There doesn’t have to be a milestone moment or viral play for an NHL player’s phone to be flooded with notifications in the wake of a game. Maybe there’s a text from a parent, a reminder from a partner, a few messages of congratulations or condolences. Not to mention the usual spate of emails and push alerts that inevitably pile up when you’ve been away from your phone for a few hours.
But these days, as sports betting becomes more and more prevalent in the hockey world, there’s a new app jockeying for space atop players’ home screens.
“I’ve been sent Venmo requests before,” one NHL player surveyed in The Athletic’s player poll said. “Like, ‘Hey, I bet on you guys to win and you blew it. So give me back my 50 bucks.’”
That player said he found it “comical.”
“I think I paid one guy back once,” he said with a laugh. “Sent him like 20 bucks.”
Of course, the Internet being what it is, it’s not always terribly funny. Almost one-third of the 161 players polled said they’ve been getting more harassing messages from fans since sports betting has become legal in more states.
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“Oh, almost every day,” one goaltender said. “Honestly, I’d say 75 percent of them are them being mad about something. ‘How did you let in that late goal? I had the under. Thanks a lot. You f—ing suck.’ Things like that constantly. I feel like, as a goalie, we’re a little bit more exposed to it, too.”
“Together with a couple death threats and a few other things,” another player added.
Perhaps the biggest revelation from The Athletic’s anonymous player poll was how common the Venmo requests are.
“They’re demands, not requests,” one player clarified. “’You owe me $200 because you were on the ice when …’ and it’s insane. It’s really bad when you play against Toronto because it seems like everybody is betting on Leafs games. But that’s Toronto for you.”
Apparently, NHL players need to do a better job of masking their identities on cash apps.
“Yeah, that’s real,” another player said. “When you ruin a guy’s parlay or something? Hundred percent, that’s real. I got one last game where some guy bet on my number of shots or something and then he’s DM’ing me: ‘You f—ed my parlay!’ Pardon my language, but that’s what he said.”
“Yeah, 100 percent,” said another player. “I’ve gotten plenty of them show up in my inbox before. Like I kept them from hitting some parlay or something or, ‘Here’s my Venmo. Send me $100.’”
“Oh, yeah,” one player said. “People on social media are way crazier now because they have more skin in the game. I think that’s for all sports.”
“I get messages all the time, and these are people probably betting $1.50,” said another.
Some such requests are obvious gags. But other messages carry a more sinister tone.
“Not here, but to be honest, mostly in Russia,” one player said. “Like it’s getting crazy. You’re up 2-0 and lose, you get messages, like, ‘You f—ing asshole, I’m gonna f—ing kill you.’”
One player said he gets at least one or two such messages every day from gamblers. But two-thirds of the players who responded said they don’t get any. It could depend on how high-profile a player is. Not a lot of fans are betting on fourth-liners and third-pairing defensemen. As one player joked, “I don’t think I’m the betting favorite.”
Unsurprisingly, many players have done their best to unplug entirely. That also could explain the two-thirds who said they don’t get such messages.
“I used to know that I got harassing messages,” one player said. “Now I don’t know. Who would read these f—ing idiots? I don’t anymore.”
“That’s why I turned everything off,” another said. “You get some scary messages out there.”
Another: “Good thing I’m not on social media.”
Another: “No one can find me, so I don’t know.”
Death threats and profanity-laced tirades aside, sometimes the players feel the bettors’ pain.
“Sometimes they bet on me to score and I don’t and they want me to give them money,” one player said. “I’m like, ‘I want to score, too!’”
(Graphic: Meech Robinson / The Athletic, with photos from Gary A. Vasquez, Katherine Gawlik and Andre Ringuette / Getty Images)