How dumb do you have to be to get suspend for gambling in the NFL? The NFL and the league office are coming down HARD on players they’ve caught gambling as they’re set to dish out full yearlong suspensions for a handful of NFL players.
Well, I guess we all should have expected this when the restrictions on gambling were lifted.
The NFL and the league office have announced that they have been investigating Colts CB Isaiah Rodgers and a handful of additional, unnamed NFL players for gambling-related offenses and it’s been reported that these players are most likely going to face bans for the entire 2023 NFL season. And, seeing as how the NFL is slowly experiencing a gambling epidemic, this is the only move they can do to stop this from becoming a worse problem than it already is.
I really don’t know how these players can get caught and punished “illegally” gambling (by NFL standards) when the rules are super simple. Essentially, an NFL player/employee cannot 1. 1. “Betting on Football” (aka NFL games), 2. “Betting on Other Sports” if your anyone APART FROM a player, 3. “Game Fixing” or throwing games away, 4. “Best Effort”, 5. Inside Information and Tipping (aka: Insider Trading), 6. “Sportsbooks” or using Sportsbooks during the NFL season, 7. “Gambling in the Workplace or While Working”, and 8. “Gambling on Personal Time” or betting on other sports away from team facilities.
Now, this may seem kind of complicated, but it’s really not when you boil it down to: A. Don’t Bet On NFL Teams, B. Don’t Bet In Team Facilities, C. Don’t Bet On Sports If You’re A Non-Playing Employee, D. Throwing Away Games For Bets, And E. Don’t Give Out Inside Information To Anyone.
You know, super basic stuff that everyone should know not to do…unless you’re Isaiah Rodgers and the near dozen or so players who’ve already been suspended for the upcoming season.
Now, it’s not been specified what Rodgers or the other handful of unnamed (as of this moment) players being investigated did in terms of these rules, but the reports I’ve seen so far indicate these guys are going to be missing the entire 2023 NFL season for “illegally” gambling.
And, if that is what it’s going to take to stop this epidemic from spiraling out of control, then I applaud the NFL and the league office on this one.
As I said, the NFL has already had some major high-profile gambling scandals in just the past few years or so as former Falcons (and now Jaguars) WR Calvin Ridley was suspended the entire 2022 NFL season for gambling, Detroit Lions wide receivers Jameson Williams and Stanley Berryhill were suspended 6 games last year for gambling, Lions safety C.J. Moore and WR Quintez Cephus have been indefinitely suspended since last season for gambling, and Commanders D-lineman Shaka Toney has also been suspended indefinitely.
I mean, I get why these Lions players were gambling as there’s literally nothing else to do in Detroit, but a Washington Commanders player was also suspended indefinitely for gambling? What is the world coming to?
Okay, being serious, there’s now going to be at least five different organizations (Falcons, Jaguars, Lions, Commanders, and Colts) who will have suffered from these gambling incidents, and I doubt they’ll be the last ones if these unnamed players are revealed and suspended as well. And that’s obviously a major issue for the on-field product and reputation of the league.
The NFL has to come down harder than Dorothy’s House on the Wicked Witch of the East in the Wizard of Oz or else we’re going to see dozens of players every year go down with gambling suspensions.
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