Gambling suspensions for pro athletes are on the rise. Is this the tip of the iceberg?

In the spring of 2018, the players’ associations of the four major sports leagues in North America could see storm clouds on the horizon.

The United States Supreme Court was on the verge of allowing individual states to make their decisions about legalized wagering, effectively ushering in a new era of sports gambling. As such, representatives from the MLBPA, NBPA, NFLPA and NHLPA went to the unique step of issuing a joint statement expressing serious concerns about the pending development.

“The time has come to address not just who profits from sports gambling, but also the costs,” the joint statement read on April 12, 2018. “Our unions have been discussing the potential impact of legalized gambling on players’ privacy and publicity rights, the integrity of our games and the volatility on our businesses. Betting on sports may become widely legal, but we cannot allow those who have lobbied the hardest for sports gambling to be the only ones controlling how it would be ushered into our businesses. The athletes must also have a seat at the table to ensure that players’ rights and the integrity of our games are protected.”

The players’ unions expressed concerns about the “human consequences of allowing sports betting to become mainstream.” There were worries that athletes would be subjected to more criticism and threats if the games they were playing in suddenly carried enormous financial implications for the fans watching.

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'It broke my heart': Shane Pinto breaks silence on gambling suspension

What they may not have anticipated was the potential for their own athletes to be wrapped up in the pitfalls of gambling themselves. That’s because prior to the widespread legalization of sports betting in most North American jurisdictions in 2018, gambling-related incidents involving athletes were a relic of the past.

The most notable recent incidents occurred in the 1980s, when Baltimore quarterback Art Schlichter was suspended for 10 games for betting on NFL games during his rookie season in 1983. Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from the sport in 1989 after an investigation by Major League Baseball determined Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing for and managing the team.

Decades went by without a notable gambling-related suspension for an athlete in the professional sports world in North America.

But in 2019, Arizona Cardinals cornerback Josh Shaw was suspended for gambling on an NFL game while on injured reserve. In 2022, Atlanta Falcons star receiver Calvin Ridley was suspended for an entire season for gambling on NFL games. Then in 2023, 11 different athletes — 10 NFLers and one NHL player — were punished by their respective leagues for gambling-related infractions.

Prior to Shane Pinto, the last NHL players to be suspended for gambling were Billy Taylor, Don Gallinger and Babe Pratt all the way back in the 1940s. When the NHL announced Pinto’s suspension, its news release in October was only 55 words long and carried no specifics about the infraction. Pinto is eligible to return from his 41-game suspension this weekend, but in his first public comments about his situation, he declined to disclose what he did that warranted the suspension in the first place.

“I got to be more cautious, more mature in what I’m doing. I got to realize what position I’m in,” Pinto said last week. “There is always going to be a microscope on professional athletes. I took that for granted and I got to be better about it.”

Section 14 of the NHL’s collective-bargaining agreement with its players’ association simply states, “Gambling on any NHL game is prohibited.” But in its brief statement on the matter in October, the NHL said it “found no evidence that Pinto made any wagers on NHL games.”

As Pinto nears his return, it’s worth asking: Is enough being done to educate players about the dangers of gambling, and what is and isn’t allowed?

Given the ambiguity around his suspension — with so few details shared — Pinto said several NHL players have reached out to him for clarification on the rules so they wouldn’t make a similar mistake.

“That’s what I’m there for. Just learn from my experience,” said Pinto. “I talked to a lot of players. It’s good that I can help.”

During their tour through all 32 NHL clubs in the fall, NHLPA executives Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey had the issue of gambling near the top of the agenda. Players around the league had a lot of questions about how Pinto could have been suspended if the league found no evidence that he’d wagered on NHL games.

In November, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic there should be no gray area when it comes to what constitutes a gambling-related violation.

“To the extent people are saying that nobody knows what the rules are, I told them why that shouldn’t be the case,” Daly said on Nov. 14. “In the sense of all the training we do and what the players are told repeatedly.”

The Lions’ Jameson Williams placed a bet on a non-NFL game from an NFL facility — which includes the practice facility, as well as hotels, planes and buses on road trips. Williams owned up to his mistake, but he said he was not aware of the league’s rule that bans such activity.

Experts in the field of addictions and behaviour analysis are concerned this recent trend of athletes being caught in gambling-related controversies is merely the tip of the iceberg. With gambling advertisements and opportunities so pervasive in the sports world, they say we should expect to see more athletes cross the line when it comes to sports wagering.

Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams was suspended last year for placing a non-NFL bet at a team facility. (Jamie Sabau / USA Today)

“I think we’re going to see more of this coming,” said Shane Kraus, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who focuses on gambling disorders. “Gambling wasn’t as popular before because it wasn’t as accessible. You needed bookies. Now you have unlimited access and there are so many apps. Whenever you have something that is an addictive behaviour, when you increase access, you increase problems.”

“Gambling has become so normalized and tied to sports, this doesn’t surprise me in the least,” said David Hodgins, a professor at the University of Calgary whose expertise centres on addictive behaviour. “It’s clearly related to more access and promotion of sports betting.”

Advertising for sports wagering is so prevalent that Pinto’s team, the Ottawa Senators, has the logo of Betway, an international gambling company, on their home helmets. It’s nearly impossible to watch a professional sports broadcast without being inundated with advertisements for companies offering myriad ways to place wagers on events. Additionally, The Athletic has a partnership with BetMGM and produces its own sports betting content.

“You see it on the commercials now,” Pinto said. “It’s pretty evident. But that’s no excuse, I think.”

Kraus points out it’s not a coincidence the athletes who were suspended for gambling-related activities in 2023 share a similar profile. They tend to skew on the younger side of professional athletes, in their early to mid 20s. They are the first generation to grow up with smartphones and social media at their fingertips, so the introduction of online gambling is just another digital hazard for them to navigate.

When Ridley opened up about his gambling incident in an article for The Players’ Tribune in March 2023, he wrote, “I saw a TV commercial for a betting app, and for whatever reason, I downloaded it on my phone. I deposited like $1,500 total, literally just for something to do. I was going to bet like $200 on some NBA games that night, but then I just added a bunch more games to a parlay. I put the Falcons in on it. I was just doing it to root on my boys, basically. I didn’t have any inside information.”

Kraus said he believes professional sports leagues and their players’ associations should be doing more to teach athletes about the warning signs of gambling addiction — rather than just posting strict rules about prohibiting the practice altogether.

Kraus suggests that athletes should be taught about the underlying physiological factors that are often at play when it comes to gambling addiction. He would almost treat part of the curriculum as if it were a biology class.

“Young people have brains that are developing until they are about 25,” he said. “I think there are a lot of young people who don’t understand gambling is an addiction.”

According to Kraus, years of research have concluded that gambling triggers a chemical reaction in the brain that mirrors what is seen on neuroimaging from people who are using highly addictive drugs.

“Gambling creates an addiction pathway in the brain. The dopamine pathway in gambling looks similar to cocaine use. It’s where people are chasing highs,” Kraus said. “That’s why it’s so challenging to quit. The brain is highjacked. And when it sees cues for sports gambling, it triggers a craving and urge to gamble.”

In a 2022 study co-authored by Kraus, his research found “younger men with greater family income being especially prone to wager.” That would be a perfect description of the vast majority of professional athletes in North America. When Ridley was suspended by the NFL in the spring of 2022, he had already earned more than $10 million in salary. But adding to their financial windfall or simply being careless with their large paychecks is not always the catalyst for professional athletes to place wagers.

“The financial aspect for gambling isn’t necessarily the prime motivation,” Hodgins said. “For athletes, it’s exciting. They see it as a challenge. They believe they can be good at it. Sports betting has the idea that if you know what you’re doing, you can be really successful. I think that’s what’s driving some of these athletes. It’s not the chance to win money. It’s the chance to be successful.”

Kraus’ research team at UNLV is involved in what he describes as the most comprehensive study of sports gambling since widespread legalized wagering opened up in 2018. He plans on releasing the results this spring and is hoping that professional sports leagues and industry experts take heed of what his data reveals.

“We’re trying to understand the science behind sports gambling. They opened the floodgates, but they didn’t open the floodgates for research and treatment,” Kraus said. “Gambling is a slow burn. It takes three to five years to develop a problem. If we wait five more years to figure out we got this wrong, now we’re really going to have people with challenges.”

(Photo of Shane Pinto: Chris Tanouye / Freestyle Photography / Getty Images)