Why Do Sportsbooks Limit You? The Reasons and What's Legal

On June 1, 2026, sportsbooks in Massachusetts started sending their customers a kind of message they’d never been required to send. One DraftKings notice said a bettor’s limits were imposed for “internal risk management purposes” after the company observed activity “indicative of targeting perceived market inefficiency,” according to notices reviewed by Legal Sports Report (opens in a new tab).

That’s a sportsbook’s way of saying the bettor was winning, and in a way DraftKings expected to last. It’s also the short answer to why sportsbooks limit you: they make their money from customers who lose, they pick out the ones who don’t, often by checking who beats the closing line, and they cap how much those customers can bet. It’s legal in every state that allows sports betting, and only Massachusetts makes them say why.

Why do sportsbooks limit you?

Because the sportsbook takes the other side of your bet, every dollar you win comes out of its pocket. The business works because its customers, taken together, lose more than they win. American sportsbooks kept about 10 cents of every dollar bet in 2025. A customer who keeps beating the book turns that margin into a loss.

Americans bet a record $166.9 billion with legal sportsbooks in 2025, and the books kept $16.96 billion, according to the American Gaming Association (opens in a new tab). Our page on how much Americans lose gambling puts that next to what casinos and lotteries keep.

Sportsbooks gave their own version of the answer in September 2024, when the Massachusetts Gaming Commission called them in to explain limits. BetMGM said limiting a small minority of players let it offer competitive odds to everyone else, according to the meeting’s minutes (opens in a new tab). FanDuel said its limits help it manage how much it could lose, and that flexible limits let sportsbooks offer more markets, at higher limits, to most customers.

How does a sportsbook decide you’re a winner?

Often by closing line value, not just by whether you’re up. The closing line is the last price on a game before it starts, once every injury report and big bet has moved it. If you keep getting better odds than the closing line, the sportsbook expects you to win over time, even in a month when you’re losing.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission describes closing line value, or CLV, as “a measure of how ‘good’ or ‘sharp’ a player is based on whether they place their wager at better odds than the odds at which the wager closes.” Say you bet a team at +140 on Tuesday and it starts Sunday’s game at +115. You got a better price than the final market did. One bet like that proves nothing. Hundreds of them make a pattern, and a pattern is what gets an account reviewed.

Your stake factor is the number that changes

A limit is usually a number on your account called a stake factor. When the Commission asked sportsbooks for data, it defined the stake factor as “the percentage out of 100 that a patron is permitted to wager.” At 100 you can bet the normal maximum. At 5, you can bet 5% of it. Some sportsbooks set a different stake factor for each sport.

BetMGM told the Commission that its trading team makes those decisions, based on patterns in how you bet as well as your results. It also said a bettor who thinks of themselves as casual can still be judged an advantage player once their bets are reviewed. That’s the industry’s term for a bettor the sportsbook expects to win. Caesars said a big win after a run of losses wouldn’t flag anyone on its own.

What else gets an account reviewed

Sportsbooks in Massachusetts have named these patterns, in their notices and to the Commission:

• Betting on live odds in the seconds before they update
• Betting both sides of a game at different sportsbooks to lock in a profit, which is called arbitrage
• Betting the same way, at the same time, as accounts the sportsbook has already restricted
• Placing many fast bets with software, which Caesars said is often attached to real players’ accounts

How many bettors get limited?

Fewer than 1 in 100 accounts, by Massachusetts’ count. The Commission asked every licensed sportsbook in the state for account data as of December 10, 2024, and its sports wagering staff found 0.64% of accounts limited. Most of those accounts were cut to less than a quarter of the normal maximum bet.

The analysis (opens in a new tab), presented to the Commission in September 2025, counts accounts rather than people, since one bettor can be limited at several sportsbooks. It “confirmed that players who consistently beat the closing line are more likely to have a lower stake factor.” Players whose limits had been raised were far more likely to be VIPs, and very few limited players had VIP status.

This is how far below the normal maximum bet the limited accounts were set:

At a sportsbook whose normal maximum on a game is $1,000, seven in ten limited accounts could bet less than $250, and one in eight could bet less than $10.

Six months later, most stake factors hadn’t moved

The Commission asked for the same accounts’ data again in June 2025. Most players’ stake factors hadn’t changed in the six months, “even if their CLV had changed substantially.” A bettor’s limit tended to stay where it was, even after their betting changed.

What do sportsbooks tell you when they limit you?

Outside Massachusetts, nothing they’re required to. In Massachusetts, they have to send a notice with a reason. The notices sent since June 2026 name a type of behavior, such as targeting “perceived market inefficiency,” trying to exploit delays in live odds, arbitrage or coordinated betting. They don’t necessarily say which of your bets led to it.

Legal Sports Report reviewed notices from DraftKings, Fanatics and theScore Bet. In the Fanatics notices it saw, the usual reason was behavior aligned with “a network of restricted users that signal potential arbitrage positions.” In other words, Fanatics thought the account was betting in step with accounts it had already restricted, in a way that suggested arbitrage.

Whether a category is enough is still an open question. When the Commission adopted the rule, Commissioner Eileen O’Brien said a limited bettor should understand what act or omission triggered the limit, according to the minutes (opens in a new tab). Commissioner Nakisha Skinner said an explanation like “due to a business decision” wouldn’t be enough, and the Commission’s lawyer said boilerplate wouldn’t meet the rule. Sportsbooks had resisted detail from the start. At the September 2024 roundtable, DraftKings said more detail in notices would help bettors get around its controls.

A Commission spokesperson told Sports Betting Dime (opens in a new tab) that compliance “will be monitored and its impact evaluated,” and the Commission’s staff proposed adding the new limiting controls and notices to the sportsbook audits (opens in a new tab) for the year that began July 1, 2026.

Can sportsbooks limit you? What each state requires

Yes. No state bans it, and outside Massachusetts no state requires a sportsbook to tell you. New Jersey and New York have bills that would change that, and New York’s would bar most limits placed on a bettor for winning. Neither has become law.

Massachusetts: a specific reason within 48 hours

The rule, 205 CMR 238.30(11) (opens in a new tab), makes each sportsbook’s internal controls include procedures for “timely notice to a patron that their wagering activity has been limited, including a specific explanation for the attachment of the limit(s) and identification as to which market(s) are so limited.”

The Commission adopted it 5-0 on February 26, 2026, and settled the details at the same meeting, according to its minutes (opens in a new tab):

• Timely means within 48 hours.
• Bettors limited before the rule took effect get a notice too.
• Every new limit gets a new notice.
• A limit first set in another state still triggers a notice when you bet in Massachusetts.
• Sportsbooks keep a copy of every notice so the Commission can audit them.

Commission staff expected every sportsbook’s procedures to be approved by June 1, 2026. The rule doesn’t make a sportsbook raise your limit or take a bigger bet.

New Jersey: a bill halfway through the Legislature

A4002 (opens in a new tab) would make each sportsbook adopt rules on the limits it can put on accounts, such as maximum bets and deposit and withdrawal restrictions, and get those rules approved by the Division of Gaming Enforcement. When a sportsbook limits you, it would have to give you “written notice and an explanation.” Limited accounts would be reviewed at regular intervals to decide whether the limit should stay, and sportsbooks would report every year how often they limit accounts and in what ways.

The Assembly passed it 76-3 on June 30, 2026. The Senate received it on September 28 and sent it to its Budget and Appropriations Committee, where the Senate version, S3419, has waited since May 21. Unlike the Massachusetts rule, the bill sets no deadline for the notice and doesn’t say what the explanation has to include. Until it passes, New Jersey sportsbooks don’t have to tell you about a limit.

New York: a bill to stop limits on winners

New York’s Fair Play Act, A9125 (opens in a new tab) from Assemblymember Alex Bores, goes further. It would bar mobile sportsbooks from limiting the size or frequency of a bettor’s deposits or wagers because the bettor wins or because of how they bet, unless the betting is suspicious or points to a gambling disorder. Any limit or ban would need a written notice within 24 hours saying how you’re restricted, for how long and why.

It has sat in the Assembly’s racing and wagering committee since it was amended on January 21, 2026.

What can you do if you’ve been limited?

Ask the sportsbook why, in writing, and keep its answer. In Massachusetts you’re owed a specific reason within 48 hours. If the answer doesn’t hold up, file a complaint with your state’s gaming regulator. That puts the sportsbook’s conduct on record, though it won’t get your old limit back by itself.

1. Ask for the reason and the markets it covers. In Massachusetts you should already have a notice. If you were limited and never got one, that’s worth reporting.
2. Say so if you only bet casually. At the September 2024 roundtable, Fanatics said its risk reviews had restricted some accounts by mistake, and that restricting casual customers wasn’t the goal. BetMGM said casual bettors caught in its reviews had their issues resolved.
3. Go to the regulator if that gets you nowhere. In Massachusetts, use the Gaming Commission’s sports wagering dispute form (opens in a new tab). New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement has an internet gaming dispute form (opens in a new tab) that asks when you complained to the sportsbook and when it answered, so complain to the sportsbook first. Elsewhere, your state’s gaming regulator takes complaints.
4. Know what a complaint gets you. The Massachusetts form says the Commission will check that sportsbooks are following the law, its regulations and their own internal controls, and that it “cannot provide you with legal advice or bring legal action on your behalf.”

A limit doesn’t touch your balance. You can still withdraw what’s in your account, and if a Massachusetts sportsbook closes it, 205 CMR 248.18 (opens in a new tab) gives the sportsbook five business days to refund the cleared balance.

In Canada? Our page on why sportsbooks limit winning bettors in Canada covers Ontario and Alberta, where no rule requires a notice.

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