NFL doubles down on 'integrity' with Super Bowl at the epicenter of gambling industry

LAS VEGAS – Who ya got?

My unofficial greeter upon arrival Sunday night, let's call him the cabbie from Lane 4, was surely feeling the Super Bowl vibe as we headed to my hotel off The Strip.

A taxi driver confession: "I put $300 on the Chiefs," he revealed. "My buddy bet $3,000," he added. "Last year, he won $10,000 on the Super Bowl."

That is so Vegas. Such are the legendary tales weaving through this tourist trap and epicenter of the gambling industry.

Why Kansas City? Never mind that the San Francisco 49ers are favored by 1-1/2 points. Cabbie has a theory that goes beyond the brilliance of Patrick Mahomes.

SUPER BOWL CENTRAL: Latest Super Bowl 58 news, stats, odds, matchups and more.

"The NFL is not going to let them lose," he insisted. "Not with Mahomes and Taylor Swift."

Here we go. Minutes into the week in Sin City and we've already heard a Swiftie-laced suggestion that Super Bowl 58 is rigged. It's no wonder that "integrity" is the word of the week for the NFL.

"The integrity, that's always going to be at the forefront," Mark Davis, the Las Vegas Raiders owner, told USA TODAY Sports.

And conspiracy theories will be there, too, sharing the stage.

Granted, integrity is always a concern for the NFL on any given week and in any given city. But the optics of the NFL staging its signature event in a place dominated by casinos and sportsbooks can fuel some serious imagination.

Given the stakes of the game on Sunday and a huge audience that could top the 115 million viewers of last year's Super Bowl, the loss of integrity is seemingly the biggest risk for the NFL.

Let somebody muff a key pass or drop a phantom penalty flag. In Vegas, of all places. Conspiracy theories could spread like wildfire, or given this age of social media buzz, go viral. Baseless or not.

MORE:Ranking all 57 Super Bowls from best to worst

"While Las Vegas is a symbol because it's had sports gambling for quite some time, it's also a very sophisticated city and mature city as it relates to engagement with the NFL and other sports," Jeff Miller, an NFL executive vice president, said during a Zoom conference last week. "At this point, that makes us very comfortable playing a game there."

It's also a city that was taboo for the NFL for many decades, with the league shunning even the hint of an association with the gambling industry in the name of integrity. It wasn't too long ago that the NFL shut down a fantasy football conference here in 2015 that was to be hosted by then-Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, because it was to be staged in a casino.

My, how things have changed. And not just because Romo will be on hand as the lead analyst for the broadcast. Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 struck down restrictions that opened the floodgates to legalized betting across the nation – gambling is legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia – the NFL has become more than a willing player as its revenues continue to soar.

The most popular sports league has embraced gambling – the league has three casino and sportsbooks partners and most, if not all NFL franchises, have sponsorships with gambling entities – with a pronounced philosophical shift.

"We're adapting to what the environment is," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said during the last NFL owners meeting in December. "And it's got great benefits in the context of fan engagement. A lot of our fans like to bet."

Great benefits. Clearly, the NFL's philosophy swing has follow-the-money roots. While it should be noted that the league doesn't earn money by getting a cut from wagers placed on games, prop bets, fantasy plays and the like, the American Gaming Association has estimated that the NFL and its franchises earn $2.3 billion per year in revenues such as sponsorships linked to legalized betting.

What a parlay. And it comes with the league going all-in on Las Vegas. Since the Raiders moved here from Oakland in 2020, lured by a sweetheart stadium deal, the league has staged the NFL draft and the Pro Bowl Games here. Now there's an expectation that this is just the first Super Bowl, with the city potentially becoming part of the rotation of desired sites.

'Pile up manure ... not smell it in the castle'

Goodell has maintained that he is "completely comfortable" with the site of this year's showcase game, "other than the normal anxiety I have before any Super Bowl of getting it right."

It's striking when considering that Goodell's predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, who retired in 2006, was so adamant in his opposition that the NFL put a franchise here.

Tagliabue, who played in a college basketball game for Georgetown in the early 1960s that was later revealed to be influenced by point-shaving, has long been sensitive to threats to the integrity of games because of gambling.

In 2021, a few weeks before his enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Tagliabue told USA TODAY Sports that he worried about the risks for the league. 

"I was always opposed to it, the gambling stuff," Tagliabue said. "And I didn't want to have a team in Las Vegas."

Goodell once harbored similar sentiments about the association with gambling, although he was never known to oppose having an NFL franchise here. In 2012, he made a clip-and-save statement in testifying before Congress that if gambling were legally liberalized, "normal incidents such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties and play-calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust and accusations of point-shaving and game-fixing."

Well, a dozen years later, with gambling widely legalized, the NFL is undoubtedly pressed as a matter of routine business to ensure that its games are legit. 

"People think you can pile up manure over here and not smell it in the castle, inside the institution," sociologist Harry Edwards, a longtime 49ers consultant, told USA TODAY Sports.

Edwards sees the NFL and college sports as being in the same boat when it comes to this issue.

"They say, 'We're going to discipline our players and coaches,' " Edwards said. "Well, what about the player's father? What about the player's uncle? What about the player's classmate who has somehow managed to lay down a $5,000 bet to not meet the spread? 'You drop that pass and there's a piece of this for you, too. I stand to make $10,000.' "

No, there have been no known allegations that NFL games have been tampered with –even with the usual spate of controversial calls by officials. That's good for the NFL. Yet the threat of a scandal, real or imagined, looms.

After all, 10 players were suspended in 2023 for 22 violations of the NFL's strict gambling policy. None of the suspensions related to actions that occurred in games that they played in; the cases were largely violations of the prohibition on gambling at the workplace. The league is also investigating second-year New England Patriots receiver Kayshon Boutte, arrested recently in Louisiana amid allegations of underage gambling, the bulk of the cases, if not all, coming before he was drafted.

While the NFL points to education efforts about its policy that extend far beyond players (the league said more than 17,000 people in its ecosystem have received training) and acknowledges the role of state gaming authorities in helping to monitor activities, the suspensions still constitute a red flag. And with the large volume of bets in so many places, it's not just Vegas that the league needs to be concerned with. Gambling has come a long way since it was just Las Vegas and an illegal gambling underworld.

"The challenge is the same," Miller said of the evolution. "We have to make sure that people see the game and value the integrity of the game in the same way that they had before."

A tip: If there's a prop bet for how many times Goodell and other league officials use the word "integrity" this week, take the over.

"Everything changes with time," Los Angeles Chargers owner Dean Spanos, a part-time Las Vegas resident, told USA TODAY Sports as he pondered the philosophy shift. "And I think the emphasis right now with the change is really on what the most important thing should be, which is the integrity of the game. We need to ensure that we never lose the integrity of the game."

With a large number of NFL players who are not participating in the game expected to converge on the Super Bowl, this could be quite the place for monitoring compliance with the gambling policy. While it may seem clear-cut that players can't bet on NFL games (or place prop bets), they are prohibited from entering a sportsbook ... except, of course, if they happen to pass through on the way to the casino or some other entertainment venue.

And it's not just the players subject to the long arm of the NFL law. On Thursday, Goodell sent clubs a memo addressing compliance with the gambling policy for non-player personnel – including team owners, executives, coaches and staff – during Super Bowl week. As is the case with players, they are prohibited from betting on the Super Bowl.

As for Goodell's staff at the league office? No gambling of any kind at any time while in town for the Super Bowl, as well as any additional time they may choose to spend in Las Vegas after the game.

Goodell put it this way in the memo: "With fans across the globe tuning into the game and related events, we must all do our part to protect the integrity of our game and avoid even the appearance of improper conduct."

Like Mahomes and Christian McCaffrey, integrity is ramping up for its biggest game of the season.