The National Football League (NFL) will kick off its 2024 season next Thursday, September 5, with the Baltimore Ravens visiting the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, who are favored by a field goal. With legal sports betting more widespread than ever, the NFL is taking proactive steps to ensure that players, team personnel, officials, and other individuals under the league’s sports gambling policy are well-informed about the dos and don’ts of gambling during the season.
The NFL faced significant backlash last year after numerous players were caught participating in legal sports betting, directly violating the league’s comprehensive gambling policy. In response, the league has recently clarified its sports betting rules through a document titled, “Summary of NFL Gambling Policy Education & Integrity Monitoring Efforts.”
The summary spells out six key rules that players must follow:
- Never bet on the NFL, which includes other NFL events such as the Draft, Combine, Pro Bowl, and NFL Honors.
- Don’t have someone place bets for you; avoid asking family, friends, or others to do so.
- Don’t gamble on any sports, casino, or card games at your team facility or stadium, while traveling for a road game, or staying at a team hotel.
- Don’t share team ‘inside information’ that hasn’t been publicly announced.
- Don’t enter a sportsbook during the NFL playing season.
- Don’t participate in daily fantasy football.
Additionally, team personnel, including coaches, trainers, staff, and front office executives, are prohibited from betting not only on the NFL but on all sports.
The NFL’s 2024 Gambling Policy clarification follows a year marked by confusion and criticism from players and coaches regarding the betting rules. The league indefinitely suspended Denver Broncos lineman Eyioma Uwazurike for betting on at least 32 NFL games, including one he played in. Broncos coach Sean Payton criticized the NFL for not adequately informing players about the gambling policy, stating, “That eight-page handout we received was more confusing after I read it than it was before I looked at it. It’s not the policy, but it’s the implementation, understanding, and educating of the policy.”
In response to the confusion, the NFL has committed to better educating players and staff on betting prohibitions to protect the integrity of the game and keep external influences from jeopardizing game outcomes.
Alongside the six-point gambling policy checklist, the NFL now requires all players to undergo educational seminars on the sports betting rules. These training sessions were developed in partnership with the NFL Players Association.
Each of the NFL’s 32 teams must prominently display the gambling policy inside team facilities, provide education for players’ agents, and include an “Integrity of the Game” clause in all new player contracts, mandating compliance with the gambling policy.
To ensure adherence, every team now has a designated NFL Integrity Representative, typically a retired FBI or executive-level law enforcement official. This representative monitors the team for suspicious activity, supports investigations into potential violations, and acts as an additional resource for clubs and players regarding gambling and integrity-related questions and issues.