There are a few uncomfortable truths about life, one of which is that it eventually ends.
Spoiler alert, sorry to be a buzzkill, etc., but it’s true. We all die. We also all live different lives, doing different things.
Some people even spend their days doing things like turning cards, rolling dice, and backing slow and fast horses. And while not everyone who dies bets, everyone who bets dies. It’s also conceivable that, as a sports bettor, you could die before some of your wagers are settled. So what happens then?
Key insights
- It's possible you could die with futures bets outstanding, and those wagers remain after you're gone.
- In Massachusetts, the regulator approved voiding more than $100,000 in futures placed by a deceased bettor so the funds could be returned to their estate.
- A person could leave directions for their futures in a will.
It’s not a rhetorical question, especially since legal sports betting has become so much more accessible. In fact, in one U.S. state, this kind of question was asked and answered in a public setting.
That setting was a meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) last week. Because, on March 7, the sports betting regulator was notified by one of its licensees, DraftKings Sportsbook, that it wanted to void nine pending wagers from the account of a customer who had died.
It was a substantial amount that had been wagered with the online sportsbook as well, $106,100, all of which had been bet on the Boston Celtics to win either the NBA's Eastern Conference or 2025 Finals.
For example, on June 18, 2024, the now-deceased bettor had wagered $50,000 on the Celtics to win the NBA Finals at odds of +280. The bet would have paid the customer another $140,000 if it was correct.
Would have, because that bet, as well as the eight other futures, were approved for voiding by the MGC. Commissioners voted 5-0 in favor of allowing DraftKings to void the bets and return the $106,100 to the deceased player’s account, so their estate could then withdraw the money.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is now discussing a request from DraftKings to void nine pending NBA futures bets totaling $106,100, all of which is on the Boston Celtics.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) April 10, 2025
According to MGC, the DK bettor died and their spouse wants the bets voided. DK supportive of request. pic.twitter.com/EqBVbL7wLz
This was, as noted during the MGC meeting, both an “unfortunate” and “somewhat unique” situation. It took effort on behalf of the estate, DraftKings, and the Massachusetts sports betting regulator to finally void the bets.
The MGC has rules for how licensed sportsbooks in the commonwealth can cancel or void wagers, and they can even do so without permission from the regulator in certain circumstances, such as an event being postponed or rescheduled.
Yet this situation did not fall under the auto-void criteria. Per a memo to the commission, the request was initiated by the spouse of the late bettor, via a lawyer representing the bettor's estate. This was so that the money bet could be returned to the account and then to the deceased bettor's estate.
Here are the 9 futures of a deceased bettor that the Massachusetts Gaming Commission approved for voiding last week following a request from DraftKings and the late bettor's wife.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) April 15, 2025
Among other things, there was a $50K wager, placed online, on Celtics +280 to win the NBA finals. pic.twitter.com/19nYFpQGK0
“[The request] does not involve a technical error or a system malfunction on the DraftKings platform,” said Andrew Steffen, the operations and compliance manager for the MGC’s sports wagering division. “Instead, this request was initiated by an attorney representing the estate of a deceased account holder.”
The MGC confirmed with DraftKings that the online sportsbook operator has a “procedure” for these situations. Commissioners also heard that the Boston-based bookmaker requested and received “the necessary pieces of documentation for verification purposes” from the attorney representing the deceased bettor’s estate.
“DraftKings has stated that honoring requests of this nature, particularly in unique and sensitive circumstances, reinforces public trust and supports the integrity of the industry,” Steffen added.
A bet's a bet
So what would have happened if the bets weren’t voided?
The Boston Celtics are the second seed in the Eastern Conference heading into the playoffs. Their odds to win the NBA Finals are now around +190 at DraftKings, meaning the futures placed by the deceased bettor in Massachusetts were looking pretty good. DraftKings stood to lose as much as $384,730 on all nine of the wagers if they were winners.
So, is it possible the deceased bettor’s estate could have chosen to let it all ride? And would DraftKings have been on the hook for a six-figure payout? Yes, as it turns out.
“Once those games are settled in late May or in June, the account would either collect the winnings or the wagers are just settled as a loss,” the MGC’s Steffen said. “So if they were settled as a win, then the estate would be able to withdraw those winnings.”
This was echoed by DraftKings’ senior corporate counsel, Peter Harrington, who also appeared during the MGC’s meeting.
“We would typically just let these wagers on the patron's account settle, and any winnings would be released to the account and then subsequently to the estate,” Harrington said.
But, Harrington added, this was an “exceptional and unfortunate circumstance,” and DraftKings was happy to honor the request and return the money that was bet as the patron’s estate desired.
Beyond the Bay State
Nevertheless, this was one instance in one state amid the patchwork of regulation and oversight for legal sports betting across the U.S. Would a similar outcome have happened somewhere other than Massachusetts?
If you’re betting with DraftKings, the answer could be yes. As DraftKings noted in its void request to the MGC, the online sportsbook's house rules state that the operator "reserves the right to decline or void, in its sole discretion, all, or part of, any bet requested."
But not all house rules are the same, not every state has the same requirements for how sportsbook operators must act, and not everyone is going to know about how much in futures a recently departed loved one may have placed.
Also, not everyone is going to leave behind wagers that look as good as the Boston Celtics winning this year's NBA championship. Asking a sportsbook to void a bet on a Toronto Raptors future at this point in the season may not garner much sympathy.
Furthermore, there's not much research on the subject of what happens to your bets when you die, at least not in our current age of mostly online sports betting.
Someone dying and leaving behind a paper bet slip is one thing – check the back of your slip, it will typically tell you how long it’s good for – but someone dying and leaving behind password-protected phones and sportsbook accounts is another.
Those accounts require government identification to open and operators have strict rules against other people using a person's account.
Don't trust the process?
Still, the law might be on the side of late bettors and their families.
A 2023 article in the UNLV Gaming Law Journal dove deeper into this subject. Titled “A Risk Greater Than the Sports Bet Itself: Death Before Collection of Winnings,” then-Juris Doctor candidate Allyson Sieck looked at futures bets, sportsbook terms of service, and estate law.
Sieck noted the sports betting successes of Texas furniture seller Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, such as his $75-million payout when the Houston Astros won the 2022 World Series.
“Given his success, Mattress Mack will likely continue placing futures bets throughout 2023 and for years to come,” Sieck wrote. “With all that money on the line, however, Mattress Mack runs an unexpected risk: dying before he can collect the winnings from a bet.”
Now, Mattress Mack is still alive and possibly still betting, despite some recent health issues.
However, Sieck added that U.S. law currently has "no established process" for what happens to bettor's outstanding bets when they die before those wagers are settled. Moreover, Sieck wrote, the terms of service for popular online sportsbooks in the U.S. suggested it would be a struggle for a bettor’s estate to claim any balances.
“Given these restrictions on third-party access to accounts, sportsbooks would likely prohibit a deceased bettor's estate from collecting the bettor’s winnings,” the article said. “If a sportsbook prohibits a deceased bettor’s estate from collecting the winnings, the winnings will remain in the bettor’s account until it is drained by administrative fees and ultimately paid back to the sportsbook, unless the deceased bettor’s estate sues the sportsbook to collect the winnings.”
What we now know in 2025 is that in at least one state, Massachusetts, and with one sportsbook, DraftKings, bookmakers may opt to comply with requests from an estate to hand over balances and winnings.
This is partly because, as DraftKings noted to the MGC, “honoring certain customer requests in exceptional circumstances can strengthen the trust between operators and residents of the Commonwealth, which is in the best interests of both the Commonwealth and the industry.”
A losing battle (for them, not you)
But in 2023, the time of Sieck’s article, such an outcome wasn’t certain. It still may not be depending on the situation and location.
That said, Sieck wrote that a sportsbook that chooses to fight claims by deceased bettors’ estates “would simply be delaying a court awarding the deceased bettor’s winnings to their estate, the probable outcome under the established principles of estate law.”
“The major principles of estate law support distributing a deceased bettor’s winnings to the bettor’s beneficiaries or heirs, rather than back to the sportsbook, because that would be the intent of the average bettor,” Sieck added. “Additionally, assets that a person had a right to before their death but did not collect are commonly included in estates. This includes income derived from property that the decedent owned at death, like the winnings earned from an outstanding bet.”
So it’s possible DraftKings or any other sportsbook would have a tough time keeping a deceased bettor’s winnings from their estate.
It’s also possible a bettor could leave specific directions in their will as to what they want done with their futures bets when they die.
“For example, a specific bequest of an outstanding bet may provide: ‘To my daughter Jane, my bet on the Vegas Golden Knights to win the 2023 Stanley Cup and any winnings therefrom,’” Sieck wrote. “Another example is a specific bequest that provides: ‘To my daughter Jane, any bets outstanding at the time of my death.’”
Jane says, 'pay up'
Once those directions are provided, however, it may fall to the inheritor to try to collect or perhaps void the bets they receive from the deceased.
Ultimately, though, the law may favor the bettor and their loved ones.
Sieck's conclusion also included advice to sportsbooks to adopt terms of service provisions that provide "a clear-cut, workable process for estates to follow in collecting a deceased bettor’s winnings."
“This process is cost-effective and equitable and follows the well-settled practices of estate law,” Sieck wrote.
So back to the question at hand: What happens to your futures bets when you die?
The short answer is that the bets are still there, waiting to be settled. They could, at the urging of your estate, get voided and refunded to your loved ones. They could also be allowed to play out. Those winnings could then be collected by your estate. Lost wagers return nothing, so you’ve got no worries there.
But, if you’re someone with a lot of pricey futures pending, what happens to them when you’re not around may be something you want to start thinking about now. It may also be something more sportsbooks start thinking about, especially in the wake of the Massachusetts matter.
The UNLV article suggested as much, advising online bookmakers to adopt terms of service provisions allowing a deceased bettor's estate to collect on outstanding futures wagers.
In the United Kingdom, for example, there are established processes for dealing with bets after the bettor has passed.
"Sportsbooks [in the U.S.] should adopt these provisions soon, as the increasing number of bets placed each year, coupled with the number of deaths each year, makes this issue prevalent," Sieck wrote.
