DraftKings Accused of Aiding in Alleged Extortion Plot by Prominent Sports Bettor ‘Spanky’

A new civil complaint in New York claims that a prominent sports bettor received identifying information from DraftKings in order to threaten the complainant into paying half a million dollars in 2023.

The plaintiff, listed as “John Doe,” said in the complaint that a “henchman” threatened his life unless he paid $500,000 to Gadoon “Spanky” Kyrollos, a sports betting personality with more than 44,000 followers on Twitter.

The plaintiff alleged Spanky began claiming he was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in Feb. 2023, one month before the alleged incident took place. The complainant said he and Spanky had never met and spoke on the phone just twice together.

The complainant alleges that a DraftKings employee provided the person’s address, financial history, personal information and betting history to Kyrollos. The filing alleges that the “henchman” waited outside his apartment for more than three hours and that “DraftKings worked with Spanky to send the masked man to make this threat.”

The complainant also claims to have had his DraftKings email changed amid this process.

"The complaint filed against DraftKings in March 2024 by an unnamed plaintiff is full of inaccuracies and baseless allegations," a DraftKings spokesperson told the Action Network. "DraftKings has found no evidence of anyone at DraftKings providing plaintiff’s information to a third-party … Nor has DraftKings uncovered any improper activity by a DraftKings employee, or any activity on plaintiff’s account, relating to the allegedly unauthorized change of the email address associated with plaintiff’s DraftKings account."

DraftKings is seeking to have the case dismissed. That motion must be filed by June 28.

The John Doe in this case is seeking damages of up to $1 million for “aiding and abetting assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence.”

“Spanky and the masked man did not act alone,” the complaint alleges. “DraftKings loaded the proverbial gun, and put it in Spanky’s hand. [The] plaintiff’s life was never the same.

“This is a case about DraftKings — one of the biggest and most profitable sports betting companies in the world — knowingly and wilfully aiding and abetting a violent assault, battery, and death threat, (and later, a significant computer hack).”

The complainant also highlighted Spanky’s past problems with the law, including a 2012 FBI indictment for his involvement in an illegal sports betting ring. And allegedly as a part of that investigation, Spanky had been heard on a police wiretap calling a person associated with the mob in order to “send in some muscle to try to get his money back.”