A trial will be held in city court in Baltimore City's action against DraftKings and FanDuel, which was launched in April on claims of violations of the Consumer Protection Ordinance (CPO).

The leaders of the sportsbook have been accused in April by the Baltimore City Council, Mayor Brandon Scott, the Baltimore City Law Department, and DiCello Levitt, LLP of targeting and taking advantage of vulnerable gamblers, many of whom are young men, in violation of the city's Consumer Protection Ordinance.

The complaint alleged that the mobile sports betting behemoths "use a two-pronged scheme to harm Baltimoreans," according to an article published at the time by Casino.org.

Counsel for DraftKings and FanDuel requested that Maryland's District Court hear the action after they were designated as defendants. Citing legal theory that permits federal courts to reject claims involving intricate state or local laws and/or practices, a federal judge rejected the appeal last week.

In order to provide the city more legal power to take action against businesses and sectors that local government representatives believed were involved in unfair, dishonest, and abusive activities, Baltimore's CPO was revised in 2023.

"The City of Baltimore is taking a critical step forward in our ability to protect Baltimoreans from predatory business practices,” Scott said during his signing of City Council Bill 23-0424.

The Baltimore Department of Consumer Protection was established in March to look into claims of abusive and misleading business practices.

The Case Goes On

The lawsuit against DraftKings and FanDuel in Baltimore has returned to the city's circuit court after the federal court in Maryland refused to accept it.

The plaintiffs claim that in order to increase their profits, the sportsbooks, which opened in Maryland in November 2022, have used analytics to identify problem gamblers who lack sports betting expertise and use personal inducements to target them. A jury trial is what the city is requesting.

“DraftKings and FanDuel put corporate greed ahead of the well-being of Baltimoreans, getting users hooked to their gambling platforms and then leveraging troves of data to identify, target, and exploit the most vulnerable among them. Their predatory practices have caused significant harm to our community, and we are taking action to hold them accountable and protect our citizens,” said Baltimore City Solicitor Ebony Thompson with the Baltimore City Department of Law. 

Leaders in the Market

In terms of sports betting handle and revenue, DraftKings and FanDuel are unmatched through the first four months of Maryland's 2026 fiscal year (July 2025 through October 2025).

After paying out prizes and excluding promotional play and other incentives like odds enhancements, FanDuel kept over $93.4 million of the more than $889.4 million in online bets. DraftKings made $59.3 million by facilitating $668.4 million in mobile wagers.

In Maryland, FanDuel is run in collaboration with Live! Casino & Hotel. DraftKings uses a sports betting license that is exclusively available online.

The closest rival of FanDuel and DraftKings in Maryland is BetMGM. Over the course of the four months, the online sportsbook received $159.1 million in mobile wagers under its license agreement with MGM National Harbor, yielding a $17.9 million net win.

The leaders of iGaming and sports betting abruptly departed the American Gaming Association to pursue their plans to enter the prediction market, according to a story published earlier today by AGA Exit Casino.org. The AGA was against prediction markets that offer contracts relating to sports, such as Kalshi and Polymarket.