Divulging draft secrets
The NFL suspended Arizona Cardinals director of college scouting Ryan Gold indefinitely for violating the league’s gambling policy. His attorney said this week that he is appealing the punishment and that the accusations are “blatantly false.”
The sports world has unfortunately seen several betting scandals in the last couple of years, but this one is odd, as the league has provided little information as to what Gold allegedly did and compared to other incidents, it seems fairly inconsequential.
Last Friday, the league said that an investigation found that Gold gave someone nonpublic, inside information on the Cardinals’ 2026 draft picks before the picks were actually announced. The league did not say to whom he gave the information, how exactly it was used, or how much money was involved.
The NFL also said that Gold allegedly placed parlay wagers on both NFL and college football games. League gambling policy says betting on NFL games and sharing confidential, nonpublic information with a third party are both against the rules.
That’s the extent of what the public knows about the situation. Very little.
The betting sounds innocent enough
Ryan Gold’s lawyer, Mike Caspino, said that his client “did absolutely nothing wrong” and will have his name cleared. In fact, he told ESPN’s NFL insider Adam Schefter that Gold could not have shared draft pick information with anyone because he didn’t know what the picks were going to be. According to Caspino, the only people in the Cardinals’ organization who knew were owner Michael Bidwill and General Manager Monti Ossenfort.
Caspino also said that the football betting that the league uncovered were weekly $10 parlay bets Gold’s wife made with her high school friends. Ryan Gold was not involved in the activity.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Department of Gaming told ESPN that it was launching its own investigation into the betting activity.
The NFL has said that nobody else in the organization seems to have been involved in any of the alleged betting activity or information sharing and that game integrity was unaffected.
Image credit: Erik Drost via Flickr
