Referees are the necessary judges of sports to keep all participants in a game playing by the rules. The majority of the time, referees are a beneficial influence on the integrity of professional games, which is more important than ever, given the legalization and increasing popularity of sports betting across the United States. However, what happens when a referee makes a bad call and changes the outcome of a game?
On multiple occasions throughout the history of the NFL, a referee has made a call that was later proved to be a bad one, resulting in one team losing when they shouldn’t have. It is infuriating for both fans and players alike to have a win taken away from them due to the mistake of a single referee. However, when the bad call is revealed and acknowledged by the league, it is usually too late to go back and fix the game.
With sports betting rising in popularity, missed calls like this now have millions of dollars behind them, leaving absolutely no room for error. Imagine if you bet $1,000 on the outcome of a sports game, lost the bet, only to realize a few days later you should have won that bet? Now, a bad call by a referee has your money on the line, not just team pride or their potential to reach the championship.
Usually, when a referee makes a bad call, the league will reveal the mistake and make the punishment of the referee a private affair. The usual punishments are reprimands, corrective actions, losing opportunities for high-profile games, and, if the referee is particularly consistent in their bad calls, contract termination.
However, with so much money behind each decision a referee makes now, should the punishment of referees become more public? If the punishment is public, it can allow sports betters to make more informed decisions with their money, deciding to avoid games with referees known to make bad calls in the past.
