NFL players on gambling policy, suspensions: ‘That could have been any one of us’
Late last month, when Lions receiver Jameson Williams told reporters that until he was suspended by the NFL he had no idea he was in violation of the league’s gambling policy, the second-year pro’s self-professed naivete was met with more than a few eye-rolls.
Williams and teammate Stanley Berryhill, a fellow receiver, were the first two NFL players to be disciplined for violating the portion of the policy that prevents players from betting on other sports while on team property.
Williams and Berryhill, each suspended six games, were two of four Lions players whose discipline was announced by the league on April 21. Receiver Quintez Cephus, safety C.J. Moore and Washington Commanders defensive end Shaka Toney were each suspended indefinitely and can apply for reinstatement after the 2023 season. Berryhill, Cephus and Moore were all cut by Detroit after their suspensions were announced.
The Athletic reported that a fifth member of the 2022 Lions is currently under investigation for a potential violation of the gambling policy. ESPN reported that the league is investigating a “second wave of potential violations of its gambling policy.”
Mobile and online sports gambling is now legal in 21 states home to 15 NFL teams. The NFL has three official sports betting partners. Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones are investors in DraftKings, and owners voted this March to allow physical sports books to take bets at NFL stadiums.
The Athletic spent the last week interviewing NFL players around the league to ask what they know about the league’s gambling policy and found that four of the five players didn’t know they couldn’t place mobile bets on other sports while at work, the violation Williams and Berryhill were suspended for.
“I had no idea,” said a free agent with seven years of NFL experience. “I don’t think any player knows about that. That’s so specific. If players know about that, kudos to them.”
All five players knew they couldn’t bet on NFL action, but the rest of the details, the majority weren’t so sure about. Two of the five said that they have placed bets on other sports using mobile apps during their NFL careers.
“I thought that you couldn’t bet on anything during the NFL season,” said a nine-year NFL vet (in an incorrect reading of the NFL’s gambling policy). “I didn’t really look into it beyond that.”
“I don’t even know what the rule is, or when the rule changed or the fine print on what you can or can’t gamble on,” said a 10-year veteran.
The nine-year veteran said that last offseason he got into betting on golf tournaments using a mobile app registered under his own name. Before he placed his first bet, he checked with an NFLPA player rep to ask if he was okay to be doing that. The rep told him it was fine. He lost every bet he placed and has since deleted the app from his phone.
A year later, this player was still so unsure about the gambling policy that he asked The Athletic to double-check that betting on golf outside of work is actually allowed. (It is.)
The four players currently participating in the offseason programs said that they have received more information on the gambling policy from their coaches since the NFL announced the five player suspensions in April.
“They detailed the rule, and to that point I hadn’t been in many team meetings that they carved out time for it,” said the nine-year veteran. “It’s like a page in your training camp compliance meetings. They spend like four minutes on it.
“It’s like, yeah, don’t gamble on the NFL. You guys know this. Nobody spends time on it.”
The free-agent veteran player called Williams and Berryhill “sacrificial lambs.” All five players agreed that the NFL and the NFLPA need to do a better job at teaching the gambling policy to players, particularly in an environment where four teams have a sportsbook in their stadium or the immediate vicinity and the league has official partnerships with FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesar’s.
“I mean, New Orleans plays in the Caesars Superdome,” the nine-year veteran said. “I think it’s something that they’ve got to explicitly talk about.”
The Athletic granted each player anonymity to allow for honest conversation about a topic that has quickly become one of the most pressing issues of the offseason.
Do you gamble on sports?
Player 1, a seventh-year free agent: No. I’ll hear guys talking about gambling on basketball or take this spread, but I’ve stayed ignorant about it. I lowkey have an addictive personality. “Ooh, I can make a couple grand just by betting this?” It’s a hand in the cookie jar. It’s like a gateway drug.
Player 2, a ninth-year backup: Yeah, I like betting on golf. It would be like, if I was with a buddy, and we were watching golf on the weekend, we’d bet on who would win the tournament (on FanDuel). I don’t want to make it sound like a major part of my offseason, not to sound like a degenerate. I heard that these companies are giving the NFL all the data. Obviously, you have to sign up as yourself and they can pin your location. I’m sure they know who everybody is, in terms of if you play in the NFL or not.
Player 3, a 10th-year starter: The only time I’ve ever bet is when I’ve gone to the casino and play roulette. When I first came to the NFL, (sports betting) was super, super, super frowned upon. There wasn’t any gray area to what is possible and what’s not. When I first came to NFL, the NFL stayed far away from gambling, and gambling stayed far away from the NFL.
Player 4, a second-year practice squad player: Nope. I’m not risking it. Honestly, for real, like I have a fear of getting suspended before I even really get into my prime of playing. I don’t even want to test it.
Player 5, a fourth-year backup: My rookie year, I might have dabbled with some parlays during the NBA Finals, but not since then. I’ll go into the casino every now and then, but sports betting is not my thing. I was just giving away money. I lost about $500. I don’t think I won anything. They were all parlays, so it was win big or go home.
How did your team teach you about the policy? What did you know about it before the recent suspensions?
Player 1: They would talk about it the first day of camp or the first couple days of camp. Each day, they talk about new rules, so I’m assuming they talked about that, but there’s so much s— that they just cram in front of our face that it’s easy to get lost. After a long day of camp, then we have to have these evening meetings and go over this stuff. Do you think everyone’s minds are in the right place of like, “Oh, wow, I’m really thinking about gambling?” No, I’m thinking about practice and how I hope they don’t cut me.
Player 2: I know we’ve been educated on it since these last couple incidents. Calvin Ridley, the guys in Detroit, and a few others. I didn’t know the details and the fine print of the league gambling policy. There were little tweaks every year. … Obviously, I knew you couldn’t bet on the NFL. I thought that you couldn’t bet on anything during the NFL season. That was my interpretation of the rule. That just wasn’t coming up for me, so I didn’t really look into it beyond that.
Player 3: It comes up every year. I want to say either before training camp, like the first couple of days of training camp, or around maybe mandatory minicamp. They go through like the league policies, which is the security stuff, the rules. So they go over different domestic violence stuff, gambling stuff, that’s all part of a big two-to-three-hour admin information meeting.
Player 4: We talk to the NFLPA, and the NFLPA gives us rules and tells us not to gamble on the sport and what will happen if you do stuff. We really get all our guidelines and rules from the NFLPA, and Roger Goodell sending out his letters. I think we had one team meeting about it, but I really can’t remember. “Don’t gamble on the sport, because there will be consequences behind it.”
Player 5: We actually just had ours last week. And pretty much just went through the whole policy and protocol, kind of what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. All the policies and all the admin stuff is just a one-time meeting.
Has your team done more to educate you on the policy since the April suspensions?
Player 2: Yeah. At that point, (the head coach) said there’s another investigation. It’s a problem now with phones and how easy it is to do this. How many years ago was it that you could legally place bets on your phone?
Player 3: They put like, informative sheets in our locker. They just cleared up the rules, and that may have come from the PA. I didn’t really look at it. I don’t sports bet, so it didn’t have any relevance to me.
Player 4: I remember my position coach saying something. He told us not to bet or anything on sports, don’t even put ourselves in a bad spot.
Player 5: They’ve definitely clarified it a lot more with the material they gave us. Everything was pretty much the same from last year, they just made a bigger deal with the whole gambling thing in general. They threw some examples out there and said they can track the platforms, like track logins and locations, so you get caught digitally now.
Did you know that players are not allowed to place a sports bet on team property, which includes places like team planes and hotels?
Player 1: I don’t recall seeing (signs that said) no gambling on team property. … I’m pretty sure a lot of guys have actually broken that rule.
Player 2: No. I didn’t know you can bet on other sports outside of anything team-related like any team facility or anything? I guess that’s legal. That’s what I found out.
Player 3: When I came into the NFL, it wasn’t even possible to bet from the facility. That wasn’t something that was actually possible until like the last four to five years as more states have legalized it. Do you go to the app store and just download these apps? It is not something that I’ve ever done because it was super illegal. It wasn’t in a gray area where you can get an app, and you can bet on sports from here or from there. That never existed.
What do you think about the six-game suspensions for betting on non-NFL action on team property?
Player 1: That’s bogus because straight up, that’s not talked about like that. That could have been any one of us. They might have talked about it for a brief second, but do you know the player was present at the time you guys talked about that? “Oh, well it’s in the handbook.” So you’re gonna tell a player to read 1,000 pages of nonsense and to recall everything? … You could make the argument for everybody, because people are betting during rivalry week — Florida is playing Florida State, Ohio State vs. Michigan — everyone is betting on that. Could all those guys get in trouble?
Player 2: I understand where the league has gotten themselves into a little bit of a quagmire here, because 10 years ago, gambling or any kind of talk like that was forbidden. But now, the sponsorships, and how big sports gambling got, they eventually had to embrace it a little bit, but then they’ve got to make sure it doesn’t leak into the player and coach side as best they can. So they’ve got their hands full with this going forward.
Player 3: I believe players are being stupid, but I do think that the NFLPA can do a better job of addressing the situation and just kind of clearing it up for athletes, coming out and making a clear statement saying like, this is what you can or can’t do. Because obviously, people are going to bet regardless. That’s pretty clear with what we’re seeing. So I think it’s on the NFL, I think it is on the NFLPA — and I also just think it’s on guys not being smart.
Player 4: Obviously, you tell us not to bet on our sport. We get that. But if somebody gets in trouble for betting on another sport, I don’t think they made that clear enough for players. … We play football, and I think we should have the right to do what we want with our money. You’re trying to take money from somebody that’s doing something with their money to make more money — and it’s not in a bad way, either.
Player 5: I do think a lot of people benefit from (gambling) in our league that don’t share — they don’t allow the players to. But I get it, it keeps guys safe. It keeps football the focus. We’re employees, so at the end of the day they call the shots.
How have you seen the league’s relationship with gambling evolve over the course of your career?
Player 1: This is literally transforming right in front of all of us as we speak.
Player 2: You can’t watch a sporting event on TV without a FanDuel or Pointsbet commercial, and a lot of times there are athletes advertising it. It’s been normalized so much in society that it’s inevitable it’s gonna leak into sports in terms of having to address it with players and coaches. If you wanted to gamble 10 years ago, you had to go through some bookie, I’m sure. You really had to want to gamble. Now, the way it is marketed — and the access is so easy — it’s crazy.
Player 5: I didn’t realize how many NFL owners are part of the sports betting business. My coach was telling us the role they played. It’s just wild. That owners are making money, and they own some of those sports betting platforms.
How much is social gambling a part of the locker room culture?
Player 1: There’s a specific niche of people in the locker room. Some of these guys are just so damn rich, they just need to burn some money. No kids, no family, you’re making two, three million a year, and then get your money all at once, and then your alma mater is playing and it’s like, “Hey, let’s put down 10 grand on this.”
Player 2: Guys are more interested in casinos.
Player 3: I did start to see (sports gambling) becoming more popular about four years ago. I started to see more people speak on betting more openly.
Player 5: People gamble for sure. It’s a locker room full of competitors who love to win. And that doesn’t stop, you know, off the field. Guys got money. You can find a bunch of different games in different locker rooms.
Player 1: Guys were playing dice in the locker room, and things heated up and someone threw a punch. … A player got popped in the jaw! I witnessed it happen, and I was like, “This is why I don’t gamble. This is why I don’t want to deal with any of you guys.”
NFL agent Peter Schaffer said the first time he received a copy of the league’s gambling policy was in April, when the NFLPA circulated it to agents in an email on the same day that the league announced the five player suspensions. Another veteran agent said he’d also never read the policy before then.
“It is unconscionable that the NFL is disciplining players for doing things that are completely legal in our society,” Schaffer told The Athletic. “The policy is ambiguous, and the education is nonexistent.”
Both agents said that since the April suspensions, they have heard from players confessing they now know they’ve violated the league’s gambling policy.
“I have a player who has said to me, I bet from the facility, $3 or $5 bets on other sports,” said the second veteran agent, who asked for and was granted anonymity so his client could not be identified.
“He said, ‘What do I do?’ I said, ‘Don’t volunteer anything. But if somebody asks you, you have to be honest. They likely have evidence.'”
The second agent assembled a graphic to send to his players, an easier-to-digest format than the league’s arcane five-page document. The Athletic spoke to five more NFL agents frustrated with the recent suspensions who think that the players’ union isn’t doing enough to push back on the length of the six-game suspensions for betting on non-NFL action while at work, as the league’s gambling policy is not collectively bargained.
“It is going to be a big problem around the league because a lot of players are gamblers,” another agent granted anonymity said in a text message. “I haven’t heard of a player gambling on an NFL game, but pretty much everything else.”
The NFLPA did not respond to a request for comment.
During his interview, the 10-year veteran asked a question about the recent player suspensions: “Which guys have been north of five or six years in the league?” The answer: none. Williams and Berryhill entered the NFL in 2022, Toney in 2021, Cephus in 2020 and Moore in 2019.
“It makes so much sense,” he said. “These guys — kids, whatever you want to call them — they’re the first generation of athletes to have sports betting actually at their disposal coming into the game. I definitely can see how this early wave of people are younger players.
“I don’t think it’s something that ever is going to stop,” the veteran player continued. “It’s going to come down to how many people are getting caught.”
(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic;
