A recently filed lawsuit by The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore against DraftKings Inc. and Flutter Entertainment plc, doing business as FanDuel Inc., has been cited and covered dozens of times by national, local, and trade press. DiCello Levitt partnered with the Baltimore City Department of Law to bring the case against the online sportsbooks for engaging in deceptive and unfair practices by targeting and exploiting vulnerable gamblers in violation of Baltimore’s Consumer Protection Ordinance (CPO).
The case has been covered by numerous publications including ESPN, CBS News, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, NBC Sports, The New York Times, Baltimore Business Journal, and Law360, among many others. Founding Partner Adam Levitt is leading the DiCello Levitt team on the matter and was quoted in dozens of publications, including in ESPN, excerpted below:
While individuals have made similar allegations in lawsuits against the major sports betting companies in recent years, Adam Levitt, founding partner at DiCello Levitt, the law firm representing the mayor and city council of Baltimore, told ESPN this is the first case brought by an American public entity against online sportsbooks since a 2018 Supreme Court decision allowed states to begin legalizing sports betting.
Levitt said that a city like Baltimore has an advantage in bringing forward a suit compared to individual bettors, who agree to an arbitration clause when signing up for the apps that essentially prevents them from being part of a class-action lawsuit. "Public entities are not subject to those sorts of arbitration clauses," he said. "Public entities can bring claims to protect their citizens for this type of wrongdoing."
Read more about the case, online here.