Mike Florio ,
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Last week was filled with bad optics, when it comes to the intersection of sports and gambling.
On Wednesday, the NCAA Division II and Division III management councils joined Division I in allowing college athletes to bet on pro sports . A day later, a sweeping federal indictment caused all hell to break loose.
On Tuesday, the NCAA’s Division I board voted to delay the effective date of the new policy from November 1 to November 22, per Sports Business Journal .
Previously, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey urged the NCAA to reverse the decision to allow college athletes to bet on pro sports.
It’s unclear at this point whether the rule will be scrapped. The NFL should hope it happens, if the NFL is truly concerned about the integrity of the game.
College football players have friends and former teammates in the NFL. Given the difficulty in preventing NFL players from picking up the phone and sharing inside information with friends and former teammates, it will be very easy for college athletes to get access to facts not generally known. Those facts can easily become the basis for an unfairly informed wager.
Also, it will become much harder to the NFL to deprogram incoming players who have been permitted to make NFL-related wagers.
Of course, the sportsbooks will favor (even if they’d never admit it) allowing college athletes to bet on pro sports. In the era of NIL and direct compensation, college athletes have the kind of disposable income that can be leveraged into significant gambling losses.
Why else would NFL let its players bet on sports other than pro football? Young men with excess cash and an inclination to compete at anything/everything become easy marks. Which become raw profit for the sportsbooks.
Throw in the fact that NFL owners can own up to five percent of any company that operates a sportsbook, and it makes even more sense to let players with piles of spare cash bet. While it may turn out to be very bad for the game, letting athletes chase easy money by losing money on their sportsbook apps could end up being very good for business.
Big Shield combines gambling, pro football, and the mob into a cautionary tale regarding inside information, and the dangers that come from selling it.
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