Company responded and said they removed the "feature". They confirmed to me that it was part of an AB test (which I had seen in the code), but did not confirm or deny my suspicion that the AB was used to apply it only to events where it was less likely to be discovered.
I was half-jokingly going to ask for tickets to the game, lol. But after they requested I post an update and clarify their response to removing the feature, it just felt wrong. I mean, I'm glad they removed it, but that's a pretty big thing to act like it should all just be OK and it's a "feature" users didn't like. And I think their urgency in removing it only shows how bad it really was, not how concerned they are for users.