Did ESPN Bet Really Accuse Devin Singletary of Point Shaving and Match Fixing?
In a bizarre post appearing on the ESPN Bet Tik Tok page, the company, or at least the person administering the said account, appeared to accuse Devin Singletary of giving up a touchdown in order to impact the total score.
Before we dig deeper, this certainly wouldn't be the first time a social media account got caught swaying a bit from a sportsbook company's desire public image. Gambling911.com has previously profiled FanDuel, the largest online sports betting site in the U.S. regulated market, and its social media account epic fails.
Gambling industry analyst Joe Brennan, Jr. took offense to a tweet (still live on the FanDuel site) featuring a bruised and battered woman with the caption "Me after going 1-for-8 on my bets this weekend".
"Hmmm. High parlay volume has been a cornerstone of FD’s success, yet their Social Team seems to continually undermine that with their “anything to be snarky” tweets featuring an apparent futility to win with the product ," Brennan Jr. observed after the latest tweet, just days after posting the aforementioned video of a woman beaten.
WTF is @FanDuel doing with their social? Is the image of a beaten-up woman really what you want in your comms “Amy Ticketmaster”? https://t.co/uKzFjLrOhA
— Joe Brennan Jr (@joebrennanjr) November 28, 2022
There is also BetMGM posting a WWE clip of a wheelchair bound man being tossed down a flight of stairs.
Stay classy BetMGM. That one is also still up.
ESPN Bet may have taken this to a whole other level.
Some social media followers are even suggesting Singletary could come after ESPN Bet for defamation. We would note that the defamation cases typically apply to otherwise private individuals, something Singletary is not.
The Supreme Court ruled that, for a public figure to recover damages in a defamation case, he or she must prove not only that the statement was defamatory but also that it was made with actual malice.
Well now...
"So ESPN can do this and nothing happens, but I accuse my son's little league teammate of doing the same thing and I'm not allowed to go to games anymore?", one person asked via Reddit.
ESPN Bet accused Devin Singletary of point shaving & match fixing in a now deleted post on TikTok, I hope he sues them into oblivion
— michael (@esquiremichael1) September 23, 2024
Your brains are warped, there’s still time to graduate from kindergarten @ESPNBET pic.twitter.com/t0AoIFm8gT
Dr. Jay on Reddit writes:
"Wait, the official ESPN Bet TikTok account posted that video with the caption? That's fucking insane. This would have been a major scandal like 5+ years ago.
"edit: I see it was really just a missing comma causing confusion, but that's a terrible caption. They need to be more careful with that kind of thing, it's a really bad look for the league."
Moosleach wrote:
"I'm aware that I'm the idiot for engaging... but no, they didn't. They stated that a)Singletary intentionally did not score, and b)that act in turn caused the game to hit the under. Both of those statements are true.
"Putting them together in a post does not, unless hypothetically you are running a website and putting out intentionally misleading headlines to drive user engagement, mean one was done maliciously to cause the other."
Awful Announcing explained the dilemma in the sports betting sphere as it applies to this particular play.
"While the touchdown would have made it a two-score deficit for the Browns, who had zero timeouts, it would have left Cleveland enough time to mount a miracle comeback. However, by sliding instead of scoring, the Giants were able to kneel out the remaining time on the clock and garner their first win of the 2024 season.
"While a smart football play for the Giants, Singletary’s decision was a particularly bad beat for anyone who had bet the 0ver, which was 37.5. The combined score as it stood was 36."
They add: "It’s easy enough to say that the TikTok post is poorly phrased and just let it go, but when it comes to professional athletes and the implication of doing anything related to influencing the outcome of a bet, it’s fair to expect a higher standard than this."
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