The NFL’s stance is simple: You can gamble at home, but never at work.
It might take a little bit of contortionist’s training to twist your brain into understanding how this distinction benefits the NFL. But it’s a simple stance nonetheless.
“They’re at work. Should they be gambling at all while they’re at work?” NFL chief compliance officer Sabrina Perel asked on a recent conference call. “We’re very clear there to make sure where all that applies to and that it’s no betting of any kind while they’re at work. If you’re going to do it, you can do that on your personal time. It really is just sort of counterintuitive to if our No. 1 mission is to protect integrity, why are we having gambling in the workplace?”
Tennessee Titans offensive lineman Nicholas Petit-Frere was suspended six games by the league Thursday for violating the NFL’s gambling restrictions. Petit-Frere did not endanger the NFL’s competitive balance by wagering on the Titans or the league at large. Doing so would’ve netted him an indefinite suspension as was the case for former Indianapolis Colts players Isaiah Rodgers and Rashod Berry, both of whom were released by the Colts Thursday after their suspensions were doled out.
Rather, Petit-Frere will miss the first six games of the 2023 season because he placed an online wager on a sports league other than the NFL while at the Titans’ facility. In a statement to ESPN, Petit-Frere claimed he did not knowingly violate the gambling policy and was “unaware of the specifics” regarding where legal betting can take place.
The statement is consistent with what Petit-Frere told The Tennessean in May, when he criticized the NFL’s teaching of the policies and quick-trigger suspensions for first-time offenders.
Nevertheless, the rule is the rule.
Why is Petit-Frere actually suspended?
Online sports betting is legal in Tennessee. And the NFL permits players to place wagers on sports as long as they’re not on the NFL. So had Petit-Frere wagered from a sports bar or the supermarket or his own home, he would have gone unpunished. But the NFL forbids any and all sports betting while “at work,” a blanket term that applies to when players are at games, at practices, on team planes or buses and at team hotels.
Why? That’s up to the NFL. Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of public affairs and policy, repeatedly mentioned on the conference call with Perel how the NFL’s rules regarding gambling aren’t new. Betting at work has always been forbidden and, as Perel said, preserving integrity is always the league’s top imperative.
While that’s true, betting at work hasn’t always been legal. Until a 2018 Supreme Court ruling reversed a federal prohibition on sports gambling, the only way to place bets in the workplace would’ve been by calling a bookie to place bets under the table. Which wouldn’t have just violated NFL rules. It would’ve been a crime.
“Historically any bet that was placed outside of Vegas was illegal, so you were working with organized crime or something similar,” Nathaniel Grow, professor of business law and director of the Sports Industry Workshop at Indiana University, told The Tennessean. “There was always a concern that if they get their hooks into a player then they press into a player to throw a game or shave points or whatever it might be to do something to affect the outcome of a game.
“We’re in a different world now where you can go on DraftKings or FanDuel or whatever platform and place a bet online. There’s less likely to be that pernicious resulting behavior if you get too far in debt. But I think the leagues still have these rules, and as long as they’re on the books they’ve got to enforce them.”
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The NFL’s main intention with these restrictions and suspensions is to ensure players don’t ruin the sanctity of games or outcomes. Betting against the team you play for is worse than betting for the team you play for, which is worse than betting on a game you’re not involved in, which is still worse than betting outside the NFL as Petit-Frere did. But the slippery slope argument exists that one can lead to the next and so forth, leading to harsh punishments as a vestigial remnant from when sports betting wasn’t as widespread and accepted in society.
Why now and what next?
Since online sports betting isn’t legal in every state, apps such as FanDuel and DraftKings use location tracking software to monitor where bets are placed. Bets submitted within team facilities are submitted to the league and teams as suspicious behavior and then reviewed, leading to suspensions such as Petit-Frere’s.
Petit-Frere is not the only NFL player to be punished for gambling on the job. Detroit Lions receiver Jameson Williams, also a second-year player, will miss the first six games of 2023 for the same violation. The fact that both are young players is notable, given that they would have had the least amount of time to be taught and internalize the rules.
But some within the NFL establishment aren’t giving grace to younger players pleading ignorance. Long-time NFL quarterback and commentator Boomer Esiason ranted about the topic on his New York radio show Thursday, calling it “BS” that any player could claim to not know the rules.
“I know for a fact that the Jets and Giants, in OTAs and minicamps, went over these policies with their teams incessantly so they know what they can and cannot do,” Esiason said. “So, any player that comes out and says, ‘Well, they didn’t tell me,’ that’s a pile of crap. It’s on the player to be the professional that you’re supposed to be and earn the money that you” re earning and play in a league that you’re privileged to play in, and protect that league’s integrity by not betting on the league.”
But again, there’s a difference between betting and betting on the league. Petit-Frere isn’t missing the first six games of next season because he did something he’s not allowed to do. He’s missing those games because he did something he’s allowed to do, just not in the place where it’s allowed.
That’s a tough distinction to come to grips with, especially as legal access to gambling has increased significantly in recent years. But to the NFL, it’s a distinction no different from a company enforcing a dress code.
“There’s lots of rules governing the workplace,” Miller said. “Lots of things that you can’t do at work that you can do at home. This is one of them.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at [email protected]. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NFL gambling rule that got Titans’ Nicholas Petit-Frere not budging