On a random Thursday in March, I’m sitting in class and I have to go to the bathroom. When I get into the bathroom, I go onto my phone. I scan through my notifications and I see that Calvin Ridley, a star Wide Receiver on the Atlanta Falcons, has gotten suspended for the 2022 season. I’m really confused at this moment and I want to know why he’s been suspended. It says, “Calvin Ridley was betting during the 2021 NFL season.” I think that this is crazy. Calvin Ridley barely played in 2021 and wanted to have some fun by betting. 

If a player is betting, especially if they’re betting on a different game, they shouldn’t get suspended. Even if you bet on your own team and make your team lose because of it, that’s when you can get suspended. But that’s not always the case. There have been bad punishments for people who bet, and most of them are worse than when players commit rape. These rules need a change.

Punishments have been really harsh when the players willingly bet. You can tell everything that happened with Calvin Ridley and Pete Rose. If you don’t know who Pete Rose is, he was a Professional baseball player with the most hits in MLB history. But, he admitted to betting and now he is unfairly banned from the hall of fame. In the MLB, according to the MLB rules, The rules on betting states, says that if you bet on a game that you’re not playing in, you’ll be suspended for one year/season. But if you bet on a game that you’re playing in, then you are suspended indefinitely. These rules are just too harsh. In any sport rules section, they always state, “betting on any game is prohibited.” 

A solution for this can be that the players will notify the league what they are betting. Then the league will be able to clarify if that bet is okay to place. Let’s just say that a player bets on their own team to lose, and the player will play bad because of that, the league can tell them to not place that bet and there won’t be a punishment. But if they go on and still place the bet, there can be a punishment because he didn’t listen.

In conclusion, sports betting has been a rule in sports for many years now. But it doesn’t give any playing advantages to the players, and when they do get a punishment, it’s very harsh. Most people know that the players will bet, but they just want to have fun. The leagues have too many harsh rules and this one needs a change.

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