If anyone had been betting on the league effectively communicating the do’s and don’ts of its gambling policy to NFL personnel, they would have been losing their shirts.
The league, frankly, has not done a very good job (and that’s putting it kindly) when it comes to making the rules as clear as they need to be. The eight-page gambling policy reads as if it was written by lawyers for lawyers. The in-person seminars from NFL Compliance employees delivered to the various teams are, we’ve heard, not very engaging or useful.
As one source put it, it’s a five-minute presentation that gets stretched into 45 minutes and confuses everything.
Ultimately, it feels like an effort not to truly educate players as to what they can and can’t do, but an H.R.-driven CYA exercise in harvesting proof that the players were given a copy of the policy or otherwise sat through the training. Even if it left them to some degree not fully and properly trained.
The league, on Thursday, took the message to NFL Network’s Good Morning Football, where NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller, who is ultimately responsible for health and safety and P.R., explained the rules. With all due respect, it was not nearly as clear as it should have been.
First, Miller flat-out omitted a pretty important distinction when it comes to players and non-players.
“If you could boil it down to two things that we would ask people to remember, whether it be coaches, players, whomever,” Miller said. “One, don’t bet on the NFL. Don’t bet a dollar. Don’t make a prop bet. Don’t bet on the draft. Forget it. Just don’t do it. And the second rule would be don’t bet when you’re at work. And that work includes traveling for work.”
At first, it seemed that Miller was perhaps referring only to the betting rules that apply to players. But then he was asked this question by co-host Jamie Erdahl.
“And this is not just a player thing?” she said. “Top to bottom. Trainers. People that work for the teams. Like, this is everybody?”
“This is everybody who touches the game,” Miller said. “Obviously, officials and coaches and players are the most evident.”
That’s just not accurate. Miller created the impression that non-players can bet while not at work. They absolutely, positively cannot.
That’s been the focal point of much of what we’ve written in recent days. Why let players bet while not at work if non-players aren’t allowed to do so?
Miller also failed to emphasize that player betting while away from work must also be legal betting. Players in states where gambling isn’t legal who hear, “Don’t bet when you’re at work” could plausibly think it’s fine to bet with a bookie.
But that’s EXACTLY how potential integrity issues can arise. If a player in California or Texans or Florida (three very large states where plenty of players live and/or work) starts: (1) betting with a bookie and (2) losing and (3) racking up a significant debt, Johnny Roast Beef might give the player a choice between getting his thumbs broken or sharing inside information.
Or missing a tackle. Or dropping a pass. Or fumbling the ball. Or throwing an interception.
Given the sky-high stakes, it’s astounding that the league has not done a better job of sending clear, unmistakable messages to players regarding the rules and the consequences for breaking them. And it remains confusing as to why the league lets players bet on any sports at any time.
The NFL controls the gambling policy. The NFL has the unilateral power to set the gambling rules. When does the league ever choose to give the players greater rights, when the league has no requirement to do so?
If anything, the league’s decision to let players bet on sports other than football when not at work has complicated their lives. It would be much, much easier to have a rule for players and non-players alike that there can never been any betting on sports.
It would be simple. It would be clear. It would be easy to explain.
It’s a change the NFL should consider, in large part because the league has not been able to figure out how to properly communicate anything more complicated than this -- do not bet on any sports at any time in any place.
