DraftKings Appoints Laurie Kalani as Head of Responsible Gaming

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00:00Okay, now DraftKings making a move, a progressive move, I think that most other companies are

00:08also going to do or have done in the past, adding someone from the government or someone

00:13you would say in legislation to become their responsible gaming leader here.

00:19And in this case, her name is Lori Kalani.

00:21Tell us more, Sam, about her and what her role will be with DraftKings.

00:26Yeah, DraftKings announced earlier this week that Lori Kalani is going to be the chief

00:30responsible gaming officer at the company.

00:33It's a new position they've created and haven't really provided much details about what exactly

00:38she'll do aside from leading, you know, efforts around responsible gaming and report directly

00:43to their CEO.

00:44But it's really interesting, her background here is not directly in healthcare, in addiction,

00:51in responsible gaming.

00:52Like we've seen some other companies like PrizePix just announced that they were hiring

00:56a similar position with someone who actually had experience in states doing this.

01:01Kalani has spent about 15 years in Washington, D.C. at different firms, essentially developing

01:07and cultivating relationships with different state attorney generals around the country.

01:13There's been a number of New York Times articles about the firms that she's worked for and

01:18kind of, you know, have influenced different people through whether it's lavish gifts or

01:23campaign donations, essentially kind of saying that their whole mission is to help their

01:27clients avoid becoming targets of investigation.

01:31So it's not clear that that's what she'll be doing for DraftKings here.

01:35But she does have this, you know, decade and a half of experience lobbying and has these

01:39really, you know, crucial relationships for companies like DraftKings and in the sports

01:45betting industry, which we've seen increasingly fall under a microscope here, whether it's

01:49Congress considering legislation that would ban certain advertisements, ban the use of

01:55AI to acquire customers and even limit what people can bet.

02:01It seems like we're at a time in the industry where they're really thinking about, OK, we

02:04need to get in front of maybe investigations before they happen.

02:08Certainly, I don't know of any investigations DraftKings is currently under in different

02:12states.

02:13There's various lawsuits in places like Massachusetts, but nothing really major yet.

02:18So this could be them kind of getting in front of that, bolstering it.

02:21I imagine a lot will be around responsible gaming, obviously, because that's the role.

02:26But again, she doesn't really have that experience up her sleeve.

02:30She's done work with a lot of different kinds of companies.

02:33So it'll be interesting to see how this develops.

02:35And it'll be interesting to see if other companies try to follow suit in terms of hiring former

02:40lobbyists to head responsible gaming.

02:43We've certainly seen all the scandals and everything.

02:45Whether you want to take it as sports books, legal sports betting, working the way it's

02:49supposed to and catching bad actors, or look at it from the light of, hey, it's bad press

02:55either way.

02:56Headlines are going to always spark some sort of reaction, even if it's good.

03:00It'll be interesting to see if more places start to do this kind of thing and what she

03:04actually ends up doing for DraftKings long term.

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