NFL Walks Line In Embracing A Las Vegas Super Bowl And Gambling W
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It seems fitting that the Super Bowl is headed to Las Vegas because it's the NFL's biggest show playing in a city that thrives on stars and grand events. But in this union of one of the nation's most glitzy towns and its most popular sports league there is a bit of tension.
That tension centers around gambling.
Las Vegas loves it. It embraces it and, in no small measure, exists because of it.
The NFL also is tied to legal sports betting. The league has sports betting partners and agreements that it nurtures and has no intention of abandoning. But the NFL also wants you to know that as it prepares to undertake its most important event in a gambling town, it is not embracing every aspect of gambling.
So, yes, it's an intriguing union we're talking about here.
NFL players who make the Super Bowl will face strict gambling restrictions while in Las Vegas. What are the rules? (Credit: Getty Images)
NFL 'Excited' About Vegas Super Bowl
"We're looking to Vegas, no question, in just a few short days," NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller said Tuesday. "The draft there was a great success. The Pro Bowl events the last two years have been terrific and we have every reason to expect the Super Bowl there will be a great game and terrific week.
"Vegas has shown itself to be a first-rate sports city. We get excited about playing a game there."
But ...
The NFL is very, very, very guarded in protecting what it calls the "integrity of the game." And, frankly, the line between sports betting and unquestioned integrity is kind of blurry at times.
PHILADELPHIA - NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell looks on prior to the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field on September 14, 2023. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
Roger Goodell Was Wary About Gambling
The NFL knows this. It has always known this. Consider these words from commissioner Roger Goodell in 2012 when discussing legalized sports betting:
"If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties, and play-calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust and accusations of point-shaving or game-fixing," Goodell said.
Just over a decade later the world has changed. The Supreme Court in 2018 overturned the federal government's Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which prohibited states from sponsoring, operating, advertising, promoting, licensing, or authorizing betting schemes based on competitive sporting events.
That ruling opened the door for 38 states plus the District of Columbia to legalize sports betting.
NFL Has Partnered With Sportsbooks
So now the NFL is in business with sportsbook partners Ceasar's, FanDuel and DraftKings. And the league is playing a Super Bowl for the first time in the western hemisphere's gambling capital.
That all raises the question how does the league digest the apparent differences between Goodell's 2012 statement and the realities of 2024?
Well, think of the NFL as having a pizza whose pie is half cheese and half piled high with pepperoni. The NFL is embracing legal sports betting. But warning all of its employees and others not to engage in legal sports betting.
"The first principle we think about when we talk about legalized sports gambling or sports gambling at all is how we best protect the integrity of the game," Miller said. "That's always been the case. But how do we do it in a changing sports betting environment?
"That's something we spend a great deal of time thinking about ... how do we educate personnel about the evolving policies and rules? And how do we change them as the circumstances warrant, as we learn more."
NFL Strict Rules Apply To Vegas Super Bowl
It is the biggest challenge the league sees in taking the Super Bowl to Las Vegas. Gambling is a fact of life there.
But NFL employees, for example, better not partake in that lifestyle.
"The rules are no different for the participating teams, players and other personnel as they would be for any other game," Miller said. "When on business there is no gambling, whether it's sports gambling or otherwise. Any player, coach, personnel, yours truly, who would be caught or identified gambling in a casino would be eligible for the disciplinary process.
"And that would be addressed in the normal course of discipline as we would any player or any other personnel who there is evidence was violating the rules around gambling."
Hollywood, Florida, Seminole Tribe, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, gambling players at blackjack card game. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Players Will Be Within Miles Of Vegas Casinos
The NFL, you should know, has undertaken an aggressive approach enacting policies -- affecting more than just its 32 clubs -- against gambling and educating its people that gambling is a no-no.
"More than 17,000 people in the NFL ecosystem have been trained on these policies over the course of this season," said David Highhill, the league's general manager for sports betting. "That includes players, coaches, staff of all 32 teams.
"It also includes gameday assistants and workers, folks that are operating technology on the sideline, doctors, equipment staff, really, anyone in our ecosystem -- external vendors included -- that is in proximity to what is happening on field undergoes this training and understands their obligations."
Anyone violating "their obligations" during Super Bowl week could meet significant discipline if found out. That discipline could disqualify someone from working or playing within the league for up to two years if the violation rises to the level of affecting the integrity of the game.
And, by the way, the NFL will make sure to publicize the violations and punishment so as to add a deterence factor while also hoping to gain public trust.
"There's a transparency element to what we're doing," Miller said, "so I hope that it generates trust among our fans and even casual observors ....to make sure when they look at the game a week from Sunday that there isn't a doubt in their mind that the integrity of the game is the foremost concern of the NFL's approach in a world where sports gambling is legal."
