When the NFL announced on Thursday that three players had been found to have bet on football, the punishments came down with characteristic brutality: indefinite suspensions that could only be appealed after a full season.
It is the second set of gambling penalties imposed this off-season, after the league in April requested similar suspensions against three players who had bet on NFL games.
The suspensions, which are punitive in nature, are also a warning to other pros who are tempted by the widespread football betting opportunities. However, critics say, the harsh punishment is dissonant with the league’s business partnerships with betting companies, which bringing the league more than $1 billion in 2022.
On Thursday, the NFL suspended Isaiah Rodgers and Rashod Berry of the Indianapolis Colts and free agent Demetrius Taylor through at least the 2023 season for betting on NFL games. Shortly after the announcement, the Colts released Rodgers and Berry.
“The integrity of the game is paramount,” Chris Ballard, the team’s general manager, said of the decision.
His speech echoed that of Jeff Miller, the league’s executive vice president for communications, public affairs and policy, who after the April suspensions told reporters: “The integrity of the game must be held to a high standard without There’s tolerance for that kind of behavior.â€
The NFL began embracing sports gambling after the Supreme Court in 2018 lifted the ban that kept betting in place in most states. Since then, sports betting has emerged as a lucrative source of income for the league as gambling has spread. In 2021, the NFL formed a partnership with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars Entertainment in deals reportedly worth approx. $1 billion collectively.
After long avoiding Las Vegas and its casinos and sports books, the Super Bowl will be held there in February, nearly seven years after the team’s owners approved the relocation of the Raiders.
The recent suspensions reflect the league’s struggle to draw a line on its acceptance of gambling, said Bob Boland, a Seton Hall sports law professor and Penn State’s former athletics integrity officer.
“The idea that sports betting is part of our product, we advertise it in our broadcasts and where it used to be something we took back, now it’s something we accept, but not for you as a player,” Boland said in an interview. “That’s the complicated question of that and it sends a mixed message.”
Although the league’s gambling policy is detailed in Appendix A of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement — and included in every player’s contract — players later expressed doubts about the restrictions.
“I understand rules are rules, But I can risk my life for my team to win but I won’t risk 1k for my team to win,” Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones wrote in a post on Twitterreferring to suspensions.
When Lions receiver Jameson Williams was hit with a six-game suspension for betting on other games while at the team’s facility, he said that he did not know of NFL policy.
The league said it would make the policy a point of emphasis, visiting teams to emphasize the fine points of gambling rules and ordering that new players attend information sessions. But the imposition of strict discipline has so far been football’s most visible attempt to ensure fair and uninfluenced competition on the field, a key to maintaining consumer confidence.
“You want to create the interest so that the last shot, the last kick, the last pass is always in the chance and human effort. That’s why we love them, to a degree,” said Boland. “The fact that they will be cured or that the result is done immediately to get the interest.”
But by allowing the potential for reinstatement of players who bet on football, the NFL is abandoning the zero-tolerance policy that has been a staple of Major League Baseball since the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, when Chicago White was accused Sox. to throw the World Series.
Instead, the NFL’s indefinite suspensions, which have the possibility of reinstatement, serve as an effective ban on fringe players while leaving the door open for football betting stars to return to play.
Calvin Ridley, who was suspended for the 2022 season for gambling in the sport, may return once he has served his suspension. But for less impactful contributors like Rodgers and Berry, a path back to football is less clear.
Indefinite suspensions are not a new solution in the NFL In 1947, Commissioner Bert Bell suspended Frank Filchock and Merle Hapes of the New York Giants for “acts detrimental to the NFL and pro football” after they were allegedly offered bribes to settle. that year. championship game, although no player accepted. Filchock’s suspension was lifted in 1950, and he played in just one more game. Hapes’ suspension was lifted after seven years, and he never played again.
That scandal forced Bell to expand its surveillance of NFL betting, including hiring former FBI investigators to monitor league officials and gamblers. The team owners also gave him the unilateral authority to impose a lifetime ban on anyone involved in gambling on the game. In 1963, Commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended two players for 11 months for betting, although no evidence was found that they tried to influence the outcome of a game.
The next player penalties for football betting came in 2019, when Arizona Cardinals cornerback Josh Shaw was suspended at the end of the 2020 season for betting on NFL games. (Shaw was reinstated in 2021 but hasn’t played an NFL game since.)
The recent spate of gambling violations may eventually force the league to consider a heavier penalty, an outcome the NFL players’ union would have to agree to. The number and star status of player bettors can give both sides an incentive to continue to protect the trust in football games, said Michael LeRoy, a professor and sports labor expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Let’s say, hypothetically, that the league really digs into this kind of investigation and they find out that 100 or more players gambled,” he said, “so you have a huge disruption in team rosters. That’s the kind of thing that, I think, would prompt the parties to come to the table and come to an agreement on this.