EPIC Joins Coalition Asking FTC to Crack Down on Abusive Push Notifications in Wagering Apps

Gambling and prediction market apps are using manipulative push notifications to keep users betting, and EPIC is asking the FTC to require consent, opt-out, and disclosure.

Yesterday, August 27, 2026, EPIC joined a coalition of organizations asking the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on gambling applications’ unfair and abusive push notification tactics. The comment supports a petition for a rulemaking filed by consumer rights and gambling fairness organizations. This is a crucially important issue that sits at the nexus of harmful tech trends: the explosion of app-based gambling and ubiquitous abusive tech design practices that steal users’ attention, data, and money.

As described in the petition and the coalition comment supporting it, gambling and prediction market apps such as DraftKings, Kalshi, FanDuel, and others abuse push notifications. They send voluminous notifications to users’ phones, most but not all of which are prompts to make bets. Users are not given the option to turn off the marketing notifications without also turning off more important notifications related to account security, billing, and other topics — it’s all or nothing. Worse, users generally are not asked to consent to these marketing notifications, a sharp divergence from nearly every other form of marketing such as phone calls, emails, and mail.

Aggressive push notifications are a known “dark pattern”—a design feature that manipulates and harms users. Examples of dark pattern push notifications include incessant notifications, notifications sent at night, and notifications timed on “variable reward schedules,” borrowed from the gambling industry to induce dopamine hits and increase usage of a platform. As the petition explains in detail, internal company research demonstrates that aggressive push notification tactics are extremely effective in capturing users’ attention. Lawmakers and enforcers are working to rein in the excesses of push notifications in a variety of contexts. For example, EPIC’s Model Age-Appropriate Design Code and other similar laws regulate how online platforms may use push notifications to capture kids’ attention.

Abusive push notifications are especially pernicious in the context of app-based gambling, which is addictive and increasingly engaged in by Americans, especially young people. As the comment relays, “One opinion survey shows that more than a fourth of Americans—including 52% of men between 18 and 49 years old—have an active online sports betting account,” and, “in December 2025, $12 billion was traded on Kalshi and Polymarket alone, representing an estimated 400 percent increase from the year before.” Adding an addictive design feature on top of an addictive activity is a recipe for disaster.

The comment supports the petition’s request for the FTC to apply long-settled consumer protection principles to push notifications: obtain affirmative permission for marketing push notifications, provide a simple opt-out mechanism from the promotional push notifications that doesn’t opt out of more important notifications, and honestly disclose how often the app sends marketing notifications to users who have opted in.

EPIC regularly files regulatory comments across a broad range of issues. EPIC has written model legislation, amicus briefs, and public education materials addressing harmful design features such as aggressive push notifications.