BetMGM introduces 'zero-tolerance' athlete anti-harassment policy targeting sports betting threats and abuse

FIRST ON FOX — The sports betting industry says it is taking a major step forward in the protection of athletes and the preservation of the integrity of the game with a groundbreaking policy that holds bettors accountable for threats made against players, coaches and officials.

BetMGM will launch a new "Athlete Anti-Harassment Policy" this week that will allow the betting operator to suspend or permanently terminate a customer’s account if it is determined that they have engaged "in abusive, threatening, defamatory, or harassing conduct of any kind toward sports officials, coaches, athletes, or any other individuals connected to sporting events." 

The "zero-tolerance" policy comes at a time when players have been vocal about the rise in online harassment amid a rise in sports betting.

Rhea Loney, chief compliance officer of BetMGM, spoke to Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview about the new policy and explained the motivation behind the need for more explicit protections for players and other sports figures.

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"Harassment of athletes being tied to betting outcomes is not something any of us should accept. Athletes under criticism, you know, that comes with the job," Loney explained, "But when it comes to threats, abuse, intimidation, that's just different. And threats, abuse, intimidation, and harassment, they harm individuals. They undermine the integrity of sport."

Social media have become a major factor in this issue, with fans and bettors getting access to players more easily than ever before. Over the summer, Boston Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito said he raised the issue directly with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

"When it comes to the gambling, it obviously has created an uptick in insane people online — well, not insane, just disgruntled," he told the "Baseball isn’t Boring" podcast in July. "I’m getting messages after every game, even games where I pitch well where they’re made at me because I hit the strike out over instead of being under, or I was under instead of being over like prop bets – all these crazy things. And people put hundreds of dollars on it, and they don’t have a lot of money, but they're gambling it anyways because it's a disease. They freak out." 

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Loney said that whether those threats are made online, via social media, or in person won’t matter, the definitions of harassment are clear to BetMGM. 

"We're going to investigate this, and we're going to look at the conduct being reported to us. And I think there is a clear line – there's a clear line between fandom excitement and then there's a clear line between when it's threats of violence and when there's racial slurs or when the fans are then saying horrible things to athletes because of a certain score in a game."

"That's not going to be tolerated by us," she continued. "And those are going to be the individuals that we're going to take action against, and we don't want them on our sports betting platform. We don't want them to be a customer of ours because they are undermining the integrity of the game."

Loney said that the more information provided about the complaint allows BetMGM to investigate and pinpoint if that individual has an account. Complaints can be made to law enforcement and state regulators, BetMGM’s customer service, and through an anonymous hotline. Once BetMGM has enough information, it will launch an investigation. 

"We, as the legal market, know a lot of information about our customers because they have to go through very extensive KYC procedures. We know names, we know addresses, we know emails and these are all the requirements for participants to register and be in the be in the legal, regulated market. So then, based on the information that we take from the investigative report that's sent to us, we'll see if we're able to identify the social media account in your example, whoever sent the DM. We may also work with our regulators and law enforcement as well for them depending on the nature of the complaint and the nature of the threat. We would work with our regulators and law enforcement as well and they may be able to have other avenues to help us other than what we have internally at BetMGM."

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In June, police in Texas identified a man overseas as the culprit who allegedly made death threats directed at Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. and his family in May. Police said the man was "inebriated" when he made the threats on social media after he lost money on a bet.

The Astros hired security for McCullers and his family. McCullers said he struggled with explaining the situation to his 5-year-old daughter. 

"She asked me when I came home, ‘Daddy, like, what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?’" McCullers told The Associated Press at the time. "So, those conversations are tough to deal with."

The policy change will explicitly target these types of incidents. 

Loney explained that while BetMGM has always reserved this right to hold sports bettors accountable, this new policy makes its position clear. 

"I think what we wanted to do is we actually just wanted to make this much more explicit and, so, you know, while we do have the general ability to have suspensions in our prior terms of service, what we wanted to say, and we wanted to say to the fan base, to the sports bettors out there, is we really want to emphasize that this is zero-tolerance. 

"We want this to be explicitly clear, and so we changed it around to make it more explicitly clear and, hopefully, to send the message out that this is zero tolerance, and so I think that we we shifted it to make sure that it was clear that this isn't going to be something that we'll tolerate and to send that message out to fans and sports bettors and also really to promote integrity within our industry, promote respect, integrity and to deter this type of conduct that's been occurring."

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