Gambling Problem In The NFL
Over the last two years, there have been at least 10 NFL players that we know of that have been caught gambling.
Sports betting has become significantly more popular over the years. The first ever website for this started back in 1996. The site was called Everygame and it would pave the way for websites and apps today. There are different types of gambling. Maybe the most common one is fantasy sports. After doing my research, fantasy sports have been around since 1941, which was when fantasy baseball started. Though, this was first played with a board. Now it’s completely different with our smartphones making it easier to keep up with the stats and data. Besides fantasy sports, there are also websites where you can do prop bets, money lines, spreads, and parlays. There’s DraftKings, Fan Duel, and Prize Picks just to name a few. This is more popular than ever.
Here is where the problem comes for the NFL players. It has been a well-known thing for a very long time that players and team personnel can not place any kind of bets in the NFL when they are employed in the league. According to the policies I read, players aren’t allowed to place bets on the NFL but they can place bets on other sports. Though they also can not place bets of any kind in the team facilities. What confuses me is that all NFL personnel other than players aren’t allowed to bet on anything sports related which is pros, college sports, and amateur. That’s a really weird rule and I don’t see how the personnel in the NFL affects the NBA or MLB in any way if they place a five-dollar bet. Nevertheless, it’s not allowed,
On March 7, 2022, the news broke out that Atlanta Falcons star WR Calvin Ridley would be suspended for the entire 2022 season for gambling. After an investigation was made, they found that he placed bets during a five-day stretch in November of the 2021 season. This wasn’t the first ever case where a player would get suspended in the NFL for this, but it was the second time since 1983 that an active player would get suspended. In 2019, then Arizona Cardinals’ defensive back Josh Shaw was also suspended for placing sports bets at a las vegas casino. This didn’t make any rounds around the league because he was not as well-known as Calvin Ridley, who has had a stellar career thus far. Since Ridley got suspended for a full season, you’d think this would scare players from making the same mistake, but you’d be sadly mistaken.
Since Ridley’s suspension, there have been NINE other players suspended: Isaiah Rodgers, Rashod Berry, Demetrius Taylor, C.J. Moore, Quintet Cephus, Shaka Toney, Nicholas Petite-Frere, Jameson Williams, and Stanley Berryhill. Now there are a lot of different opinions about this. I’ve seen a lot of people try to come to the defense of the players even though they did know the rules and policies when signing their contracts. I’ve also seen people calling out the NFL for their hypocrisy because one of their biggest money-makers is sports betting which I agree with.
I think it’s pretty simple. If you’re an NFL player and you’re placing bets on NFL games, there’s no knowing if you’d cheat and have any type of influence on the outcome of that bet or game. At the end of the day, I think letting NFL players bet on their own league and games would take away the integrity of the game and it would become like the WWE, scripted. That’s why it’s impossible to bet on the WWE because 90% of people know the outcome of the matches.
With the recent suspensions and the NFL starting to crack down harder with the player suspensions, it’s going to be interesting to see if players actually stop doing it or if they will just be sneakier about it and use fake accounts, which is what they should’ve always been doing. They also make millions already as it is. Why they would risk millions of dollars over a couple hundred dollars worth of bets is beyond my understanding because I don’t make that. One thing I know for certain is that most of these guys have generational wealth and gambling just isn’t worth the risk.