Betting is a big, tricky business. Here’s how the PGA Tour handles it

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — It’s The Players Championship week, and you know what that means: Watching a crowd of golf fans zoom across the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass and onto the 4,000-square-foot 17th green.

On Sunday, the tournament will be decided in part based on whether the world’s best golfers can get that green in regulation.

But first: What about Rob Gronkowski?

That’s the question posed by gambling giant and PGA Tour gambling partner FanDuel, which pays Gronkowski a handsome sum to act as a front man in its marketing efforts. The future Hall-of-Fame tight end came out to Sawgrass on Tuesday with a bunch of producers shooting content. If he hits the green, FanDuel will give its users a share of $300,000 in Bonus Bets across its site. This was modern multi-level marketing at its best. Educating the public about an upcoming event, bringing them closer to an influential person, promising something (or at least an opportunity for something) to get their attention. But also … he asks them to ride horses, too.

You see it everywhere in sports these days. Gambling, gambling, gambling. It’s a huge industry – $166 billion bet on sports in America by 2025 – and it’s legal (to varying degrees) in more than 35 states. Betting can also be a controversial, heated area of ​​the sports world. Just this week, two MLS players received lifetime bans for their roles in game-breaking action. A number of professional and collegiate basketball players have been indicted by the federal government for their role in match-fixing. A similar controversy arrived at MLB’s doorstep with Cleveland Guardians pitchers last fall.

Golf has never had that kind of front page scandal. At least for now. And the PGA Tour is determined to keep it that way. But they are also always willing to lean wherever they can find beneficial cooperation between sports teams and sports operators.

The latest development in the Tour’s ratings came a few weeks ago. On Monday, DraftKings announced that it will offer same-game parlays at golf events for the first time. It has been proven time and time again that these multi-leg bets offer odds that are more skewed against bettors than normal, but have exploded in popularity due to the increased reward at a lower price. That’s been great for sportsbooks and sometimes great for individuals, but it comes off as good business on Tour. The timing of the Tour’s biggest event seems a bit odd.

“The reason we entered [gaming] it was engagement,” said Scott Warfield, Tour’s VP of games. “If we can get people to watch longer with this legitimate activity, what does that do to quarter-hour ratings, what does that do to media deals, future interest in attending events…

On the other side of the coin, just two weeks ago the Tour issued new guidelines to its players on how to report gambling-related abuse, both in person and online. If a caddy hears too much from an overly guarded spectator, the Tour can do something about it. If a failed gambler in North Dakota followed Chris Gotterup on Venmo, for example, DraftKings could suspend (or ban) their account. The new measures are a practical move, to be sure, but also an open acknowledgment of the ecosystem in which the Tour now swims. Hey, you’re going to face these things, but we’re going to do everything we can to protect you from them.

The Tour, like other sports leagues, understands that revenue and engagement will increase when it focuses more on gambling. So it’s hard work to find golf parlays of the same game that are suitable for The Players Championship – and hard work to optimize its technology for more markets. Three years ago, the Tour overhauled its 20-year-old ShotLink system to eliminate nearly all room for human error. What started out as long-term gambling opportunities in 2018 has evolved into thousands of opportunities for each hole. Coming up in the next few years, Warfield believes, are opportunities to shoot. And why? Because each full event offers about 30,000 shots. As a casino that offers an array of table games, the Tour has an interest in options. As it is, the Tour has seen annual gains of 30 to 35% in the golf betting handle. It is a very popular gambling game, especially in the summer.

Golf has its own advantages. One of those: It works at a slower speed than some of its peers. The NBA’s shot clock is 24 seconds and the NFL’s play clock is 40 seconds, but golfers take minutes to go between each shot and 15 minutes to play each hole, allowing plenty of time for both operators and bettors to take advantage.

But golf’s traditions also make it vulnerable. Spectators are expected to be quiet when players are on the golf ball – but what if they don’t?

At the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February, YouTuber Jack Doherty tried to intentionally distract Mackenzie Hughes while standing in the safe for a $100 dare. (Even with an authoritative sportsbook, it’s important to note.) Doherty publicly confessed in multiple ways — posting a video of the incident online — and earned a lifetime ban from the Tour in return. Not all punters would have the courage to say, Hello, look! I did it.

And so the Tour tries to keep pace. The unit is so interested in preventive measures that it has started training volunteers to stand in the crowd (rather than inside the ropes) to better spot perpetrators and misbehavior.

“You have to understand that we’re not immune to it,” said Andy Levinson, SVP of Tournament Administration for the Tour. “We are not immune from acts of corruption, we are not immune from bad actors, all that. That is and that threat will always be there. So the first and most important thing is that – everything we do in this space is integrity first.”

The Tour’s “Integrity System,” as it’s aptly named, spells out all kinds of rules not just for players, but anyone who can gain access to insider information naturally. Their ambassadors, caddies, coaches, even their wives, mothers and fathers. Board members, tournament volunteers, and even tour staff who cut video clips for social media are not allowed to bet on golf. The program’s terms are both clear – gambling at elite novice events is off-limits, too – and deliberately vague to cast a wide net against potential abusers.

Not all elements of gambling on the Tour mimic the operation of other leagues, especially given the changing landscape. As an organization, the Tour allows the prediction market to develop, “and not be the first mover,” Warfield said. (Professional tourism may accept sponsorship from gambling companies though not prediction markets, according to the Player Handbook.) The Tour also doesn’t produce injury reports like the kind other leagues have made mandatory. “It’s really hard to do,” Levinson said. “Even in golf, you can get injured all year round [and still play].”

Still, Levinson and Warfield are proud of the Tour’s role in lobbying city and state legislators across the country to okay their part of the gambling world. It’s an inexact science to squeeze everything they can out of a business opportunity while also protecting their brand from bad actors. They partnered with Genius Sports to monitor all betting markets and reached an agreement with IC360, the same company recently tasked with monitoring the officials for the upcoming March Madness.

“Not a lot of people have two different partners who are faithful,” Warfield notes.

“We’re watching,” Levinson said.

“We’ll find out,” Warfield concluded.