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Ottawa's Shane Pinto suspended 41 games for sports betting


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"The National Hockey League announced today that it has suspended NHL Player Shane Pinto for 41 games for activities relating to sports wagering. The League’s investigation found no evidence that Pinto made any wagers on NHL games," the statement reads. "The NHL considers this matter closed, absent the emergence of new information, and will have no further comment."

He gets 41 games for betting on other sports.

Can someone explain to me how that's justified? Is it simply a case of him being involved in some kind of low-level mob-type bookie? If he were doing this on the OFFICIAL BETTING SITE OF THE OTTAWA SENATORS, would he be punished?

There has got to be way more to this story.

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1 minute ago, RochesterExpat said:

He gets 41 games for betting on other sports.

Can someone explain to me how that's justified? Is it simply a case of him being involved in some kind of low-level mob-type bookie? If he were doing this on the OFFICIAL BETTING SITE OF THE OTTAWA SENATORS, would he be punished?

There has got to be way more to this story.

Has to be. The same NHL that has betting ads in game and on arena board ads. There has to be more to the story.

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1 minute ago, RochesterExpat said:

He gets 41 games for betting on other sports.

Can someone explain to me how that's justified? Is it simply a case of him being involved in some kind of low-level mob-type bookie? If he were doing this on the OFFICIAL BETTING SITE OF THE OTTAWA SENATORS, would he be punished?

There has got to be way more to this story.

From the article, it seems the issue isn't so much that he was betting on other sports but that he was a "third party bettor," in other words he's placing bets with a bookie.  And the issue there being that if he ends up losing Vanek levels of cash he might end up needing to try to "fix" a game or 2 to get out from under his debt.

This'll end up costing him at least $1MM.  (He reportedly was close to signing a $2.2MM contract with the Sens before this came to light.)

Hopefully this'll keep other players playing by the league's imposed rules, but expecting there'll be a few more getting suspended each year.

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3 minutes ago, pastajoe said:

Never understood why it’s wrong for players to bet. As long as they don’t bet against their own team it shouldn’t be an issue. If a league thinks it’s an addiction they should treat it the same as alcohol or drugs and provide counseling.

2 reasons (the 1st of which is pretty much moot now that ALL leagues and teams are in bet with "legit" gambling groups):

1.  The leagues don't want to give the appearance that games aren't on the up and up.  If players or refs are gambling, questions can get raised about just how "clean" the game actually is.

And 

2.  If the players are going through bookies to place their bets, there is concern that the bookie might coerce the player into "throwing" a game to get out of excessive debts (should they arise).  

And that 2nd concern looks to be the reason Pinto got suspended and suspended with a Tom Lysiak style suspension.  The league wanted to send a message.  

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41 minutes ago, pastajoe said:

Never understood why it’s wrong for players to bet. As long as they don’t bet against their own team it shouldn’t be an issue. If a league thinks it’s an addiction they should treat it the same as alcohol or drugs and provide counseling.

Probably because it's all too easy to walk down that slippery slope one day even if it's only on a whim.

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