Roger Goodell Says 12 NFL Staffers Violated Sports Betting Policy

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said this week that 12 league staffers have violated the league's policy on gambling.

That's in addition to 13 previously reported NFL players who violated the league's sports and casino betting policies over the past few years.

There's a discrepancy between what staffers and players can wager on.

Coaches, staff, trainers and other team employees are barred from gambling on sports at all.

Players, on the other hand, are permitted to wager on other sports and on table games — so long as it's done outside of team facilities.

Only two NFL players have been accused of betting on their own teams: Eagles kick returner Isaiah Rodgers and Jaguars wide receiver Calvin Ridley. Rodgers remains indefinitely suspended. Ridley missed a season before being reinstated.

Others on the list above were accused of wagering on other sports or casino games at team facilities — often, receiving less than a year's suspension as a result.

It's unclear who the 12 league staffers that have been punished are and what their offenses may have been. Goodell said to reporters on Monday that anyone who had been found to have wagered on NFL games were fired.

“The integrity of our game is critical and so we spend a lot of time focusing on that, educating, making sure that all of our personnel are aware of our gambling policies," Goodell said. "In this case or any other policy that can affect the integrity of our game. So, ultimately, that’s our primary job."

Goodell had been famously opposed to sports betting in the past, saying in 2012 that "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."

The commissioner said on Monday that he and the league were forced to change their tune once the Supreme Court permitted the practice in 2018.

"We did not make the decision. Ultimately, the decision was a decision by the Supreme Court – they legalized sports betting," Goodell said. "We have to adapt. We have to embrace it. We have been cautious. We have been very thoughtful, I think, in our approach. But we know the risk and protecting the integrity is No. 1."

An estimate by the American Gaming Association indicated that roughly 26% of American adults will wager in some capacity on this year's Super Bowl between the 49ers and Chiefs. The survey said over $20 billion would be wagered, the vast majority of which will be bet legally, where operators pay taxes in order to better state infrastructure and social programs.

Meanwhile, in the year before the Supreme Court permitted sports betting throughout the country, roughly $5 billion was wagered — with about 97% of it bet illegally.

And besides a case of a former Alabama baseball coach tipping off a friend about a pitching change, no major match fixing scandal has been unearthed involving any major American professional sport — or at the collegiate level — since PAPSA passed in 2018.