D’Arcy Maine, ESPN

NEW YORK — Caroline Garcia, a US Open semifinalist in 2022, on Wednesday shared some of the derogatory online messages she has received following recent losses and pointed to “unhealthy betting” as one of the reasons players are targeted on social media.

Other players echoed Garcia’s lament, including defending champion Coco Gauff, who said: “You could be having a good day, and then somebody will literally tell you, ‘Oh, go kill yourself.’ You’re, like, ‘OK, thanks.'”

Garcia, a 30-year-old from France who has been ranked as high as No. 4, was seeded 28th at Flushing Meadows but was eliminated by Renata Zarazúa 6-1, 6-4 in the first round Tuesday. Zarazúa is ranked 92nd and is making her US Open debut.

Garcia, in a lengthy post on X, wrote about the “hundreds” of such messages directed her way and offered examples of “just a few,” including one telling her she should consider suicide and another that read, “I hope your mom dies soon.”

“And now, being 30 years old, although they still hurt, because at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl working really hard and trying my best, I have tools and have done work to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not OK,” Garcia wrote. “It really worries me when I think about younger players coming up, that have to go through this. People that still haven’t yet developed fully as a human and that really might be affected by this hate.”

In her post, Garcia also raised the issue of the sport and tournaments partnering with betting companies and speculated on whether that has contributed to a rise in such behavior.

“Tournaments and the sport keeps partnering with betting companies, which keep attracting new people to unhealthy betting,” Garcia noted. “The days of cigarette brands sponsoring sports are long gone. Yet, here we are promoting betting companies, which actively destroy the life of some people.”

Rest is here…

America Gaming

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Americans are increasingly embracing casino gaming and sports betting as acceptable forms of entertainment and responsible industries, according to new consumer survey results from the American Gaming Association (AGA). The new data comes ahead of Responsible Gaming Education Month this September and on the eve of the seventh NFL season with widespread legal wagering.

Among new high-water marks in consumer sentiment, 75% of Americans believe the gaming industry behaves responsibly in the communities where it operates, 9 in 10 Americans view sports betting as an acceptable form of entertainment, and 75% of Americans support legal sports betting in their home state.

“These latest survey results highlight a consistent trend over the years: as gaming expands to new audiences, Americans increasingly see the benefits of a legal, regulated gaming marketplace that contributes to communities, prioritizes responsibility and provides unmatched entertainment,” said Joe Maloney, AGA Senior Vice President, Strategic Communications.

Rest is here…

David Purdum, ESPN

After a rash of suspensions in 2023, the NFL has not handed out any punishments for violations of its gambling policy in more than a year, but in a landscape with widespread betting, protecting the integrity of the games remains a priority for the league.

The NFL is spotlighting its approach to combat betting-related threats ahead of the 2024 season and, for the first time, is sharing details about its team of investigators, who are on site on game days monitoring for “suspicious activity.”

Cathy Lanier, senior vice president of NFL security, told ESPN that an integrity representative is assigned to each team, a practice that began in 2018, shortly after regulated betting began spreading across the United States. The integrity representatives, who include retired FBI agents or executive-level police officers, according to the league, roam stadiums from the sidelines to the press box during games.

Lanier declined to provide specific examples of what constitutes suspicious activity but said the league’s integrity representatives are monitoring for “fair competition issues.”

“They’re looking for anything that is an anomaly, anything that stands out, anything that might raise concerns,” Lanier, a former chief of police in Washington, D.C, told ESPN.

The NFL suspended 10 players for gambling violations during a three-month span in the spring and summer of 2023. The league said it found no signs of game manipulation in any of the instances, but five players were found to have bet on the NFL, including on games involving their own team in some cases.

According to the league, every player contract has included a standard “Integrity of the Game” clause for at least the past 20 years, and the NFL gambling policy requires all personnel to “always give their best effort.” Anyone found guilty of attempted or actual game-fixing faces a permanent ban from the league.

Lanier’s team monitors betting markets before and during games, looking for dramatic odds movement, including on point spreads and player props such as the over/under on a quarterback’s passing yards. Significant shifts in the odds are relayed to the on-site integrity representatives as a warning for potential game manipulation. The integrity representatives also act as liaisons with state gaming regulators and assist in investigations regarding potential gambling policy violations.

The NFL analyzes notable odds movements and, with partners Genius Sports and U.S. Integrity, tries to determine the cause. A change in the weather forecast, an injury report or even speculation from pundits on TV or bettors on social media can make the line move. Both Genius Sports and U.S. Integrity watch over betting markets and flag unusual activity at sportsbooks.

“If the sportsbooks are moving the lines, and they’re moving pretty dramatically, is that because of any injury that’s been reported, or is there something else that’s going on that’s going to make us suspicious?” Lanier said.

Rest is here…

David Purdum, ESPN

NEW YORK — Caroline Garcia, a US Open semifinalist in 2022, on Wednesday shared some of the derogatory online messages she has received following recent losses and pointed to “unhealthy betting” as one of the reasons players are targeted on social media.

Other players echoed Garcia’s lament, including defending champion Coco Gauff, who said: “You could be having a good day, and then somebody will literally tell you, ‘Oh, go kill yourself.’ You’re, like, ‘OK, thanks.'”

Garcia, a 30-year-old from France who has been ranked as high as No. 4, was seeded 28th at Flushing Meadows but was eliminated by Renata Zarazúa 6-1, 6-4 in the first round Tuesday. Zarazúa is ranked 92nd and is making her US Open debut.

Garcia, in a lengthy post on X, wrote about the “hundreds” of such messages directed her way and offered examples of “just a few,” including one telling her she should consider suicide and another that read, “I hope your mom dies soon.”

“And now, being 30 years old, although they still hurt, because at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl working really hard and trying my best, I have tools and have done work to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not OK,” Garcia wrote. “It really worries me when I think about younger players coming up, that have to go through this. People that still haven’t yet developed fully as a human and that really might be affected by this hate.”

Pat Forde, Sports Illustrated

Notre Dame is suspending its men’s swimming program for a minimum of one academic year after internal and external investigations revealed a widespread gambling issue that violated NCAA rules, and what athletic director Pete Bevacqua termed in a statement, “a deeply embedded team culture dismissive of Notre Dame’s standards for student-athletes.”

The team was informed of the stunning suspension Thursday afternoon, sources tell Sports Illustrated. The timing will enable athletes wishing to transfer—including incoming freshmen—to do so before classes begin at the school Aug. 27. The women’s team and both diving teams are unaffected by the disciplinary action. Head coach Chris Lindauer and his staff were not disciplined, after reviews found that “the staff was not aware of gambling or the scope and extent of other troubling behaviors because team members effectively concealed such behaviors from the coaches and staff through concerted efforts.”

The Notre Dame men’s team effectively created its own sports book for the purpose of wagering on their swimming performances, sources say. A majority of the returning 2024–25 team is believed to have placed bets. “Over/under” lines were established for a swimmer’s times in certain races, with wagers being placed on the outcomes. There are no known gambling companies that take wagers or produce betting lines on college swimming.

In the face of widespread campus gambling issues, the NCAA has modified some of its penalties. But the sanctions are most severe for athletes who gamble on their own sport and own team. According to updated NCAA legislation from June 2023, “student-athletes who engage in activities to influence the outcomes of their own games or knowingly provide information to individuals involved in sports betting activities will potentially face permanent loss of collegiate eligibility in all sports. This would also apply to student-athletes who wager on their own games or on other sports at their own schools.”

Eligibility issues for the Notre Dame swimmers who placed those kinds of wagers would follow them to other schools, should they decide to transfer. Some Fighting Irish swimmers also placed wagers on other sports and involving other schools, sources said, such as the NCAA basketball tournaments. Those wagers would produce lesser sanctions than the internal team gambling. 

Rest is here…

Tisha Thompson, ESPN

The illegal bookmaker at the center of the sports betting scandal focused on Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter of Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, will plead guilty next week to bookmaking and money laundering charges, according to court records unsealed by federal prosecutors Thursday.

Prosecutors charged Mathew Bowyer, 49, with operating an unlawful gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return on June 21, according to a plea agreement and charging documents filed in U.S. District Court for Central District of California.

“Mr. Bowyer is looking forward to accepting responsibility for his actions,” Diane Bass, Bowyer’s attorney, said in a statement Thursday to ESPN.

Bowyer will plead guilty on Aug. 9, according to a news release from prosecutors. A spokesman declined to offer any additional comment.

Until now, Bowyer’s legal proceedings were sealed as prosecutors continue their wide-ranging federal probe of Southern California bookmakers and their connections to Las Vegas casinos.

The records released Thursday confirm for the first time that Bowyer has been the subject of a federal investigation. ESPN first reported that Bowyer was under investigation in March.

As part of his plea deal, Bowyer admitted to receiving more than $4 million in unreported income in 2022, and to falsely reporting that his taxable income was $607,897. Bowyer knew his income was “substantially higher than that amount” because he ran a sportsbook that “involved at least five persons” and had a “gross revenue of more than $2,000 in a single day.” Prosecutors noted Bowyer also violated California state law prohibiting bookmaking.

Because more than five people were involved, Bowyer could face a more severe punishment. He faces a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison, but by pleading guilty, he will most likely receive less.

Judge John W. Holcomb will make the final determination, according to court documents. Holcomb is the same judge scheduled to deliver Mizuhara’s sentence on Oct. 25.

Rest is here…

David Purdum, ESPN

Bert Neff, an Indiana businessman who federal authorities described as a professional gambler, was sentenced to eight months in prison and three years of supervised release Monday for his role in a betting scandal involving an SEC baseball game in 2023, according to a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Alabama

Neff pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in March after federal authorities accused him of destroying evidence, tampering with witnesses and providing false statements to the FBI during an investigation into suspicious betting on an Alabama-LSU baseball game on April 28, 2023.

The investigation ultimately led to the firing of then-Crimson Tide baseball coach Brad Bohannon. Multiple sources told ESPN that Neff, after communicating with Bohannon about a lineup change, attempted to bet on LSU to win the game in question. Bohannon, who has not been named in court documents, was terminated by Alabama in early May 2023.

Rest is here…

Paula Lavigne and Adam Rittenberg, ESPN

THE COMPUTER SCREEN showed hundreds of dots on a map, each one indicating a sports betting app in use. One cluster of dots caught the investigator’s eye. He zoomed in and saw it was the athletic facilities at the University of Iowa.

The cluster was “one of those where once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” a source with knowledge of the map told ESPN.

The legal betting age in Iowa is 21, NCAA athletes and athletic staff aren’t allowed to gamble on NCAA-sanctioned sports, and only athletes and athletic staff had access to the facility. A high volume of activity there could be “indicative of some form of potential fraud, ID theft or something,” the source said.

In May 2023, Iowa law enforcement and prosecutors, noting data showing that sportsbooks rarely flag their own bettors, acted on what Brian Sanger, an agent of the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations, saw on that screen. The result was the nation’s first major crackdown on college athletes and gambling since a 2018 Supreme Court decision paved the way for legalized sports betting. At least 35 athletes and team support staff from Iowa and Iowa State — including football, baseball and basketball players, as well as wrestlers, notably several from Iowa’s highly ranked team — were charged criminally and/or lost all or part of their NCAA eligibility based on the information last year.

Prosecutors secured guilty pleas in all of their misdemeanor cases, but the four cases involving felony charges were dismissed when the accused questioned whether Sanger legally used betting surveillance technology. (Another case was dismissed due to a technicality.) More than two dozen athletes then filed a federal lawsuit alleging law enforcement had violated their constitutional rights by using geofencing software “illegally, and without a warrant” to identify athletes who were betting on DraftKings and FanDuel.

Sanger declined ESPN’s request for comment.

As the legal fallout continues, the Iowa case is poised to have national ramifications for how — and whether — law enforcement will be able to monitor and police illegal sports betting by athletes and how the NCAA may enforce its rules on gambling.

“It is literally an unregulated, almost completely unregulated, $2.5 billion industry,” one law enforcement source said.

“There is nothing ensuring compliance except for the sportsbooks’ pinky promise,” another added. “There’s no teeth.”

A FanDuel representative declined to comment. A DraftKings spokesperson told ESPN in a statement that the company “works closely with state gaming regulators and believes they hold operators to high standards” and is “proud to have played a role in bringing to light instances of suspicious activity.” (ESPN is a partner with Penn Entertainment, the operator of the ESPN BET sportsbook.)

Sportsbook industry executives who spoke on condition of anonymity said in an interview with ESPN that they are subject to multiple regulations, and it’s up to legislators and regulators to decide if there should be more. Enforcement is “not entirely on the sportsbooks. It’s an ecosystem,” one said, noting that the NCAA also has an obligation to better educate its athletes.

The athletes and their attorneys, meanwhile, point to what they call a vast overreach of police powers in a case that cost some of them their athletic careers.

“All it takes is an illegal investigation for you to miss out on the rest of your dreams,” former Iowa State running back Jirehl Brock said. “When your privacy was invaded and that’s the way that it happened, it puts an asterisk on the fact that we were doing it.”

ESPN spent four months reviewing emails and court filings in the case and interviewing multiple individuals close to the investigation, including attorneys, athletes, parents, school officials and Iowa criminal justice employees who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing lawsuit.

Throughout the reporting, a common thread was frustration: From law enforcement officials who feel powerless to police an exploding new industry they perceive as a threat to public health — and that is largely left to police itself — and from athletes who feel underinformed by their schools and persecuted by law enforcement they say operated outside its authority.

Rest is here…

David Purdum, ESPN

Banned NBA player Jontay Porter, who last week pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to an NBA betting scandal, is requesting permission from a federal judge to move to Greece and play basketball professionally there.

In court documents filed Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York, attorneys for Porter asked to modify his release to allow him to play for Promitheas BC in the Greek Basketball League and Champions League in Europe.

Porter is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on Dec. 18. His attorneys wrote that his overseas plans would not interfere with any of his legal obligations and that Promitheas BC officials are aware that Porter could be called back to the United States “at a moment’s notice.”

In a letter to Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, Porter’s attorneys asked for his U.S. passport to be returned and for permission to travel in Europe and reside in Patras, Greece, with his wife and the baby they are expecting. The request is unopposed by the United States attorney’s office and the United States pretrial services officer, according to the document.

Porter would continue his treatment plan for gambling addiction while overseas, and the team is making opportunities available for in-person counseling in Greece, according to the filing.

Rest is here…

Mike Reiss, ESPN

The state of Louisiana has dropped the underage gambling and computer fraud charges against Kayshon Boutte, the Patriots wide receiver’s attorney confirmed to ESPN.

Boutte, 22, was arrested in January in Baton Rouge over allegations of illegal sports betting while he played at LSU. He was a full participant in spring practices earlier this year, and Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said in May regarding Boutte’s status that the organization would “wait to hear from the league going forward.”

An NFL spokesperson confirmed that the league has been following developments on the matter and that it remains under review. Boutte can continue to participate in all team activities, the spokesperson said.

Investigators assigned to the Louisiana State Police Gaming Enforcement Division found that Boutte bet on sports from April 6, 2022, until May 7, 2023, when he was 20. Boutte allegedly used an alias to get around the age requirement for placing sports wagers in Louisiana.

The alias account believed to have been used by Boutte placed more than 8,900 wagers, with at least 17 bets on NCAA football games — including at least six involving LSU, according to police.

Boutte’s wagering, according to police, continued for approximately a week after he was drafted. The NFL’s gambling policy allows players to bet on sports but not on anything related to the league.

Rest is here…

Wayne Parry, Associated Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — It might have seemed too good to be true, but there it was, and on April Fool’s Day, no less: One of the country’s leading sports books was taking bets on mixed martial arts fights that had already happened a week earlier.

FanDuel accepted 34 bets on the fights that were promoted by the sports book as live events scheduled to take place on April 1, 2022.

But the fights had actually taken place a week earlier, on March 25.

New Jersey gambling regulators fined FanDuel $2,000 for the mistake, and the company paid out over $230,000 to settle the bets.

FanDuel declined comment Wednesday on the fine, which it agreed to pay.

But the state Division of Gaming Enforcement said in a letter made public on Monday that FanDuel said it was not notified by its data-feed providers that the Professional Fighters League matches were actually a recording of events that had already happened.

Instead, FanDuel’s trading team manually created betting markets based on information they obtained directly from the Professional Fighters League, New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Gina DeAnnuntis wrote.

“FanDuel confirmed that its traders failed to confirm with PFL that the event had previously occurred and was being presented via a tape delay,” she wrote.

FanDuel told the state that on April 1, 2022, it took 26 online wagers and eight retail wagers worth $190,904 on the events.

Afterwards, FanDuel received a notification from the International Betting Integrity Association, which monitors sports betting transactions, looking for suspicious activity or out-of-the-ordinary patterns, that the events it was offering odds on had already happened.

Rest is here…