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Patrick Mahomes speaks to the media.
NEED TO KNOW
- Patrick Mahomes shared his stance on sports betting during a Kansas City Chiefs press conference on Nov. 12
- The quarterback explained why he opts to “stay away from it”
- He also offered advice to NFL fans on sports betting
Patrick Mahomes’ head is in the game.
The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, 30, shared his stance on sports betting when asked about it in regards to the recent NBA and MLB gambling scandals during a team press conference on Wednesday, Nov. 12.
“They let us know. I mean, the NFL and NFLPA kind of tell us all the different rules that you can and can’t do,” Mahomes told reporters. “I just stay away from it just because I don’t want to put myself in that position.”
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Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs.
He added, “I mean, that’s something that, your life is so great, why mess with it?”
The three-time Super Bowl winner then weighed in on fans and the extreme relationships that some tend to have with sports betting. He shared that it affects him personally.
“More than anything, to me, it gets weird sometimes when you have fans talking about it,” he said. “You’re just trying to go out there and live your life and play the game, and sometimes they get really attached even more than like the regular fan because they have money on the line.”
Mahomes then offered a bit of advice to fans about sports betting.
“And, so, from me to them, I would just say, ‘Don’t do anything that you can’t recuperate or live without,’ ” he said.
“It’s a crazy world we live in these days, seeing all this stuff happen,” Mahomes continued. “But I think you just focus on the football and focus on the sport that you love and why you’re here, and you don’t have to worry about other stuff.”
The topic of sports gambling has topped headlines in recent weeks following the Oct. 23 arrests of former Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, former Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and retired Cleveland Cavaliers player Damon Jones on suspicion of their involvement in a massive sports gambling operation with connections to the Mafia.
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Patrick Mahomes with his wife Brittany and kids at a Chiefs game.
Billups, 49, was arrested early on Oct. 23, hours after the Trail Blazers played the Minnesota Timberwolves in the season-opener. Rozier was arrested at his hotel in Orlando, where he was in town for the season-opener against the Magic.
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Patrick and Brittany Mahomes with their family celebrate after the Chiefs win in the 2024 Super Bowl.
Jones, 49, and Rozier, 31, were indicted for alleged charges related to sports betting, while Billups and Jones were alleged to have participated in “a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games,” authorities said at the time.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, authorities announced MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz are facing charges of fraud, conspiracy and bribery conspiracy, stemming from an alleged rigged pitching scheme.
Read the original article on People
