Many Americans enter the new year with ambitious health and financial resolutions, making them potentially vulnerable to companies attempting to sell too-good-to-be-true products. This year, TikTok and Meta are bombarding users with ads from weight loss betting services touting dramatic physical and financial results, even though these ads potentially conflict with the platforms' own advertising guidelines.

For-profit digital weight loss companies WayBetter and HealthyWage offer users the ability to place monetary bets on their own weight loss in the form of challenges or games with other users.

The companies collect monetary bets from users who enter weight loss or “wellness” challenges and then create a prize pool among participants that is later distributed to those who successfully complete their goal. WayBetter charges a six-month membership fee of $69 just for the ability to place this monetary bet. HealthyWager doesn’t charge a membership fee, but it does require at least a $200 wager for the duration of its six-month minimum challenge. Participants who fail to meet their goal receive no money.

Refund policies vary between companies. WayBetter offers a three-day refund window and then requires medical documentation to leave a game after that. HealthyWage has a “strict no refunds policy,” citing the power of “negative reinforcement.” The company offers no exceptions, except in “rare, evidence-documented medical situations,” but warns customers to “please prepare yourself for the likelihood that there will be no exception granted.” 

Although WayBetter and HealthyWage use gambling rhetoric to promote and facilitate monetary betting, both fervently deny any involvement with online gambling. If the companies were classified as online gambling services they would be subject to intense regulations — and they know it. In a 2016 preliminary offering circular filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WayBetter acknowledged the risk that it could be “regulated out of business.” 

Both companies share the position that users are in control of the outcomes of their bets and thus a commitment contract is not gambling. Suggesting that users are entirely in control of their weight loss, however, ignores the reality that certain health conditions, genetics, and a variety of other factors can impact one’s ability to lose weight. 

HealthyWage acknowledges that there are ways to “game” the system and prohibits participants who have recently undergone bariatric surgery, professional athletes/trainers, and users implementing unhealthy rapid weight loss techniques. It is unclear how — or if — the company identifies and removes players in violation of its rules. 

WayBetter also lists prohibited actions, including “pregame binging or excessive hydration,” “purging … or excessive dehydration,” and “engaging in weight-loss medical procedures.” 

HealthyWage and WayBetter do permit players to use popular weight loss-enhancing Glucagon-like peptide-1 medications like Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro.

WayBetter goes so far as to offer users a referral to a GLP-1 physician during their intake quiz.

Even though the companies claim not to facilitate gambling, the advertisements for weight loss betting prominently promote the chance of winning large sums of money. WayBetter’s fine print, however, directly conflicts with these apparent promises of wealth, as it explicitly acknowledges that “if you’re here primarily to win money, you’ve come to the wrong place” and “even if you win all your games in the WayBetter app, you probably won’t win enough in a year to offset your membership fees.” The advertising instills users with a hope of financial gain that, according to WayBetter, is unlikely to actually manifest.

One WayBetter TikTok advertisement reads “Played 13 games on WayBetter. I lost 15lbs AND made $1,063!!”

WayBetter’s and HealthyWage’s services also potentially meet Meta’s definition of online gambling as “any product or service where anything of monetary value is included as part of a method of entry and prize.” 

TikTok outright bans online gambling advertisements, prohibiting ads that feature “the depositing and withdrawal of money” or that “portray or encourage gambling-related behavior.” The companies also seem to be in violation of TikTok’s weight control/management advertising policies that prohibit ads referencing “specific amounts of weight loss” or “suggestions that losing or gaining weight is easy.”

WayBetter and HealthyWage repeatedly reference a 2008 randomized trial study, “Financial Incentive-Based Approaches for Weight Loss,” in their ads and promotional material. The study’s sample size was only 57 participants, which the study itself called “small.” It concluded that although financial incentive-based approaches induced initial weight loss, “this weight loss was not fully sustained and further work is needed to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of these approaches in achieving sustained weight loss.”