Nfl Gambling Policy
Posted : admin On 4/4/2022The NFL’s silence on its gambling policy is deafening, and now the heat is starting to get turned up. Maybe it’s not the silence, but the hypocritical stance the NFL keeps taking when it comes to gambling. USA TODAY’s Brent Schrotenboer’s piece on the NFL’s do one thing but say another strategy proves that the league can’t stay the current course. Whether the league and teams are courting casinos for sponsors, or making it illegal to gamble inside a stadium even though gambling on phones is legal in Las Vegas, it’s all just public posturing.
This is simply about public perception. The NFL has no problem with gambling when it gets to make money off sponsors. They are courting casinos as partners, while telling players they can’t hold events, fundraisers, and conferences on casino grounds. The league is willing to take $750 million dollars in public money to move the Raiders to Sin City, but wants to stress that it is against legalized sports wagering expansion. Wait until Sands, Wynn, or Caesars wants to slap its name on the Las Vegas stadium through a multi-million dollar naming rights deal. It’s way past the point of ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ It’s almost blatantly hypocritical.
The NFL has had the opportunity to change its stance. It would have been easy to come out in concert with the NBA and simply say that maybe the league could benefit from legalized sports gambling. It could even take the high road and say that legalizing gambling — or at least doing research into the effects of legalization — would take away a large revenue stream from organized crime. Instead, Roger Goodell has steadfastly said that gambling has no place in the NFL.
That stance is pretty rich. The NFL is one of the most wagered on leagues in the United States. Spreads are discussed on almost of their television partners programs. The injury report is almost exclusively designed to make sure that people can’t take advantage of inside tips to have a better chance at winning a bet. The NFL and its teams already have official partnership deals with DraftKings and FanDuel. Both companies are involved with gambling even if they call it a different name.
We are way past the point of pretending that football and gambling don’t go hand in hand. It’s almost to the point that the NFL is insulting a large portion of its fans’ intelligence. Maybe it’s all about public relations, but three out of four sports fans are in favor of legalized sports gambling. It’s time to come clean, but there’s no sign of the league changing its stance. That means more articles, social media chatter, and television debates on the NFL’s hypocritical stance.
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The NFL has developed a new Personal Conduct Policy that applies to all NFL personnel — owners, coaches, players, other team employees, game officials and league office employees. But despite originally agreeing to have some of its media personalities participate in the convention, the NFL told convention organizers that the convention violated the league’s gambling policy.
When it comes to sports betting, the NFL is still trying to get its legs underneath it.
As the NBA embarks upon the maiden partnership between a league and a casino company, the NFL remains uncertain about fantasy sports, let alone betting. The largest league in the US isn’t quite up to speed with the country’s emerging industry just yet.
The issue is about to come to a head, with the Oakland Raiders set to relocate to Las Vegas in 2020. People soon will be wagering on games from inside the team’s $1.8 billion stadium, a gorgeous 65,000-seat venue under construction now.
On one hand, NFL owners embraced the idea of moving a franchise to the sports betting capital of the world. On the other, an ongoing court case in Texas raises further questions about the NFL’s stance on the business of gambling.
Backstory on the case
This Texas situation began in 2015, when a company called Fan Expo scheduled its inaugural National Fantasy Football Convention (NFFC). The three-day event planned to bring folks from fantasy football and real-life football together in Las Vegas.
Here’s how Fan Expo described the convention in its court filing:
The NFFC experience was designed to give NFL fans the chance to meet current and former NFL stars, as well as media personalities and football experts, live and in person through keynotes, panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions, autograph opportunities, photo ops, games, exhibits, and drafts.
Nearly 100 players planned to appear, including Odell Beckham Jr., Rob Gronkowski, and Tony Romo, who has a stake in the company. The league itself was apparently on board, too, agreeing to let analyst Michael Fabiano serve as the co-host.
Five weeks before the event, however, “the NFL had an abrupt change of heart,” according to the filing. The league informed personnel that attendance could be in violation of its policies on gambling associations.
Nfl Gambling Policy Against
To make a long story short, organizers pulled the plug on the event and sued the NFL for damages. Lower courts decided in the league’s favor, and Fan Expo is in the process of appealing at the highest level.
The case is pending consideration by the Texas Supreme Court.
NFL policy on ‘gambling associations’
The Fan Expo case centers around the NFL’s gambling policies and how the league applied them in this instance.
In its most recent filing, the NFL cites that policy in full. Some of the items laid out are obvious. League personnel may not accept bribes or fix games, nor may they share confidential information. The policy prohibits betting on all sports and even visiting a sportsbook during the NFL season.
But the league also dictates how personnel should handle “gambling associations.” Here’s what’s prohibited:
- Promoting a casino, sportsbook, or tout service
- Participating in promotional events held at or sponsored by a casino
- Accepting comps from a casino
Fan Expo argued unsuccessfully that the league misapplied that second policy point. The NFFC was to be held at the Sands Expo convention center, which is attached to The Venetian and owned by the same casino company.
“The convention facility is not licensed for gambling and is not part of a casino,” Fan Expo tried in its initial filing. It called the NFL’s gambling policy “ambiguous at best.”
Some careful marketing may have avoided the problem altogether, but the company did make a seemingly fatal error in advertising Venetian as the host venue. According to the NFL, promoting an event at a casino would have put attending personnel in clear violation of the policy. It was, it argued, within its legal right to inform them of the potential violation.
The courts have sided with the the league so far.
NFL’s gambling policy in flux?
The gambling section of the NFL policy book has been in flux recently.
A prohibition against playing daily fantasy football, for example, appears to have been removed this year. It also looks like that casino comp policy has changed, if this tweet from a former player is accurate:
Interesting tidbit regarding the @NFL and gambling… forever and ever amen it was against #NFL rules for players to accept any comps whatsoever from casinos. New gambling policy video just came out and now players are allowed to accept casino comps as long as its under $250
— Joe Thomas (@joethomas73) September 3, 2018
Nfl Gambling Policy 2020
What’s more, a committee of NFL owners recently decided to allow teams to partner directly with casino companies, even those which offer sports betting. According to Bill King of Sports Business Daily, the committee “agreed to relax league rules prohibiting sportsbook-connected sponsorship.”
These policy updates seem to indicate a growing acceptance of sports betting — at least by owners if not by the league itself. Still, it’s not entirely clear how far those permissions extend. It’s players, not teams, that are at the root of the Fan Expo case, and the relevant player policy apparently remains unchanged.
Nfl Gambling Policy 2019
Meanwhile, according to the filing:
- New Orleans Saints hosted training camp at The Greenbrier in West Virginia in 2014.
- Detroit Lions have a marketing partnership with MGM Grand.
- Fifteen teams partnered with FanDuel in 2015.
- NFL has a long-standing partnership with Carnival Cruise Lines, which operates casinos on board.
As King put it, “some NFL teams have found nuanced ways to conduct business with casinos in recent years.”
NFL needs a firm stance
In response to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s recent call for sports betting legislation, the NFL told Congress that “core federal standards are critical to safeguarding the sports we love.”
Its own standards on gambling, however, are still underdeveloped. The NFL is straddling the invisible fence, not quite ready to open its arms to the betting industry.
On one side, you have team owners like David Tepper of the Carolina Panthers, whose hedge fund has stakes in Caesars, MGM and Boyd Gaming. All three companies, of course, offer sports betting. League policy does not preclude team executives from having casino interests provided they’re not involved in operations, and the NFL vetted Tepper’s business to its satisfaction.
If Tepper wanted, he could partner his team with one of his casino investitures. The updates King cited allow teams to accept money from casinos and fantasy sports sites, even those involved in sports betting. Both FanDuel Sportsbook and DraftKings Sportsbook figure to be prime candidates for sponsorship nowadays, much as their parent companies were a few years ago.
On the other side, you have superstar athletes like Beckham who aren’t even allowed to attend promotional events at a casino. If, for example, FanDuel wanted to sponsor his New York Giants, it could. But OBJ wouldn’t be permitted to appear in marketing materials or promote the product at The Meadowlands.
Fan Expo might not have good grounds for its lawsuit, but its principal argument is still valid. The NFL needs to offer a clear and public stance regarding gambling associations.