Georgia football staff member broke NCAA rules by gambling on sports

According to the NCAAA secondary violations summary posted by the Georgia athletics compliance department, a Georgia football staff member engaged in impermissible sports wagering in professional sports, violating NCAA bylaw 10.3. The report, which lists level 3 and 4 violations reported between July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, notes the staff member is no longer with the program. According to the report, Georgia provided rules education for the involved individual and sport staff members.

“If the staff member is hired by another SEC institution in the future staff member is required to complete a sports gambling education program/session, and the hiring institution is required to submit a written plan to the Conference office for monitoring the staff member to assure he does not commit similar violations in the future,” the report added.

At the spring meetings in May 2023, Kirby Smart discussed how gambling has saturated sports at every level.

“I can’t turn the TV on now without seeing something [about gambling]. There’s a lot of debate out there about what’s right and what’s wrong, but the NCAA rule is pretty harsh for gambling relative to some other things. It’s pretty obvious why: they don’t want that infiltrating teams,” Smart said. “There’s a lot of states — including ours — where that’s been a great debate whether to allow it to come into your state. Well, it’s more about revenue for the state. It’s about protection for your schools. 

“Kids can do this regardless of what state. It’s easy access. I see it everywhere. We try our best to educate the players and, sometimes, it takes somebody having a pitfall for somebody to learn from their mistake.”

Smart admitted that the research his program had done on gambling over the last year caught him off guard.

“I mean, these kids, there’s like Chinese baseball games and stuff that people are gambling on. It’s like, what? They’re betting on horse racing in another country,” Smart said. “It’s literally crazy how easy it is and the access they have to it, and then [with] the punishment you have to ask yourself, ‘Oh my gosh, this guy could lose his entire eligibility forever for betting on a horse race, you know, in another country.'”

Three other violations were reported involving the football program. On Sept. 6, Georgia reported a violation involving a non-coach football staff member participating in a practice drill, exceeding the countable coaching staff limit. The school prohibited that staff member from attending any student-athlete activities for a week and the football staff provided rules education. This would likely not be a rules violation with the recent changes allowing unlimited staff members as coaches. 

On June 26, 2023, Georgia reported a a coach called a 2024 prospect before it was permissible, which is June 15, resulting in that staff member being prohibited from calling that prospect for two weeks. On Feb. 14, 2023, a similar violation was reported, with a coach calling a 2025 prospect outside of the April 15-May 31 window, resulting in that staff member being prohibited from any calls, incoming or outgoing, or messages with that prospect for a week.

On August 2022 and August 2023, Georgia reports that football players were marginally overcompensated for expenses after appearing at a charity event, resulting in that charitable foundation and the staff members involved being educated on expense limits and the players donating the excessive compensation to charity.