start of certain sporting events and losing more than $50, discovered the real-time data provided by FanDuel was repeatedly false “and materially so.” From the complaint:
For example, Plaintiff discovered that the time elapsed in sporting events, in particular men’s NCAA college basketball, is frequently materially understated on the real-time display on the FanDuel platform in a range of 5 to 35 percent less than the actual time remaining in the sporting event, making the Wagers on the ‘Under’ during the game appear to be a far better bet than they otherwise actually are.
Similarly, in some instances, the score reported on the FanDuel platform was inaccurate and materially different from the actual score in relation to the time shown left in the game at the moment when Plaintiff placed the Wagers.”
The plaintiff asserts in the complaint that he sent the defendant on March 2, 2021 a letter in which he exercised his right to opt out of FanDuel’s class action waiver embedded within its terms of use.
Who’s covered by this lawsuit?
The lawsuit looks to represent a “multi-state class” consisting of all persons who placed a wager anytime since July 2020 on an “under” on a live sporting event on the FanDuel platform and app after the beginning of the sporting event and who reside in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia or Michigan.
The suit also proposes to cover “subclasses” of FanDuel bettors in each of the 10 states who fit within the same criteria.
How do I join the class action?
In general, there’s nothing you need to do to “join” or be considered a part of a class action lawsuit. Class actions almost always take some time to work their way through the legal system, usually toward either a settlement or dismissal (or increasingly toward binding arbitration). This means that it might be a while before the time comes for those who might be considered a part of a lawsuit’s “class” to file claims for whatever compensation the court finds appropriate.
Barring arbitration or a dismissal, it’s only if and when a case settles that consumers would need to take action. You can learn more about the process here.
Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.
Hair Relaxer Lawsuits
Women who developed ovarian or uterine cancer after using hair relaxers such as Dark & Lovely and Motions may now have an opportunity to take legal action.
Read more here: Hair Relaxer Cancer Lawsuits
How Do I Join a Class Action Lawsuit?
Did you know there's usually nothing you need to do to join, sign up for, or add your name to new class action lawsuits when they're initially filed?
Read more here: How Do I Join a Class Action Lawsuit?
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A note on class action complaints:
Bear in mind that the information in this blog post summarizes the allegations put forth in the following legal complaint. At the time of this writing, nothing has been proven in court. Anyone can file a lawsuit, with or without the representation of an attorney, for any reason, and ClassAction.org takes no position on the merits of the suit. Class action complaints are a matter of public record, and our objective on this website is merely to share the information in these legal documents in an easily digestible way.
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