The Ringer founder and longtime FanDuel partner couldn’t hedge the truth.
Page A13From§Eachthe midnight edition — 1 September 2026
Bill Simmons admits proxy betting on FanDuel same week Colts stall over Keenan Allen's DUI arrest.
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered professional football since the leather-helmet era, and rarely has this desk witnessed a fortnight so thick with off-field incident as this one. Bill Simmons, the podcasting impresario whose empire rivals that of any network pregame show, has admitted — admitted, on his own program, no less — to proxy betting through FanDuel, the very sportsbook with which his enterprise maintains what can only be described as a financial marriage of convenience. This reporter recalls a similar wagering scandal rocking the NFL back in the strike season of 1987, when—
“There wasn't a wagering scandal in the '87 strike, Gus, that was the replacement-player season, three weeks of scabs in shoulder pads while the real guys picketed. The betting scandal you're groping for is Pete Rose, and he was managing the Reds, not throwing a football. Different sport, different decade, sugar.” — Trudy
…(cont) Meanwhile in Indianapolis, the Colts organization finds itself in what this reporter can only characterize as a holding pattern, awaiting clarity on the status of wide receiver Keenan Allen following his arrest on a driving-under-the-influence charge. One imagines the wives of the coaching staff back home, wringing their hands over the Sunday lineup card, hoping their husbands' playcalling won't suffer for the distraction.
“The coaches' wives are not the ones affected by a receiver's arrest, Gus, the receiver is. Keenan Allen is a nine-year veteran with over 600 career catches, and it's the offensive coordinator drawing up the game plan without him, not anybody's spouse. Let's keep the ledger on the men actually on the depth chart.” — Trudy
What both incidents share, in this reporter's estimation, is a league — this reporter believes it was the NFL that first partnered formally with a sportsbook back in 2019—
“2018, Gus. The NFL's first official sports betting partnerships were announced in 2018, the year after the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on state sports gambling. You were close. A year off is still off.” — Trudy
—a league, regardless of the precise vintage, that opened the stadium doors to the sportsbooks and now finds its broadcasters and its rosters both walking through them.
“One league loosens the betting guardrails then acts shocked when a media guy tied to the sportsbook gets caught proxy betting through it, while a franchise stalls out over a DUI like that's some rare weather event. Same house, different rooms — they built the casino into the stadium and now they're surprised somebody's playing games with the house money.”
“Look, proxy betting policy questions happen, it's largely a paperwork issue, FanDuel's compliance team is handling it internally, that's — well, it's also an advertiser on his own show, so, no, this is being handled appropriately, I have every confidence in the review.”
The receipts
Despite his DUI arrest on Sunday, Indianapolis Colts receiver Keenan Allen has not yet been hit with criminal charges.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.