The NFL—along with most other professional sports leagues—must be thanking its lucky stars right now that they haven’t been hit with the gambling scandals that have spoiled an otherwise electric first week of the 2025-2026 NBA season.
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On October 23, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested for an illegal poker operation allegedly linked to the American Mafia. That’s a wild story in itself, but not necessarily a worry for the league and its integrity. It was Charlotte Hornets star guard Terry Rozier‘s arrest and subsequent investigations into alleged points-shaving in actual NBA games that really rocked the sports world to its foundations.
It wasn’t the first time an NBA player has been suspected—or even found guilty—of such actions. The same cannot be said for the NFL, which has a much stricter gambling policy.
In light of the recent NBA developments, the NFL’s management council sent a memo out to executives, coaches, and other personnel urging them to remind players about the league’s policy.
“These developments underscore the risks that all sports are facing in the current environment and serve as a reminder to adhere strictly to the NFL Gambling Policy,” a part of the memo read.
The memo also reiterated that players cannot gamble on NFL games, nor can they participate in or facilitate any kind of illegal gambling in the US. They are expected to refrain from sharing any confidential or non-public information about NFL games as well.
However, the memo was not directed to referees and officials. There was no mention of the refs either. The NBA has had gambling scandals involving officials before (see: Tim Donaghy), but the NFL likes to believe it’s above that. And from what we can tell, they have been.
There has never been any indication that NFL referees were involved in point shaving or illegal gambling—despite how incompetent they sometimes seem. That’s because, as former VP of Officiating Dean Blandino explained, the process for hiring NFL referees is as rigorous as it gets.
“They look at all of your business associations. They look for conflicts of interest, all of that, bank accounts, everything,” Blandino said, adding,
“And there’s checks during the season. And so, they’ll look at if a game official has $10 in their bank account on Friday, and then they work a game, and now there’s $100,000; that’s a red flag, right? So, you’re checking those things. You’re monitoring the betting lines and looking at how calls impact those lines, and are there individual officials that are involved in more of those calls. It’s a massive, massive undertaking.”
Blandino also said that officials have been approached about shaving points before. Those guys, however, have always self-reported those instances.
NFL referees can bet on other sports in some instances. However, they are strictly prohibited from gambling in any form or sharing any insider information about NFL games. And that applies whether they are working the game in question or not.
