OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — When Josh Peterson first started on Omaha's airwaves at 1620 The Zone in 2012, discussions of sports betting were more subtle.
"We would talk about point spreads, but it would be for 'Skittles' and we'd use different vernacular," said the co-host of Unsportsmanlike Conduct, an afternoon sports talk show. "Once ... John (Bishop) and I had been working together for a few years, we kind of went away from that and started saying 'Hey, this is what people are doing."
In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a law that banned sports betting in most places, which opened the door for states to legalize it.
Iowa quickly did, and Unsportsmanlike Conduct took the program to a casino every Thursday during football season.
Since then, "it's become much more focal part of our show," Peterson said. "I know our audience really likes it. John (Bishop) and I really like viewing the games through the lens of gambling, even if we don't always bet on games.
It's that increase in popularity and accessibility that causes David Weber, a Creighton sports law professor, to be unsurprising by a recent string of headlines where athletes and coaches are getting in trouble for getting involved with sports gambling.
"The governing bodies are absolutely explicit that they don't want to have the general public questioning the integrity of the games," said Weber.
In April, five NFL players were suspended for improper gambling, three for a year.
This month at Iowa and Iowa State, around 40 athletes became the subject of an investigation into improper gambling. NCAA athletes cannot participate in sports betting at all, Weber said, even on professional games, unless it is a non-NCAA sport. The cases reportedly do not involve match-fixing.
Also earlier this month, Alabama's baseball coach was fired after a report of suspicious betting activity involving his team. A bettor reportedly was in contact with the coach while making bets on the Alabama-LSU baseball game. Alabama's starting pitcher was scratched at the last moment.
Last week, an MLS player was suspended.He may have been paid to receive a yellow card in a game.
"I think gambling and sports is always something that people should be concerned about," Weber said. "With the amount of money that's available to be placed on bets, you're going to see more and more types of situations where people have a vested interest in determining the outcome beforehand."
In college, though, he says it's good news that players can now make money through their name, image and likeness.
"That will probably ... help student-athletes be able to say no to some of these potential illicit influences."
In minor cases, like a college athlete placing a bet on a professional sport they do not play, Weber says a few national headlines may mean cases like that won't happen much anymore.
"There's just not the reward for engaging in that risky behavior," he said. "Now, if someone's being a bad actor and they're seeking a large financial gain, that won't prevent that individual from perhaps trying to do that kind of activity again."
Peterson, too, is only surprised the wave of gambling infractions didn't happen sooner. In the Iowa and Iowa State cases, though, he says it seems there was confusion on what the rules for athletes are.
He says the Alabama case in particular got people thinking about the implications.
"Some would say this shows the ills of sports gambling," Peterson said. "I say that it shows the positives of legalizing it because in the past, something like that could happen under the table and we would have never known about it."
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