The NFL’s Gambling Policy Is A Mess

by Dom Cosentino, Deadspin

Last weekend’s news that the NFL is considering disciplinary action against a group of players who took part in a charity arm-wrestling event at a Las Vegas casino has brought renewed attention to the league’s policy on gambling. And it’s hard not to notice how much of that policy is just the NFL continually pulling things out of its ass.

 

The seven-page policy from 2015, the most recent version made available by NFL Communications, can be read below. It applies not just to players, but to “all NFL Personnel,” including owners. Spokesmen for the league and the NFLPA confirmed to me that it was not collectively bargained.

The policy is full of contorted logic. It wraps itself in the rectitude of preserving the game’s “integrity,” and vests all authority in the whims of commissioner Roger Goodell. This makes it of a piece with the NFL’s drug, disciplinary, and domestic violence policies, which long ago revealed themselves to be more about public relations than anything else. But in light of recent events, the gambling policy now particularly stands out as an intentionally impenetrable tangle of words.

The NFL has always had an arms-length relationship with gambling, welcoming it as a tool to enhance fan interest—remember when ex-bookmaker Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder used to run down the point spreads on the CBS pregame show?—while carefully keeping it just over there to maintain appearances. The policy is ostensibly aimed at preventing the outcomes of games from being influenced by gamblers, which is fine. But it goes on to include language about vague “gambling associations” and “advertising and promotional activities” that “reasonably can be perceived as constituting affiliation with or endorsement of gambling or gambling-related activities.” 

Rest is here…