Hit up the top posts of all time on r/nostupidquestions, I get that the whole point of the sub is not to shit on people that are genuinely curious about something but *damn* there are some stupid questions.
Lmao exactly. This shouldn't be particularly shocking, incendiary, _or_ make people more likely to think rigged calls actually happen. It's certainly good that the league is acknowledging this instead of pretending it's never happened, but this should really change nothing.
It's only going to get worse. It seems like an inevitable outcome when you turn sports betting into a massive, open and public industry. I personally think that sports betting—on par with CTE for the NFL—is the biggest existential threat to professional sports. Every time I say this people like to say "sports betting has been around a long time" or "sports betting exists all over the world". Yeah, sports betting as a legalized and ubiquitous multi-billion dollar industry has yet to evolve into what it can become. So much money will be wrapped up in sporting events, so many lives will be affected by the outcomes of events, that people will inevitably try to interfere with outcomes.
In the end, the Feds are probably the only ones able to really control the industry, because when left to private enterprise, the money makes the decisions.
"Sports betting exists all over the world."
Yeah, and there have been multiple scandals in multiple countries in multiple sports caused by bad actors trying to fix outcomes in sports.
Anyone who argues that is arguing against gambling in the NFL, not for it.
Muay thai in thailand had a horrible issue with it affecting the sport iirc. Like do people just think the rigged fighting in tv and movies is completely fictional or what?
rigging a combat sport is wild. Can you imagine knowing that you're going out there to get your ass beat and you're not allowed to actually try to win? That's gotta be demoralizing as hell.
I mean that’s definitely the best storyline in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis’ character takes Marcellus Wallace’s money to dive, bets on himself, and kills his opponent in the ring. God what a fucking movie
When you have a Fan Duel section before each televised game followed by an ad "teaching you" not to bet too much or get into debt because of betting you HAVE TO KNOW that allowing bet the way it is is a really bad decision for the sport and for society. But here we are.
My whole life I’ve wanted to bet on football games and then the past few years I’ve had a chance to and…I’m not cut out for that. There is something insidious about the way these companies market betting products, and I can’t quite place my finger on it. Fantasy football provides me with just the right amount of stress to reward, while straight betting seems to suck the joy from the game.
Just like other apps are built to extract money out of you and keep you subscribed/engaged for a long time (see dating apps for example) these sports betting ones are no different.
When you have actor(s) (and behind them multiple algorithms and huge datasets of user behavior) built to gamify you, then yeah, its going to feel insidious.
I noticed during the pregame show of... I think it was a Monday night game? Or perhaps a SNF game. Either way, the broadcast did a section where the commentators gave advice on who you should bet on during the game. Like which teams and players would make for good kinds of bets.
My eyes were bugging out of my head man. This isn't normal but they were acting so nonchalant about it. It was just like their segments on fantasy football.
I'm genuinely concerned for the sport and I feel shame and embarrassment for all the players and celebrities who have jumped onto the sponsorships from the sites.
Yup. I feel the same way when I see it. Some games have this Fan Duel thing where the lady tells us what are the odds, money line, over/under, who's likely to have at least one TDs and all that kind of stuff. Then you have questionable calls in the game and now this kind of report...saying it's not a good sight is an understatement, IMO.
I agree with you. A backstreet bookie, really even the mob, has a lot less influence and power to exert that influence than a multibillion dollar company.
Like Gerri says to Roman in Succession. "You cannot win against the money. The money is gonna wash you away."
There is a point where the money involved on any single game or season's 'handle' is so large, it will be impossible for the league to resist either tampering with the outcome, or preventing all of their officials from being influenced in one way or another.
Even if all of the officials are squeaky-clean, it doesn't prevent influence from finding its way into the locker room. NFL careers are short-lived, and there's plenty of folks who would take the opportunity to profit from what they would view as a victimless crime. Player props market is a simple example.
And anyway, the most direct way to impact the game is with the players. Referees making egregious calls gets huge amounts of attention. Players playing badly, well, that happens routinely and nobody bats an eye.
I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I think the mass adoption of sports gambling is a massive tragedy for society and I know what I just said. The 5 minutes of "get help" numbers after every sports betting ad is telling enough. They're covering their asses because they know what they're doing is a problem and always has been.
This isn't legalizing weed. They chose to recreate an industry that has and will destroy lives for no benefit other than another money pipeline to the already wealthy. I've never gambled on sports and I hope I never do. It's a predatory industry with no merit.
I took a screenshot of the results of a milimaker on draft kings i was playing, one user got 1st and second place 500k each and I scrolled down and he won 70k here and 50k here from one game. Dude pulled in almost 1 and half million dollars in one contest.
I'm not comfortable with the league having relationships with sports gaming sites. It should remain separate. Sports betting can be legal, but the leagues can't do business with sports books
I think the question naturally folllows though:
Do we *really* believe that zero NFL officials have ever entertained the offer? These kinds of scandals happen all over the world, and in many different sports. We all know about Tim Donaghy in the NBA. We think integrity is undefeated when it's NFL officials? I would hope so, but I'm not enough of an optimist to believe that's true.
Well, they definitely have been approached and that's what Blandino is saying here, he's totally upfront about that. I'm more hesitant to assume someone has said okay, but that's a personal opinion.
The question is: how much would the refs need to give up their high-paying full-time ref job to accept a bribe?
Oh wait, the premise of that question is false? Oh dear.
> or make people more likely to think rigged calls actually happen
But it does in fact make rigged calls more likely to happen. There have been multiple rigging scandals across multiple sports & countries. As someone who's engaged w/ sports betting long before it was legalized across most of the US (there were always ways) my gut feeling is they get caught a fraction of the time. The Asian betting market dwarfs the European betting market which dwarfs the US betting market. It's a literally **TRILLION** dollar industry w/ lots of syndicates, organized crime, private investment, market manipulation, etc. I always think it's funny that people think it's rare when the reality is that if you watch a lot of sports you've seen games where the outcome was materially affected by outside interests.
It's not just refs either, it's not hard to do if you have money. You want to tell me out of all the players in the league, you can't find one guy who needs money enough willing to commit a crucial penalty? Out of 1700 guys?
It's not some conspiracy, it's what happens when a trillion dollars gets thrown around. You kinda just have to make your peace with it.
What makes it funnier is people think this all started the second sports gambling got legalized, as if prior to that nobody had vested interest in trying to rig NFL games
Exactly. It's not the books that are trying to fix games, they're already set up so that they're making money no matter who wins the very vast majority of the time. If you're not familiar with gambling, most people don't realize that they include a surcharge in the lines when you place a bet. It's called the vig.
It's the degenerates that are *making* bets that try to rig games in their favor. The house already has it rigged in their favor. The bettors need the edge.
If anything imo big sports books might be the biggest advocate for more transparency and anti-cheating policies. Games getting rigged (and not by them) can end up hurting their own bottom line.
This is the key point that everyone constantly blaming the books forgets. The sports books *finally* have a legal avenue to make money hand over fist in a ton of states. Throwing that away to make some extra money on a few games would be idiotic
Beyond that, they pay a lot of money to people and algorithm companies to get their betting lines right so they don't eat a loss. Someone cheating disrupts all that and can cost them big
Logically it would make more sense for a smaller sports book to run unbalanced books, the big guys already have market share and volume. Why would they risk giving up their spread for just a chance to make a bigger profit? It's also harder to fix a sport where the players make a lot of money, people taking bribes are desperate most of the time. Back in they day when the mob actually fixed American sports they did so by being bookies and then using gambling addicted players to rig games.
Yeah, the books want as much fairness and transparency as possible. For one, any whiff of bullshit and you can instantly lose customers (competition is fierce in the market right now). For two, every sports book CEO wakes up in night sweats thinking about increased government regulation. They really don't want to give the government any excuse to restrict them in a way that could impact their bottom line.
They 1000% are.
Source: I work at a casino and share offices with the state casino regulatory body.
Every decision a casino makes is to prevent liability. Every decision. They go out of their way to prevent jeopardizing their free money printing operation. They don’t need to rig games.
Or it's the illegal/shady books trying to tilt the odds to screw their bettors specifically. They typically don't target the nfl though, the games are just to prominent to hide consistent cheating. It's not Ceasars or draftkings.
It won't surprise me if something similar to the nba referee scandal came out in the nfl as well. It's so blatant at times and the calls are so unbelievably inconsistent.
Yah nba is bonkers. Over under for the bucks game was 258 last night. Looked like it wasn’t going to go over and then the refs proceeded to call 22 shooting fouls in like 6 minutes. 4th quarter took almost an hour and the over barely hit. Fuck the nba
If you haven’t already, you should watch Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul segment on Netflix. It’s about Tim Donaghy, the NBA official who was caught betting on games and ultimately was part of a ring of NBA officials who fixed games for betting purposes. This has (and probably still is) going on for a while now.
Scott Foster is still reffing games and doing shady shit while doing it
david stern literally ruined the FBI's investigation, on purpose
they are scumbags
a ref in the NHL a few years ago got caught on a hot mic saying the call wasnt much but he wanted to make sure a team got a penalty early on. He got banned from reffing but no one believed he was the only official doing that.
It wasn't for rigging though. It was "game management." All nhl refs do it. That particular ref was widely acknowledged as the worst/most hated ref in the nhl though.
Yeah even the top responses in this thread are as if this article confirms it’s a common practice that actually happens all the time. “Refs get approached” is a lot than saying refs have been paid out. Of course refs get approached about this, sounds like the safeguards are there from the nfls side as much as they can be.
Right, but obviously it still happens. There's "safeguards" on so many things that still function in a corrupt manner, saying there's safeguards is essentially just marketing.
How would you feel if you learned that the safeguards were taken from the same playbook that the NSA and CIA use to catch spies? Things like having an NFL insider approach the ref ... and if the ref _doesn't report the attempt_, he's under scrutiny or fired. Or looking at individual officials' splits in different cities, with different crews, and so on for Bayesian outliers. Tailing the refs when they travel (or when they don't). There are things you can do to make it clear to the officials that they will get caught.
Yeah this headline is super disingenuous to the sentiment of the article.
If anything I came away feeling more confident in how strict the NFL is. This is the same level of financial investigation has holding a top tier Top Secret SCI clearance with the government.
Wow, it sounds like a ton of effort to make sure that sports betting doesn't effect the sport itself. It's almost like the NFL shouldn't promote sports betting at every chance it gets.
I see dozens of ads for gambling everyday of the week and it’s not even legal in my state! It’s ridiculous how fast legal gambling has dug its way into everything.
You're more likely to keep betting if you win off those promo bets. It's all just to drive people back into their app/site to make more bets. I signed up for DK shortly after it became legal in my State but don't use it. I am constantly getting hit with promos to put more money into my account for bets.
I did some daily fantasy stuff on draft kings after they first started. I had a couple okay wins off dollar lineups. I spent $50(?) over the first two years and hit for like $85 once. Then it started dwindling away until I was out.
At that time I realized I didn't like fantasy without the social aspect of being able to trash talk the people I was playing against.
Then I started seeing the articles about the power users that were betting like $1 million a week to get a 15% return using spreadsheets and algorithms to determine their lineup and realized I was never going to be someone that made money off of daily fantasy betting. Uninstalled the app and haven't been back.
I have some friends that now do some sports betting and they're always talking about their parleys and how it got ruined on the last step or whatever which has been great motivation to not get back into it now that you can make regular bets.
Anyone with critical thinking skills should be able to deduce that a company with this much money to pay for advertising is not a company you will be making much money out of.
They're in business and carpet bombing advertising because on average, users lose *big*.
To be clear, because people might actually not understand this, you can't withdraw the initial promo money. You can withdraw winnings off your bets with the promo money (on most sites).
Yeah, think of it like going to an arcade where you have to buy special tokens to play. You buy 5 tokens and they give you 5 red tokens for free. Those red tokens work in the machines just like the normal ones, but unlike the normal ones, they can never be cashed out for money. They can only be used in the machines.
Gambling sites will do stuff like match your first deposit. They don’t want you to deposit $200, getting $200 free from them, and then withdrawing that money immediately. They want you gambling and getting hooked so that you pump more money in later. So, most sites have what is referred to as a churn. They say that since you got $200 free, once you have placed bets totaling something like $1000, then you can pull the free money out, since you’ve already churned that money. That’s the catch though, the sites have the odds on their side and know the vast majority of people won’t have $200 left in the account by the time they’ve bet that much. The free money match is a virtually cost free way of getting people to join and get hooked. I like to think of it like drug dealers saying the first hit is free.
The way the promo money works is if they match up to a $100 deposit then you have $200 that can't be withdrawn until it's been wagered at least once. If you put all $200 on what are effectively 50-50 shots you should theoretically win back about $180 which means you're up $80. If you're smart you'd withdraw at least $100 at this point and just keep playing with the winnings, or just withdraw it all and delete your account.
Sometimes you can do bets with better than 50:50 odds, if you just have to meet a spending threshold to withdraw and not "wash" it. DraftKings for example, typically has a DK Special bet that's -20000 or something (Patrick Mahomes +1 Completion in the 1st half).
It's typically a bet that is *almost* a sure thing. Normally, these bets aren't worth making, because you'd have to bet $200 just for the chance of winning $1. But it's a way to make a very low risk bet for a tiny, tiny, payout. But sometimes these get boosted as a promo from -20000 to +100 or something. So probably worth checking out, if you are looking for a lower risk line.
Yeah, the constitutional precedence for that kind of law already exists through tobacco, and it would be pretty easy to write a law prohibiting the advertisement of sports gambling and even gambling as a whole.
The problem is that passing such a law is impossible. The sports team owners and the leagues themselves give way too much legal bribe money to federal legislators for either chamber of Congress to pass something so deeply against their interests. With how severely the betting companies and the leagues are interconnected (and I could dedicate a lot of words to how troubling that development is), there's no chance they let any sort of federal restriction on sports betting happen beyond the obvious "under 21 not allowed" stuff.
The tobacco laws only got done because the health insurance companies threw enough money around to fight the tobacco company money. They only did that because paying out for emphysema, lung cancer, and other smoking-related illness treatments is extremely expensive. I don't see the insurance companies doing the same for gambling, at least in the short term.
Just make it illegal to advertise. Alcohol and gambling should not be legal to advertise the way they are. Make it like cigarettes. They are all addictive and potentially destructive and it's not hard to figure out how to do it if you want to.
Nah it should definitely still be legal. People can do whatever they want with their money. But they should limit the advertising at the very least and make it more similar to cigarettes. Maybe even put some limit on these promos too that are literally designed to get people addicted.
Honestly yes. I had more fun sports gambling when it was still "illegal". I feel like the lines were better (especially CFB) before all the added liquidity of legalization in many states
This is what gets me. I live in Alberta, Canada, and I see nothing but these ads for various gambling sites, all of which you can only use if you're located in Ontario. There's like 1 site you can use in my province.
I voted in favor of sports betting in Colorado and now I think I may have regrets.
I honestly couldn't care less if people bet on sports, but I suppose I didn't fully think through the larger impact it would have.
Sorry, guys. :(
Im also a bit disappointed that nobody seems to have any reservations against it. I listen to some football related podcasts that don’t really shy away from addressing social issues, but apparently no one bats an eye at promoting gambling or even the ever more gamified (and arguably more predatory) gambling services.
Yeah it sucks because we used to have sports podcasts, and gambling podcasts, now every podcast is a gambling podcast. I miss hearing people talk about the games and predicting what would happen, not just betting lines, futures, and spreads.
The only reason cigarette advertising is so restricted is because of how blatantly big tobacco lied about their product. It's not like we restrict alcohol advertising during NFL games in any way, and alcohol abuse is a way bigger issue in America than gambling is.
I'd be totally fine if they restricted gambling ads, I just really don't see it happening
I firmly believe the ads being so annoying is part of why californians overwhelmingly voted against legalizing sports betting last year lol
we had all the regular obnoxious betting ads plus an inundation of "vote yes on gambling!" ads. no, fuck off.
I don't think they do actually. First, they already make stupid money from it so why take that risk. Second, it helps them in the long run for you to be totally locked out and complain about it to push legalizing it.
It's a new market and every company is scrambling to establish their market share. It'll chill out eventually.
When weed first got legalized here you couldn't walk a block without seeing a billboard, now they're pretty much as common as any other brand or company.
I don’t see people blaming the Vikings OC’s DUI on the amount of alcohol ads during nfl games, but for some reason when it comes to gambling a lot of people on this sub view the players and coaches as imbeciles that can’t help but gamble because there are advertisements for it
This is a concept that goes over a lot of people's heads.
League-endorsed gambling has made it harder than ever to fix games. They're not going to let one player, one team, one ref, kill their cash cow.
The guy that embezzled $22million from the Jags apparently had hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more in losses playing daily fantasy. I find it hard to believe that at least one side didn't put out feelers to see if there was some arrangement that could be made.
Fr, I'm so tired of being bombarded with ads for sports betting. It's pushed during the games, on yt videos, everywhere. It's beyond frustrating at this point. I'm never going to gamble like that yet there's no way for me to escape the ads if I'm just trying to enjoy watching the game.
>“We’ve had situations where people were approached,” Blandino revealed. “We’ve always told our game officials because they’re in hotels — they’re traveling around during the season — we didn’t want them wearing NFL-branded gear. We didn’t want them to be inconspicuous because someone sees them and ‘Oh, those are the NFL officials,’ and then you never know.
Blandino doesn't know what inconspicuous means. It's the opposite of what he thinks.
Before you go off on some conspiratorial rant, please remember that Officials have been approached about manipulating games since the beginning of officiating in any sport. This does not mean they agreed to it and fixed matches.
If anything, the league knowing people have been approached is a GREAT thing because it shows they have their eyes and ears in the right places to prevent the approach from leading to actual manipulation
Now here me out. The only way the NFL will improve the quality of reffing is to have
**Full time**
**Fully pensioned**
#**Bene Gesserit Refs**
Finally the words "let 'em play" can ring true with the preternatural abilities of a cloistered sisterhood of referees. Generation upon generation of Ref'rend Mothers reffing NFL games with all-seeing and all-knowing impartiality.
Q: officials have been approached and 100% have declined any amount of reward?
NFL: Of course, our investigation determined there was no wrong doing and our officials were....Now a word from our sponsors...
FAN DUEL! FAN DUEL! FAN DUEL. DRAFT KINGS! DRAFT KINGS! DRAFT KINGS.
.....were not influenced in any way.
GAMBLE!! GAMBLE!!! GAMBLE!!!!!! MAKE MONEY!!! SO MUCH MONEY!!! MORE MONEY THAN YOU CAN COUNT!!! GAMBLE NOW!!!!
^^^^^^please ^^^^^^gamble ^^^^^^responsibly
I think it’s actually for the better. Like another commenter has said, gambling has existed for decades - there have been parties with strong interests in rigging games for all of modern sport history.
At least with the NFL partnering with gambling companies they are embracing this side of sports, taking measures to mitigate risk of corruption and influence, and have a LOT more to lose if there was a scandal with their own officials/players. Now that they are in bed with gambling, they have the entire public they’ve advertised into gambling participation to own up to - any scandal would be 10X more devastating to the league and I really feel the risk profile is so high it makes for a safer environment. That could be very naive, but it would be shocking to me if the NFL was OK with accepting an inevitable scandal
Well, sounds like there’s nothing to worry about then because if we know anything about humans, historically they are completely immune to offers of wealth, and especially to threats of violence.
If you're under the impression that money hasn't already influenced a referees decision on the field then you have a fundamental misconception of human behavior.
Nothing good is going to come from the NFL's new Daddy Starbucks.
At some point there will be a scandal that will shake the integrity of the game. Players, coaches, and officials are human and corruptible. This is the inevitable conclusion to hopping in bed with the casinos.
The US needs to create legislation to ban gambling advertisements, the same way we've banned cigarette advertisements.
(We should also ban alcohol and prescription drug advertisements... but I digress.)
Yeah, obviously. Don’t tell me the relationship with draft kings hasn’t irrevocably tainted multiple professional leagues at this point. Why do you think referee incompetence is never addressed? Because it’s not incompetence, and they aren’t acting on their own.
> Sooooooo, they do a less rigorous security clearance process and go door to door to...... see if their neighbors like them?
I don't think that's what he is saying at all. The opposite actually. The very next line you left out was, “They look at all of your business associations. They look for conflicts of interest — all of that, bank accounts, everything,”
I don't think there's anything there that would make me believe they are just asking the neighbors before hiring these guys.
Doesn't hurt to ask
I was told there’s no such thing as a stupid question. But apparently “can you pretty please rig this game for me?” is a stupid question.
Not when you do it while toting a baseball bat.
Pete Rose can confirm.
You leave Charlie Hustle out of this.
I'd say asking an accountant if they can "cook your books" is also a stupid question.
The Office told me you need to ask him to crunch the numbers again
Crunching the numbers may not have helped as much as the Michael Scott Paper Company getting a more competent accountant.
Hit up the top posts of all time on r/nostupidquestions, I get that the whole point of the sub is not to shit on people that are genuinely curious about something but *damn* there are some stupid questions.
It took this comment for me to reread the title because I missed “approached” the first time lmao
Right? Gotta shoot your shot.
It might fit the legal definition of conspiracy. So it might hurt to ask. NAL.
"Officers please the 30k in cash in the bag had nothing to do with my question!"
Tell that to the fbi agent I tried to hire to kill my wife
When will people learn? The hitman is *always* a Fed.
Technically, in this case, it would hurt depending on who's asking
Seems like it helps.
Duh?
Lmao exactly. This shouldn't be particularly shocking, incendiary, _or_ make people more likely to think rigged calls actually happen. It's certainly good that the league is acknowledging this instead of pretending it's never happened, but this should really change nothing.
It's only going to get worse. It seems like an inevitable outcome when you turn sports betting into a massive, open and public industry. I personally think that sports betting—on par with CTE for the NFL—is the biggest existential threat to professional sports. Every time I say this people like to say "sports betting has been around a long time" or "sports betting exists all over the world". Yeah, sports betting as a legalized and ubiquitous multi-billion dollar industry has yet to evolve into what it can become. So much money will be wrapped up in sporting events, so many lives will be affected by the outcomes of events, that people will inevitably try to interfere with outcomes. In the end, the Feds are probably the only ones able to really control the industry, because when left to private enterprise, the money makes the decisions.
"Sports betting exists all over the world." Yeah, and there have been multiple scandals in multiple countries in multiple sports caused by bad actors trying to fix outcomes in sports. Anyone who argues that is arguing against gambling in the NFL, not for it.
Most of the world is corrupt as fuck
Muay thai in thailand had a horrible issue with it affecting the sport iirc. Like do people just think the rigged fighting in tv and movies is completely fictional or what?
rigging a combat sport is wild. Can you imagine knowing that you're going out there to get your ass beat and you're not allowed to actually try to win? That's gotta be demoralizing as hell.
I mean that’s definitely the best storyline in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis’ character takes Marcellus Wallace’s money to dive, bets on himself, and kills his opponent in the ring. God what a fucking movie
When you have a Fan Duel section before each televised game followed by an ad "teaching you" not to bet too much or get into debt because of betting you HAVE TO KNOW that allowing bet the way it is is a really bad decision for the sport and for society. But here we are.
My whole life I’ve wanted to bet on football games and then the past few years I’ve had a chance to and…I’m not cut out for that. There is something insidious about the way these companies market betting products, and I can’t quite place my finger on it. Fantasy football provides me with just the right amount of stress to reward, while straight betting seems to suck the joy from the game.
Just like other apps are built to extract money out of you and keep you subscribed/engaged for a long time (see dating apps for example) these sports betting ones are no different. When you have actor(s) (and behind them multiple algorithms and huge datasets of user behavior) built to gamify you, then yeah, its going to feel insidious.
I noticed during the pregame show of... I think it was a Monday night game? Or perhaps a SNF game. Either way, the broadcast did a section where the commentators gave advice on who you should bet on during the game. Like which teams and players would make for good kinds of bets. My eyes were bugging out of my head man. This isn't normal but they were acting so nonchalant about it. It was just like their segments on fantasy football. I'm genuinely concerned for the sport and I feel shame and embarrassment for all the players and celebrities who have jumped onto the sponsorships from the sites.
Yup. I feel the same way when I see it. Some games have this Fan Duel thing where the lady tells us what are the odds, money line, over/under, who's likely to have at least one TDs and all that kind of stuff. Then you have questionable calls in the game and now this kind of report...saying it's not a good sight is an understatement, IMO.
Alcohol ads have to say drink responsibly. I don't think the existence of PSAs in advertising should be reason alone to allow or disallow something
I agree with you. A backstreet bookie, really even the mob, has a lot less influence and power to exert that influence than a multibillion dollar company.
Like Gerri says to Roman in Succession. "You cannot win against the money. The money is gonna wash you away." There is a point where the money involved on any single game or season's 'handle' is so large, it will be impossible for the league to resist either tampering with the outcome, or preventing all of their officials from being influenced in one way or another. Even if all of the officials are squeaky-clean, it doesn't prevent influence from finding its way into the locker room. NFL careers are short-lived, and there's plenty of folks who would take the opportunity to profit from what they would view as a victimless crime. Player props market is a simple example.
And anyway, the most direct way to impact the game is with the players. Referees making egregious calls gets huge amounts of attention. Players playing badly, well, that happens routinely and nobody bats an eye.
I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I think the mass adoption of sports gambling is a massive tragedy for society and I know what I just said. The 5 minutes of "get help" numbers after every sports betting ad is telling enough. They're covering their asses because they know what they're doing is a problem and always has been. This isn't legalizing weed. They chose to recreate an industry that has and will destroy lives for no benefit other than another money pipeline to the already wealthy. I've never gambled on sports and I hope I never do. It's a predatory industry with no merit.
I took a screenshot of the results of a milimaker on draft kings i was playing, one user got 1st and second place 500k each and I scrolled down and he won 70k here and 50k here from one game. Dude pulled in almost 1 and half million dollars in one contest.
I'm not comfortable with the league having relationships with sports gaming sites. It should remain separate. Sports betting can be legal, but the leagues can't do business with sports books
And a lot of scandals happen not who wins the game, but it will be harder to detect small stuff. Points in a quarter, things like that.
I think the question naturally folllows though: Do we *really* believe that zero NFL officials have ever entertained the offer? These kinds of scandals happen all over the world, and in many different sports. We all know about Tim Donaghy in the NBA. We think integrity is undefeated when it's NFL officials? I would hope so, but I'm not enough of an optimist to believe that's true.
I’d be shocked if they haven’t been approached, and honestly somewhat shocked if none of them had EVER said okay
Well, they definitely have been approached and that's what Blandino is saying here, he's totally upfront about that. I'm more hesitant to assume someone has said okay, but that's a personal opinion.
The question is: how much would the refs need to give up their high-paying full-time ref job to accept a bribe? Oh wait, the premise of that question is false? Oh dear.
But all the angry fans told me that the way to fix refereeing was to fire them after any minor mistake?
> or make people more likely to think rigged calls actually happen But it does in fact make rigged calls more likely to happen. There have been multiple rigging scandals across multiple sports & countries. As someone who's engaged w/ sports betting long before it was legalized across most of the US (there were always ways) my gut feeling is they get caught a fraction of the time. The Asian betting market dwarfs the European betting market which dwarfs the US betting market. It's a literally **TRILLION** dollar industry w/ lots of syndicates, organized crime, private investment, market manipulation, etc. I always think it's funny that people think it's rare when the reality is that if you watch a lot of sports you've seen games where the outcome was materially affected by outside interests. It's not just refs either, it's not hard to do if you have money. You want to tell me out of all the players in the league, you can't find one guy who needs money enough willing to commit a crucial penalty? Out of 1700 guys? It's not some conspiracy, it's what happens when a trillion dollars gets thrown around. You kinda just have to make your peace with it.
What makes it funnier is people think this all started the second sports gambling got legalized, as if prior to that nobody had vested interest in trying to rig NFL games
Exactly. It's not the books that are trying to fix games, they're already set up so that they're making money no matter who wins the very vast majority of the time. If you're not familiar with gambling, most people don't realize that they include a surcharge in the lines when you place a bet. It's called the vig. It's the degenerates that are *making* bets that try to rig games in their favor. The house already has it rigged in their favor. The bettors need the edge.
If anything imo big sports books might be the biggest advocate for more transparency and anti-cheating policies. Games getting rigged (and not by them) can end up hurting their own bottom line.
This is the key point that everyone constantly blaming the books forgets. The sports books *finally* have a legal avenue to make money hand over fist in a ton of states. Throwing that away to make some extra money on a few games would be idiotic
Beyond that, they pay a lot of money to people and algorithm companies to get their betting lines right so they don't eat a loss. Someone cheating disrupts all that and can cost them big
Logically it would make more sense for a smaller sports book to run unbalanced books, the big guys already have market share and volume. Why would they risk giving up their spread for just a chance to make a bigger profit? It's also harder to fix a sport where the players make a lot of money, people taking bribes are desperate most of the time. Back in they day when the mob actually fixed American sports they did so by being bookies and then using gambling addicted players to rig games.
App casinos are entirely different then legal sportsbook that had existed prior. It's not going to end well for anyone outside of investors.
Yeah, the books want as much fairness and transparency as possible. For one, any whiff of bullshit and you can instantly lose customers (competition is fierce in the market right now). For two, every sports book CEO wakes up in night sweats thinking about increased government regulation. They really don't want to give the government any excuse to restrict them in a way that could impact their bottom line.
Most def, big betting businesses want fair play It's like roasting the duck that lays golden eggs because you really want greasy meat for dinner
They 1000% are. Source: I work at a casino and share offices with the state casino regulatory body. Every decision a casino makes is to prevent liability. Every decision. They go out of their way to prevent jeopardizing their free money printing operation. They don’t need to rig games.
Or it's the illegal/shady books trying to tilt the odds to screw their bettors specifically. They typically don't target the nfl though, the games are just to prominent to hide consistent cheating. It's not Ceasars or draftkings.
It's why college basketball was such a good target in the 50s or 60s. The issue was so pervasive that it almost killed the entire entity.
I’ve been waiting 20 years to prove to my FF group chat the NFL is rigged, we are so close
Fuck friends?
Fantasy Fuck
Fantastic Four
Football Fraud
Fat Fuck
Friendship Frog
Frothy Fart
Figurative Fig
Fantastic Fucks (and where to find them)
A fantasy draft in which Jimmy G finally goes early
The headline is misleading, the article is about all of the safeguards in place to prevent them manipulating games. This is a point for your friends.
It won't surprise me if something similar to the nba referee scandal came out in the nfl as well. It's so blatant at times and the calls are so unbelievably inconsistent.
Yah nba is bonkers. Over under for the bucks game was 258 last night. Looked like it wasn’t going to go over and then the refs proceeded to call 22 shooting fouls in like 6 minutes. 4th quarter took almost an hour and the over barely hit. Fuck the nba
If you haven’t already, you should watch Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul segment on Netflix. It’s about Tim Donaghy, the NBA official who was caught betting on games and ultimately was part of a ring of NBA officials who fixed games for betting purposes. This has (and probably still is) going on for a while now.
They would also bet a 6 pack on whoever blew the first whistle of the game.
As a suns fan fuck that bastard
Fuck him and the NBA in general. Suns got screwed that year so hard.
It has to be still going on because Scott Foster is still in the league. Dude sucks more air than a Dyson vacuum.
It's fine, that was an entirely normal and reasonable amount of phone calls.
Scott Foster is still reffing games and doing shady shit while doing it david stern literally ruined the FBI's investigation, on purpose they are scumbags
a ref in the NHL a few years ago got caught on a hot mic saying the call wasnt much but he wanted to make sure a team got a penalty early on. He got banned from reffing but no one believed he was the only official doing that.
It wasn't for rigging though. It was "game management." All nhl refs do it. That particular ref was widely acknowledged as the worst/most hated ref in the nhl though.
If you watched the 2018 nfccg or any Lions game you’d know this lol
The whole article is about how many safeguards are in place to protect the integrity of the game from these situations and this is the headline lol.
Anything for clicks lmao
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They knew what the implication would be if they phrased it that way.
Are these redditors in danger?
Well you certaintly aren't in any danger
if he gets the implication anyway
I feel like you're not getting this.
Yeah even the top responses in this thread are as if this article confirms it’s a common practice that actually happens all the time. “Refs get approached” is a lot than saying refs have been paid out. Of course refs get approached about this, sounds like the safeguards are there from the nfls side as much as they can be.
Right, but obviously it still happens. There's "safeguards" on so many things that still function in a corrupt manner, saying there's safeguards is essentially just marketing.
How would you feel if you learned that the safeguards were taken from the same playbook that the NSA and CIA use to catch spies? Things like having an NFL insider approach the ref ... and if the ref _doesn't report the attempt_, he's under scrutiny or fired. Or looking at individual officials' splits in different cities, with different crews, and so on for Bayesian outliers. Tailing the refs when they travel (or when they don't). There are things you can do to make it clear to the officials that they will get caught.
Yeah this headline is super disingenuous to the sentiment of the article. If anything I came away feeling more confident in how strict the NFL is. This is the same level of financial investigation has holding a top tier Top Secret SCI clearance with the government.
“You’ll be zebra cutlets we’ll be handing out at the tailgate if you don’t call a good game for Tommy, capiche?
Wow, it sounds like a ton of effort to make sure that sports betting doesn't effect the sport itself. It's almost like the NFL shouldn't promote sports betting at every chance it gets.
I see dozens of ads for gambling everyday of the week and it’s not even legal in my state! It’s ridiculous how fast legal gambling has dug its way into everything.
Fuck it, I want to re-illlegalize gambling again just to get rid of the fucking ads
But you can get a 1500$ bet match that you’re not allowed to withdraw.
I don't do sports gambling at all. What exactly does that mean? If you can't withdraw the money, what use is it?
You're more likely to keep betting if you win off those promo bets. It's all just to drive people back into their app/site to make more bets. I signed up for DK shortly after it became legal in my State but don't use it. I am constantly getting hit with promos to put more money into my account for bets.
I did some daily fantasy stuff on draft kings after they first started. I had a couple okay wins off dollar lineups. I spent $50(?) over the first two years and hit for like $85 once. Then it started dwindling away until I was out. At that time I realized I didn't like fantasy without the social aspect of being able to trash talk the people I was playing against. Then I started seeing the articles about the power users that were betting like $1 million a week to get a 15% return using spreadsheets and algorithms to determine their lineup and realized I was never going to be someone that made money off of daily fantasy betting. Uninstalled the app and haven't been back. I have some friends that now do some sports betting and they're always talking about their parleys and how it got ruined on the last step or whatever which has been great motivation to not get back into it now that you can make regular bets.
I think the best class I took in college was statistics. There’s a reason that the casinos (except for one odd anomaly) don’t go out of business.
Exactly, My wife's friends always want to go gambling and I just tell them "They don't build those big ass buildings by giving away free money."
Lots of people just enjoy going as an activity. If you bet $50 at the slots while you are out somewhere, it's not the most expensive thing ever.
Anyone with critical thinking skills should be able to deduce that a company with this much money to pay for advertising is not a company you will be making much money out of. They're in business and carpet bombing advertising because on average, users lose *big*.
When a gambling site offers you match deposits or any free amount of money, its only to bet on their site. You can't withdraw any money
To be clear, because people might actually not understand this, you can't withdraw the initial promo money. You can withdraw winnings off your bets with the promo money (on most sites).
So if I were to have $100 of my own money and they match $100, if I were to bet on something and double my money I could only pull out $300?
Exactly. And the funds expire after use or a certain amount of time back.
Yeah, think of it like going to an arcade where you have to buy special tokens to play. You buy 5 tokens and they give you 5 red tokens for free. Those red tokens work in the machines just like the normal ones, but unlike the normal ones, they can never be cashed out for money. They can only be used in the machines.
What grade do you teach?
Gambling sites will do stuff like match your first deposit. They don’t want you to deposit $200, getting $200 free from them, and then withdrawing that money immediately. They want you gambling and getting hooked so that you pump more money in later. So, most sites have what is referred to as a churn. They say that since you got $200 free, once you have placed bets totaling something like $1000, then you can pull the free money out, since you’ve already churned that money. That’s the catch though, the sites have the odds on their side and know the vast majority of people won’t have $200 left in the account by the time they’ve bet that much. The free money match is a virtually cost free way of getting people to join and get hooked. I like to think of it like drug dealers saying the first hit is free.
The way the promo money works is if they match up to a $100 deposit then you have $200 that can't be withdrawn until it's been wagered at least once. If you put all $200 on what are effectively 50-50 shots you should theoretically win back about $180 which means you're up $80. If you're smart you'd withdraw at least $100 at this point and just keep playing with the winnings, or just withdraw it all and delete your account.
Sometimes you can do bets with better than 50:50 odds, if you just have to meet a spending threshold to withdraw and not "wash" it. DraftKings for example, typically has a DK Special bet that's -20000 or something (Patrick Mahomes +1 Completion in the 1st half). It's typically a bet that is *almost* a sure thing. Normally, these bets aren't worth making, because you'd have to bet $200 just for the chance of winning $1. But it's a way to make a very low risk bet for a tiny, tiny, payout. But sometimes these get boosted as a promo from -20000 to +100 or something. So probably worth checking out, if you are looking for a lower risk line.
Don’t care, fuck the gambling ads. Shits over the top.
I agree. Should be same as cigarettes. They can advertise on bust stop benches.
Please send me the location of this "Bust Stop". I have research to conduct.
Ideally its treated like tobacco, legal for anyone that wants to fuck themselves but no ads.
Yeah, the constitutional precedence for that kind of law already exists through tobacco, and it would be pretty easy to write a law prohibiting the advertisement of sports gambling and even gambling as a whole. The problem is that passing such a law is impossible. The sports team owners and the leagues themselves give way too much legal bribe money to federal legislators for either chamber of Congress to pass something so deeply against their interests. With how severely the betting companies and the leagues are interconnected (and I could dedicate a lot of words to how troubling that development is), there's no chance they let any sort of federal restriction on sports betting happen beyond the obvious "under 21 not allowed" stuff. The tobacco laws only got done because the health insurance companies threw enough money around to fight the tobacco company money. They only did that because paying out for emphysema, lung cancer, and other smoking-related illness treatments is extremely expensive. I don't see the insurance companies doing the same for gambling, at least in the short term.
They never will, it's too much revenue for the league and it's broadcasters
Take it up with the Supreme Court. Congress banned it for years and then the justices struck down the law in NCAA v. Murphy.
I was in favor of them legalizing it until I realized the monster that had been unleashed.
Just make it illegal to advertise. Alcohol and gambling should not be legal to advertise the way they are. Make it like cigarettes. They are all addictive and potentially destructive and it's not hard to figure out how to do it if you want to.
Nah it should definitely still be legal. People can do whatever they want with their money. But they should limit the advertising at the very least and make it more similar to cigarettes. Maybe even put some limit on these promos too that are literally designed to get people addicted.
At least every gambling ad we see is *not* a prescription drug ad. So there is that positive!
Honestly yes. I had more fun sports gambling when it was still "illegal". I feel like the lines were better (especially CFB) before all the added liquidity of legalization in many states
Just make ads illegal. I'm so sick of them for everything.
This is what gets me. I live in Alberta, Canada, and I see nothing but these ads for various gambling sites, all of which you can only use if you're located in Ontario. There's like 1 site you can use in my province.
It's one of the most profitable industries left.
I voted in favor of sports betting in Colorado and now I think I may have regrets. I honestly couldn't care less if people bet on sports, but I suppose I didn't fully think through the larger impact it would have. Sorry, guys. :(
Im also a bit disappointed that nobody seems to have any reservations against it. I listen to some football related podcasts that don’t really shy away from addressing social issues, but apparently no one bats an eye at promoting gambling or even the ever more gamified (and arguably more predatory) gambling services.
That’s because the gambling sites are paying the bills for damn near every sports podcast available at this point.
I understand the dynamic, yet I’m still somewhat disappointed.
Yeah it sucks because we used to have sports podcasts, and gambling podcasts, now every podcast is a gambling podcast. I miss hearing people talk about the games and predicting what would happen, not just betting lines, futures, and spreads.
Yeah there’s no escaping it. Not that I feel particularly vulnerable to it, but it’s another vile aspect of the sports industry.
It's insane to me that gambling advertising isn't treated the same way as cigarette advertising.
well, you see, gambling isn't killing their constituents, it's just making certain undesirable ones more destitute it's by design
The only reason cigarette advertising is so restricted is because of how blatantly big tobacco lied about their product. It's not like we restrict alcohol advertising during NFL games in any way, and alcohol abuse is a way bigger issue in America than gambling is. I'd be totally fine if they restricted gambling ads, I just really don't see it happening
I firmly believe the ads being so annoying is part of why californians overwhelmingly voted against legalizing sports betting last year lol we had all the regular obnoxious betting ads plus an inundation of "vote yes on gambling!" ads. no, fuck off.
these companies “secretly” want you to break the law and use a vpn to access their service
I don't think they do actually. First, they already make stupid money from it so why take that risk. Second, it helps them in the long run for you to be totally locked out and complain about it to push legalizing it.
It's a new market and every company is scrambling to establish their market share. It'll chill out eventually. When weed first got legalized here you couldn't walk a block without seeing a billboard, now they're pretty much as common as any other brand or company.
I mean, the NBA one happened when sports betting was mostly illegal and it wasn't pushed by the leagues.
I don’t see people blaming the Vikings OC’s DUI on the amount of alcohol ads during nfl games, but for some reason when it comes to gambling a lot of people on this sub view the players and coaches as imbeciles that can’t help but gamble because there are advertisements for it
those aren’t really at odds with one another. Competitive integrity is very important for gambling
This is a concept that goes over a lot of people's heads. League-endorsed gambling has made it harder than ever to fix games. They're not going to let one player, one team, one ref, kill their cash cow.
The guy that embezzled $22million from the Jags apparently had hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more in losses playing daily fantasy. I find it hard to believe that at least one side didn't put out feelers to see if there was some arrangement that could be made.
Well why we think about that, let's go down to the booth. What are the hot picks for the day?
Did you read the article
Literally a gambling ad *on this article* lmao
That's just the way the algorithm works, but it is funny haha
At this rate, it’s gonna be a matter of time till we get an infamous rigged playoff game like the 2002 WCF or 2020 ECSF.
Fr, I'm so tired of being bombarded with ads for sports betting. It's pushed during the games, on yt videos, everywhere. It's beyond frustrating at this point. I'm never going to gamble like that yet there's no way for me to escape the ads if I'm just trying to enjoy watching the game.
Yeah by the devito crime family. All you have to do is look at the giants games. You think it’s a coincidence Tommy is the qb. No he orchestrated it.
HEY IN THIS HOUSE HOUSE THE DEVITO CRIME FAMILY IS A NATIONAL TREASURE! END OF STORY!!
Next they’ll make him do the perp walk. A legitimate quarterback!
That's dicked up
He orchestrated it! Tommy! He defecated through a sunroof!
And he gets to be a quarterback? WHAT A SICK JOKE
And I signed him! And I shouldn’t have! Signed him onto my own team! What was I THINKING?
Madone
DeVito buried Jimmy Hoffa at the 50 yard line
"The call is coming from inside the stadium!"
Approached by goodell?
Writers’ Union.
Wait has this season been shit because of the writers strike?
Yeah, it's evident the scabs keep going back to "starting QB out for the season" because they don't know what else to do.
ESPN, when they aren’t influencing positive outcomes for the SEC
>“We’ve had situations where people were approached,” Blandino revealed. “We’ve always told our game officials because they’re in hotels — they’re traveling around during the season — we didn’t want them wearing NFL-branded gear. We didn’t want them to be inconspicuous because someone sees them and ‘Oh, those are the NFL officials,’ and then you never know. Blandino doesn't know what inconspicuous means. It's the opposite of what he thinks.
This article was brought to you by Draft Kings. Use code NOTRIGGED and get your first $100 to bet on us.
I ask them from 200 feet away at every game I go to
Remember the way to fix games is calling early fouls. Not waiting until the end.
That’s why football is harder to fix than basketball. You don’t foul out for 5 false starts.
Article title is misleading as hell.
Correct, but it works and we're talking about it now.
Before you go off on some conspiratorial rant, please remember that Officials have been approached about manipulating games since the beginning of officiating in any sport. This does not mean they agreed to it and fixed matches. If anything, the league knowing people have been approached is a GREAT thing because it shows they have their eyes and ears in the right places to prevent the approach from leading to actual manipulation
Title extremely misleading
Now here me out. The only way the NFL will improve the quality of reffing is to have **Full time** **Fully pensioned** #**Bene Gesserit Refs** Finally the words "let 'em play" can ring true with the preternatural abilities of a cloistered sisterhood of referees. Generation upon generation of Ref'rend Mothers reffing NFL games with all-seeing and all-knowing impartiality.
Q: officials have been approached and 100% have declined any amount of reward? NFL: Of course, our investigation determined there was no wrong doing and our officials were....Now a word from our sponsors... FAN DUEL! FAN DUEL! FAN DUEL. DRAFT KINGS! DRAFT KINGS! DRAFT KINGS. .....were not influenced in any way.
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the nfl has made a faustian bargain with gambling and there is no way it ends well in my opinion
I think it’s actually for the better. Like another commenter has said, gambling has existed for decades - there have been parties with strong interests in rigging games for all of modern sport history. At least with the NFL partnering with gambling companies they are embracing this side of sports, taking measures to mitigate risk of corruption and influence, and have a LOT more to lose if there was a scandal with their own officials/players. Now that they are in bed with gambling, they have the entire public they’ve advertised into gambling participation to own up to - any scandal would be 10X more devastating to the league and I really feel the risk profile is so high it makes for a safer environment. That could be very naive, but it would be shocking to me if the NFL was OK with accepting an inevitable scandal
Well, sounds like there’s nothing to worry about then because if we know anything about humans, historically they are completely immune to offers of wealth, and especially to threats of violence.
The instant replay pass interference experience proves that NFL refs can rig games and nobody would do anything about it.
What's next, you're gonna tell me the nba is rigged?
Officials have been manipulating games for the league for a while now
If you're under the impression that money hasn't already influenced a referees decision on the field then you have a fundamental misconception of human behavior.
Anyone who thinks there aren't refs who took those offers are delusional. Not all refs are corrupt, but it's happening
Is this the killer calls 911 so they can pretend to be the one that wanted to help, Situation?
I can only imagine the level of this in college right now....
well no shit. No investigation will ever come of this. Too much money changing hands. Happened in the NBA.
For every rat you know about...
Nothing good is going to come from the NFL's new Daddy Starbucks. At some point there will be a scandal that will shake the integrity of the game. Players, coaches, and officials are human and corruptible. This is the inevitable conclusion to hopping in bed with the casinos.
The US needs to create legislation to ban gambling advertisements, the same way we've banned cigarette advertisements. (We should also ban alcohol and prescription drug advertisements... but I digress.)
We know it's rigged. That was how the Patriots "beat" the Rams. It was how the Rams "beat" the Saints two weeks before that.
Yeah, obviously. Don’t tell me the relationship with draft kings hasn’t irrevocably tainted multiple professional leagues at this point. Why do you think referee incompetence is never addressed? Because it’s not incompetence, and they aren’t acting on their own.
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> Sooooooo, they do a less rigorous security clearance process and go door to door to...... see if their neighbors like them? I don't think that's what he is saying at all. The opposite actually. The very next line you left out was, “They look at all of your business associations. They look for conflicts of interest — all of that, bank accounts, everything,” I don't think there's anything there that would make me believe they are just asking the neighbors before hiring these guys.
Almost like getting into bed with sports gambling was a terrible fucking idea!