Shane Pinto, middle of the Ottawa Senators, was punished with a 41-game suspension by the NHL on Thursday. This suspension is the results of an NHL investigation into sports activities betting, and in line with the league’s Thursday announcement, the participant was discovered to have positioned bets on non-league matches. Aside from assuring that proof suggesting Pinto had positioned bets on NHL video games has not been discovered, the league didn’t present additional data and said that it “considers the matter closed.”
In an apology issued after the announcement, Pinto addressed the state of affairs. He apologized for his wrongdoings and mentioned he took “full duty” for what he had executed.
Pinto is not going to file an enchantment, and his suspension will final till January 20, 2024. He will likely be permitted to as soon as once more play for the NHL beginning January 21.
The Ottawa Senators made a press release the place they made it clear that they knew Pinto deeply regretted his actions and that they have been in full assist of the NHL’s sports activities betting guidelines. They continued, expressing the workforce’s intention of supporting and staying “dedicated to” Pinto, and vowed to help him in confronting his issues.
Sports activities Betting Bans are a Rarity When it Involves the NHL
Pinto is the primary NHL participant within the twenty-first century to face punishment for violating the NHL’s playing guidelines. The final sports activities betting case occurred in 1948, when Don Gallinger and Billy Taylor of the Boston Bruins have been banned for wagering on Boston Bruins video games. Not like Pinto, nevertheless, Gallinger didn’t instantly admit to committing the transgressions as soon as the state of affairs got here to gentle. As a substitute, it was solely when it turned clear that the proof towards him was overwhelming that he got here clear. The ban was lifted in 1970, greater than twenty years after it was issued.
Two years previous to Gallinger and Taylor’s suspension, the NHL banned Walter Pratt. The rationale for his ban needed to do with him inserting bets on league matches. Nonetheless, the mentioned video games weren’t matches that his workforce, the Toronto Maple Leafs, had participated in. Pratt’s admission of committing his wrongdoings led to the suspension, which was imagined to final a lifetime, being lifted after he was absent from 9 video games.
In the end, prohibitions that need to do with sports activities betting aren’t a typical incidence for the NHL. If we glance past the scope of the NHL, nevertheless, issues are totally different. Plenty of gamers of the NFL league, particularly, have additionally confronted suspensions tied to playing. The yr 2023 alone noticed a number of bans, with the most recent gamers to face suspension being the Indianapolis Colts’ Isaiah Rodgers Sr. and Rashod Berry, who wagered on NFL video games, and the Tennessee Titans’ Nicholas Petit-Frere, whose suspension was the consequence of him inserting bets on video games exterior the league. Final yr, Calvin Ridley of the Atlanta Falcons was prohibited from taking part within the 2022 season as he had wagered on NFL video games. The yr 2019 noticed the suspension of Josh Shaw, cornerback of the Arizona Cardinals, for a similar sort of transgressions.
