NASCAR Sports Gambling Policy Gets Drivers' Attention; Enforcement a Challenge

• NASCAR requires all of its employees, drivers, and crew members to undergo an online tutorial every two years about gambling and the penalties.

• NASCAR drivers and team members face stiff penalties if caught gambling on NASCAR races.

• All sports leagues, however, are still tying to figure out how best to monitor their participants' gambling activities to make sure they aren’t violating policies.

NASCAR drivers agree with the sanctioning body that legalized gambling is a way to attract new fans, but the competitors know that maintaining the sport’s integrity is critical.

NASCAR champion and RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski said everyone must be “really careful” as a team and abide by the rules.

A pitfall of sports betting came to the forefront this year when it was learned the former longtime interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani allegedly stole more than $16 million from the Japanese athlete to cover gambling debts. Federal authorities have charged Ippei Mizuhara with federal bank fraud, alleging he set up a bank account for Ohtani’s baseball salary, and then lied to the bank to gain access to the account so he could take money to pay for his own sports betting.

In an effort to head-off such an issue, NASCAR requires all of its employees, drivers, and crew members to undergo an online tutorial every two years about gambling and the penalties. The online tutorial was created for NASCAR by Sportradar, a company based in St. Gallen, Switzerland, that NASCAR Managing Director Sports Betting Joe Solosky described as “NASCAR’s integrity partner.”

Sportradar has conducted seminars for NASCAR drivers and team owners about match fixing and the unique susceptibility that NASCAR has for potential match fixing due to the fans’ access to the sport.

“This session was intended to make our drivers aware … here’s some things to be on the lookout for if anyone is asking you any questions that seem out of the norm around anything that’s competition related … and what to do in those circumstances if that does happen,” Solosky says.

Solosky said the seminars also covered such items as the difference between an illegal offshore book and a legal onshore book, and potential career or personal ramifications of being involved in a betting scandal. Sportradar conducted the first seminars for drivers and team owners prior to last year’s Busch Clash at the Los Angeles Coliseum. NASCAR would like to expand the seminars to crew members.

This year NASCAR worked with the teams, and its Daytona Beach, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., offices around a reinforcement of NASCAR’s sports gambling policy since online sportsbook betting was launched in North Carolina and Florida. The March 11 memo that was distributed stated: