Sports bettors harassing athletes
doubledragon
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Came across this story today, it's insane. I don't bet on sports but I do find the subject fascinating. Is this a common thing, do athletes get harassed regularly on social media by sports bettors?
North Carolina's Armando Bacot says he gets messages from angry sports bettors: 'It's terrible'
LOS ANGELES — As NCAA President Charlie Baker calls for a ban on prop bets on college athletes, North Carolina star Armando Bacot admitted that he's gotten messages from angry bettors mad at his performance in games.
"It's terrible," Bacot said. "Even at the last game, I guess I didn't get enough rebounds or something. I thought I played pretty good last game, but I looked at my DMs, and I got, like, over 100 messages from people telling me I sucked and stuff like that because I didn't get enough rebounds.
"I think it's definitely a little out of hand. But at the same time too, I get the point of it. Like, if you bet a lot of money on something, and you're, like, one pick away and somebody messes it up, I understand the part of fans being mad. But it's annoying, too, at times," Bacot added.
Bacot scored 18 points and pulled down seven rebounds in North Carolina's second-round win against Michigan State, which set up Thursday's Sweet 16 matchup against Alabama.
His comments came the same day Baker called for a ban on collegiate prop bets, which are bets that are placed on specific athletes that typically involve an over/under related to their stats. Baker's request came after the NBA launched an investigation into Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter over betting irregularities involving prop bets this season.
"Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes getting harassed,” Baker said in a statement on social media. “The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.”
Bacot wasn't the only person Wednesday to comment on the ugly side of sports betting. Clemson head coach Brad Brownell said earlier in the day the team has gotten phone calls in its office and it's something that "worries me tremendously."
"People are extremely aggressive these days," Brownell said. "We get phone calls in our office sometimes. When things obviously don't go a bettor's way, we get some nasty calls. I know players probably get that through social media.
"It's a really unique time with everything going on in college athletics, and now the gambling piece is a whole other log on the fire."
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Its not just the athletes its coaches too.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/j-b-bickerstaff-threatened-by-gamblers-cavaliers-coach-says-sports-betting-in-the-nba-has-crossed-the-line/
Eric
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Everyone famous gets harassed on social media. Even if no betting ever existed athletes would still get harnessed by fans of the team if they dont win or by other fans before big games. People get emotional about sports which is part of what makes them great, but like everything else some people take it to far
Wow, that is scary stuff, the coach of the Cavaliers is talking about gamblers finding out his personal information and calling him.
"There's no doubt about it that it's crossed the line," Bickerstaff said. "The amount of times I'm standing up there and we may have a 10-point lead and the spread is 11 and people are yelling at me to leave the guys in so we can cover the spread, it's ridiculous. But again, I understand the business side of it, the nature of the business of it, but it is something that I believe has gone too far."
Bickerstaff went on to detail his personal experience with sports bettors who have found his information and sent him messages over losing bets.
"I personally have had my own instances with some of the sports gamblers, where they got my telephone number, were sending me crazy messages about where I live, and my kids and all that stuff," Bickerstaff said.
When a gambler has his car payment bet on the game, and loses, he gets much angrier, in fact infinitely angrier than any non-gambling fan.
While that can happen theres countless instances of fans doing bad things that have nothing to do with gambling. Gambling is often used as an excuse for people just being horrible human beings. Fans dont get beat up/stabbed in the parking lot/bashed in the head with a baseball bat etc for cheering for the wrong team because of some bet someone made.
BTW - I realize some here aren't going to like this so I hope you don't kill the messenger. But prop bets are one of the biggest sucker bets in gambling. I've read where the bookies juice on a number of prop bets are as high as 40%, perhaps more.
If you wish to gamble on coin flips whereby when you bet a buck you can lose a buck. But when you bet a buck and win, you only win 60 cents. Well then good luck to ya, you're gonna need an awful lot of luck to beat that in the long run. Perhaps the same sort of luck as finding buried treasure in your backyard.
You may say, well when I bet a buck I can win say 100 bucks on a prop bet. However the actual odds on it should pay around $140, give or take whatever.
If prop bets are eliminated by law, it is mainly the bookies who will be crying.
Sports betting should be an aggravating factor for harassment.
These degenerate gamblers deserve jail the moment they take out their losses on anyone but themselves.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
Frankly, in all my years on this planet, I've never seen a non-gambling sports fan get "lunatic angry" when his team loses. Disappointed over it yes, but never violently angry.
‘Every single round’: Rahm says gambling fans are affecting golf outcomes
Two fans were ejected from last week’s BMW Championship for shouting at Max Homa as he took a putt on the 17th green during the third round of the second FedEx Cup play-off event, which boasted a first prize of $3.6m (£2.8m).
The bet was apparently for just three dollars between friends and Homa said afterwards: “It was nice to make it right in the middle and hopefully he had to pay his buddy that three dollars immediately on the way out of the property.”
And infinitely angrier when something stupid happens that never should happen like this....
I can say with the utmost certainty that after this stupid game destroyed a parlay and cost me a $500 win I wanted to fight that Miami HC and that RB
Absolutely brutal. I've been there, more times than i care to admit.
I forget the exact circumstances, but in a college football game a long time ago, i had Notre Dame. They were up by around 12 or 13 points against the spread, against a team they were heavily favored. ND had the football with around two minutes left to go in the game. I had that money spent.
Well i never got to spend it because ND gave up two of the cheapest TD's I've ever seen. The two TD's meant nothing as far as the game winner, only with the spread, and me. 😒
From the same article erikthredd posted.
Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra detailed a specific incident with a sports gambler that happened last year during a game. Someone had to be removed for being so upset over Victor Oladipo not taking an open 3-pointer at the end of the game.
"I do think it's somewhat contradictory," Spoelstra said Wednesday night. "I think it treads on a weird line. We had an incident behind our bench last year with [Victor] Oladipo. Somebody was screaming. Security had to take him away. The game was already over, and evidently, he didn't shoot an open 3-pointer at the end of the game. The game was already decided, and this fan was totally beside himself, and he was a gambler. He had money on whatever the score was. There's just a lot of unintended consequences with that from a security standpoint that I'm not sure everybody totally understood."
I have. Ive seen fans of a college team try and get someones wife fired because he wrote an article about them, a Giants fan was put in a coma outside of Dodgers stadium, Phillies fans used to puke on Nationals fans when Wyerth signed there, a Nats fan had his head bashed in with a bat, international soccer has brawls all the time and even throw road flares at each other etc.
Violence in the stands happens all the time over people getting upset over another persons fandom
Anyone that bets Sports gets what they deserve, I openly admit that but again losing is one thing but losing when you SHOULDN'T makes it that much more infuriating
I do think tough losses hurt more than how good a nice win feels lol
Yeppers cause that's true.
The amount of dopamine (reward for the brain) released decreases with each win. Thus more and more wins are required to get the same dopamine fix as obtained in the beginning.
Losses are the inverse.
From psychological perspective there is zero difference between gambling and drug usage.
The overall situation will get much much worse. It won't be until there are significant murderous events that it will be looked into. Not a matter of if those events occur but when and how many.
Well besides more wins what brings more emotional excitement or "Better Action" is not so much placing more bets but increasing the size of the bets, a guy who bets $25 will eventually get immune to emotional swings on that and will need to increase the bet to a $100 to get good action
This is why gambling is a dangerous thing to enjoy, most people are ok with 10 to 20 dollar plays but when you start creeping up to 100+ dollar plays to get the thrill of it you need to keep it in check and not get crazy out of your financial limits
^ more and more are required just to get an effect that is continually diminished.
What's next for MLB ? Perhaps Free Opioid day? Remember the first one is always free...
From dependable sources I've read, gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any other addiction.
They also say that gambling addiction is the toughest from which to abstain. I guess any addiction is tough, and certainly gambling is right up there. However in my opinion, eating disorders are the toughest addiction. Nobody "needs" to gamble, smoke cigarettes, use recreational drugs, drink alcohol, etc. But ya gotta eat, and thus altering your diet can be very tough to do.
Yes, just dribbling the ball within the waning seconds of the game by a player whose team is about to win the game is fairly common. This gambler was way out of line being angry about that.
Like in football when ya need say 3 more points on the spread to win your bet. The team that you need to score 3 points has the ball on the opposing team's say ten yard line. But your team has the game won and the opposing team has no time outs left, with just seconds to go in the game. The fact that your team just runs out the clock rather than kicking the easy field goal, is all part of the game. A gambler would be out of line being angry about that his team didn't kick the field goal.
Sports players/coaches,managers will have to get used to it. The horse racing industry,jockeys, harness drivers,trainers, have been experiencing this for decades,what with all their convictions of race fixing,doping of horses.
Agreed but that is a much smaller sample size
Sports leagues know that they need to get a handle on this and quickly. I saw recently where even the conservative state of North Carolina has legalized sports betting. The revenues from sports betting moving forward are mind boggling. So sports leagues will want these matters to be as transparent as possible.
Sports bettors can handle the ups and downs, and continue doing it. However they expect an honest game. Most won't continue if they feel that they're not getting a fair shake on their bets. Sports leagues are not about to jeopardize the goose that lays the golden eggs. They will get the Ohtani situation and anything else cleaned up the right way.
How do you think the games will be determined honest,in a way the bettors will believe it is so? And what will be the determined criteria to achieve an "honest" outcome?
Well the sports betting websites already monitor themselves for suspicious wagering patterns. Perhaps in some way they could share that info with any sports team that is mainly used in the suspected fraudulent wagering. Game film could then be analyzed of specific players whose performance was unusually not up to par.
I'm not sure if this is legal or not. Perhaps polygraph tests could be administered on the players in question. If a player is found to be lying, then further steps could be taken. Frankly, just the threat of possible polygraph tests may dissuade most players from any thoughts of cheating.
For example power hitters are naturally prone to striking out a lot. I don't think they should reasonably be subjected to a polygraph test every time they strike out in the ninth inning. However if there is some sort of pattern of unusually large bets placed against their team, and that player always seems to falter in those specific games, then an investigation and/or polygraph test might be reasonable. If the player is innocent, then he's got nothing to fear.
An addiction to gambling has to be the same as alcohol these days. You can’t go 15 minutes without seeing a commercial for a gambling site and next is an alcohol commercial. Beer in the corner store and betting at your fingertips. Heck I just saw a lottery commercial and it also has an app for online lottery tickets.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
Polygraphs would be completely illegal to require, they arent even accurate anyways. What level of accuracy they do have varies wildly based off the administrator and even the creator of it spoke out extensively for it not being used for what it has become used for. All it does is measure vital signs, if you just dont care or are a pathological liar it will never catch you. They also have significant false positive rates depending on who is administering it, so yes an innocent player does have a lot to fear by being subjected to one. Simply being nervous about the accusations and going through the process for someone whose very honest could lead to a positive. Theres a reason why they arent used in court.
Betting information does get shared when it gets flagged and made public which is how the Bama Baseball coach and Boutte got caught.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/adam-silver-calls-player-gambling-cardinal-sin-as-league-continues-jontay-porter-investigation/
It's sort of humorous looking back on it, that in the sport of harness racing, cheating was so prevalent, especially among certain drivers, that when handicapping the race, I and many others used to not only factor in the horse's past performances, but also a guess as to whether or not the particular driver was going to cheat. And all that determined the value of the odds.
I know they've tried to clean-up the sport, so perhaps today it's not as common?
I would imagine that if some players in any sport, get to the point where it seems they are cheating, but the league hasn't caught up to them yet, that sharp sports handicappers might factor that possibility into their selections when betting on the game.