End Game: NGCB Wants To Blackball Bowyer, NCAA Petitions CFTC, Kayshon Boutte’s Confession

The U.S. sports betting world moves quickly and unpredictably in 2025. In order to properly take stock of it all, we offer InGame’s “EndGame,” an end-of-week compilation of the top storylines, some overlooked items, and all the other news bits from this past week that we found interesting.

Bowyer on way to being banned in NV

The Nevada Gaming Control Board Jan. 14 recommended that convicted bookmaker Mathew Bowyer be added to the state’s List of Excluded Persons, a.k.a. the Nevada “Black Book.” If approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) at their next meeting on Jan. 29, Bowyer would be prohibited from ever again stepping foot in a Nevada casino.

Bowyer pleaded guilty in September 2024 to various illegal bookmaking charges, including taking bets Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for L.A. Dodgers superstar pitcher Shohei Ohtani, who stole millions from Ohtani to feed his sports betting addiction. Bowyer was sentenced last August to 12 months in prison, which he is currently serving. His bookmaking activities and high-stakes gambling at Caesars Palace and Resorts World Las Vegas led to regulators fining the companies $7.8 million and $10.5 million, respectively; Resorts World’s fine was the second-heftiest ever imposed by the NGC on a Nevada licensee.

At the hearing, Control Board member George Assad decried Bowyer’s 12 months in prison compared to Mizuhara’s four years. Assad, a former judge, commented, “The drug dealer gets a year and the drug user gets four.”

Boutte: ‘How the hell did I get here?’

Kayshon Boutte, wide receiver for the New England Patriots, penned a brutally honest confessional published in The Player’sTribune on Jan. 7, titled “How the hell did I get here?”

That was the question he asked himself while lying in bed, seeing $0.00 in his account on a sports betting app, “and you know that’s your last,” he wrote. “When you hit rock bottom. Every gambling addict has this moment.”

Boutte describes “falling in love” with gambling when he was 20 at Louisiana State University on a full ride. “Whole future ahead of me. And I didn’t care at all. I’d wake up early in the morning and the first thing I’d do was bet. I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. Any little money I had, it was going straight to FanDuel.”

Then he wracked up his ankle, suffered a lot of pain, started taking pills, and tried anything to escape. That was when he started gambling, which “damn near ruined my life.” Boutte managed to claw back from the abyss. Not everyone is so determined — or lucky.

Kalshi signs first athlete ambassador

Kalshi Wednesday announced that LIV Tour professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau is its first athlete endorser and the first for any prediction market operating in North America. As part of the deal, first reported by Front Office Sports, the two-time U.S. Open-winner will be featured in a television commercial, social media posts, and branded content.

Kalshi will reportedly also post DeChambeau-specific sports event contracts.

“Am I gonna make a birdie on the next hole? Am I gonna win this tournament or that tournament? There’s just so many things you can do with prediction markets,” DeChambeau described possible markets to FOS.

MLB, the NBA, and NHL also allow active professional athletes to endorse sportsbooks, but not with content pertinent to their sport.

Brant James

NCAA to CFTC: Pause college contracts

In a letter sent Wednesday, NCAA President Charlie Baker urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to suspend college-related sports events contracts, available on prediction markets, until “the necessary guardrails to protect student-athletes and college sports” can be implemented. Those include “age and advertising restrictions, enhanced integrity monitoring, prop-market prevention, anti-harassment measures, and harm-reduction resources.”

The letter stated, “The NCAA is willing to work with the CFTC to develop such a system that protects student-athletes and consumers from harm.”

At press time, the NCAA had not received a response from the CFTC.

CGA sets standards for advertising

The Code for Responsible Gaming Advertising, developed in 2025 by the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA), went into effect on Jan. 1. The code provides “a benchmark for acceptable and socially responsible advertising within the Canadian gaming industry.”

The Code’s “expectations” include: truthful and transparent advertising; social responsibility emphasizing moderation; strict rules to prevent advertising that targets underagers; mandatory responsible gaming messaging; and restrictions on inducements and promotions.

Though the code applies to all advertising of gambling in all forms, it’s a voluntary commitment by the gaming industry “to uphold standards that are at least as high as those mandated by law.” The CGA, as a self-regulating trade organization, “reviews and adjudicates consumer and competitor complaints related to gaming advertising,” but has no enforcement powers.

Sports betting ad spoofs sports ads

In a scenario that smacks of having your cake and eating it too, then running a cake ad about the dangers of eating too much cake, a new sports betting commercial launched Jan. 8 on social media spoofs the agony of too many sports betting commercials.

In the ad for fantasy sports operator PrizePicks, former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch and actor Adam Devine navigate a briefly glimpsed minefield of commercial stunts — dog bites audio tech, woman in bubble bath, actors in sports uniforms — to arrive, in front of a hushed purple backdrop, at what’s most important: ease of betting on PrizePick’s app.

Does the world need yet another sports betting commercial, even one that makes fun of sports betting commercials? Or would it be better to free up some air time for spots pitching pickups and pizza?

Tournament basic strategy: Read the rules

A fortuitous twist in the Circa Millions football contest was good for a positive $500,000 swing for the winner, who was unaware of a tiebreaker rule.

“We have the tiebreaker, because we want one entry to get $1 million,” said Mike Palm, vice president of operations for Circa, at the awards ceremony as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We don’t want eight people chopping first. We want somebody to get that check for $1 million.”

Two entrants in the $1,000 contest, who make five picks against the spread every week during the regular season, tied for the best record (60-29-1) and expected to split the $1 million grand prize. But the contest rules specify a tiebreaker: the most winning weeks. One contestant logged 15, while the other had 14. The winner went to bed believing he’d split the $1 million, then was awakened by his cell phone blowing up with the news he’d placed first in the contest.  

Odds and ends

• International Game Technology Jan. 7 signed a two-year extension of its contract with the Rhode Island Lottery, allowing the company to continue providing retail and mobile sports betting services in the Ocean State through November 2028 at the earliest. Despite the Lottery putting out a “request for qualifications” Dec. 2, seeking a company to go into competition with IGT with a five-year contract, IGT will upgrade the Sportsbook Rhode Island app “to support the state’s initiatives for good causes.” IGT has offered sports betting in Rhode Island since 2018.
• In her State of the State address on Jan. 13, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul addressed the growing problem of underage gambling in the Empire State. She proposed deploying such high-tech guardrails as facial recognition, thumbprint scanners, and biometric age verification on smartphones to prevent underage people, particularly those 18 and younger, from accessing sports betting and iGaming.
• The NGCB Wednesday approved a request from Joe Asher’s Boomer’s Sportsbook to expand to Reno’s Bonanza Casino, and a request from Caesars to take over sportsbook operations at the Resort at Summerlin. Both must be approved by the NGC, which next meets Jan. 29. Asher, Boomer’s CEO, told the board he hopes to have 12 sportsbooks by the start of the next NFL season.

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