Posted on: August 27, 2024, 08:49h.
Last updated on: August 27, 2024, 09:11h.
The National Football League (NFL) kicks off its 2024 next Thursday, September 5, with the Baltimore Ravens visiting the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, who are favored by a field goal. With legal sports betting more rampant than ever, the NFL is taking steps to ensure that players, team personnel, officials, and other persons who fall under the scope of the league’s sports gambling policy are aware of what they can and cannot gamble on during the season.
The NFL faced criticism last year after numerous players were found to have participated in legal sports betting in direct violation of the league’s blanket policy on gambling. The pro football league recently clarified its sports betting rules through a document titled, “Summary of NFL Gambling Policy Education & Integrity Monitoring Efforts.”
The summary provides six bullet points that players must abide by. They are:
- NEVER bet on the NFL: Includes other NFL events such as Draft, Combine, Pro Bowl, & NFL Honors
- Don’t have someone bet for you: Do not ask family, friends, or others to place a bet for you
- Don’t gamble (no bets on sports, casino, or card games) at your team facility/stadium, while traveling for a road game, or staying at a team hotel.
- Don’t share team ‘inside information’: Don’t share information that hasn’t been announced by the team.
- Don’t enter a sportsbook during the NFL playing season.
- Don’t play daily fantasy football.
Additionally, team personnel — coaches, trainers, staff, and front office executives — are barred from betting on not only the NFL, but on all sports.
Game Integrity Remains Paramount
The NFL’s 2024 Gambling Policy explanation comes after players and coaches expressed frustration about not understanding the sports betting participation rules last year. After the NFL indefinitely suspended Denver Broncos lineman Eyioma Uwazurike for betting on at least 32 NFL games, including one he played in, Broncos coach Sean Payton scolded the league for not better informing players about the gambling policy. Uwazurike was one of nearly two dozen players suspended last year for violating the gambling policy.
That eight-page handout we received was more confusing after I read it than it was before I looked at it,” Payton said. “It’s not the policy, but it’s the implementation, the understanding, and the educating of the policy.”
The NFL has since committed to better educating players and NFL personnel on the betting prohibitions. The ultimate mission is to protect the integrity of the game and keep outside influences from jeopardizing the legitimacy of game outcomes.
Education Programs
Along with providing the six-point gambling policy checklist, the NFL this year required all players to undergo educational classes on the sports betting rules. The training seminars were developed in partnership with the NFL Players Association.
Each of the NFL’s 32 teams must display the gambling policy inside team facilities, provide education for players’ agents, and include an “Integrity of the Game” clause in all new player contracts requiring players to comply with the gambling policy.
Every team also now has a designated NFL Integrity Representative — typically a retired FBI or executive-level law enforcement official — who monitors the team for suspicious activity, supports investigations into potential violations, and serves as an additional resource to clubs and players for gambling and/or integrity-related questions and issues.
