One day last spring, Isaiah Lee, a defensive lineman for Iowa State University, got a visit from a state police investigator who wanted to talk about something on a lot of fans’ minds: sports betting.
Like many young Americans, Lee had begun wagering on games lately. He was old enough to legally gamble in Iowa, but the NCAA bars athletes from sports betting, with strict penalties for violations that range from mandatory training (for any bet at all) to an outright ban (for wagering on their own team).
Mark Ludwick, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations agent, told Lee he was working on a case focused “solely on gaming operators” such as DraftKings and FanDuel, according to a motion filed by defense attorneys summarizing Ludwick’s deposition for the case. He even “reassured” Lee he faced “no adverse or criminal consequences.” So Lee opened up. He had created a FanDuel account in his girlfriend’s name, he admitted, and wagered $885 on a variety of events — including 12 Iowa State football games.
When Ludwick reported the interview to his supervisor, the agent quickly realized his assurances to Lee were hollow, according to the summary. His boss “congratulated” him for “obtaining a confession.” Ludwick said he then “advised his superiors that he would no longer participate in the investigation, and requested reassignment,” according to court records.
The investigation pushed forward, and three months later prosecutors charged Lee and nearly two dozen other athletes from Iowa State and the University of Iowa with crimes related to their gambling activity, spanning from misdemeanor underage betting to felony identity theft for using an account registered under someone else. The NCAA acted, too, suspending all of the players.
Some of the most decorated athletes in the state were implicated. Paniro Johnson, a champion wrestler, wagered $45,640 across 1,283 bets, including roughly two dozen on Iowa State sporting events, according to a criminal complaint. Iowa State starting quarterback Hunter Dekkers, authorities said, wagered “more than $2,799” across 366 bets, including a 2021 Iowa State football game in which he served as a backup. He was one of at least nine athletes accused of breaking a long-standing sports taboo: gambling on their own games.
The unprecedented crackdown illuminated how deeply the expansion of legal online gambling has infiltrated some college locker rooms, spurring calls for reform that include proposals to ban prop bets in college sports and to curtail harassment by fans.
But records and interviews with people involved in the case also demonstrate how disjointed the efforts are to hold sportsbooks, schools and athletes accountable, spotlighting the tensions emerging between the growing popularity of online sports betting and a regulatory system erected on the fly to contain it.
Isaiah Lee admitted setting up a betting account in his fiancée's name and betting on sports, including Iowa State football. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register/Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Iowa State's Paniro Johnson, right, was also implicated in the case. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen/Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Former Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers was accused of making bets, too, including on Iowa State football games. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
While the NCAA maintains strict rules against betting, gambling operators have advertised on university campuses and targeted young adults as potential customers. Law enforcement units designed to root out bookies and organized crime rings find themselves toiling to unearth infractions in an industry no longer hiding in the shadows.
“This case was investigated like a major, sprawling criminal conspiracy,” said Mark Weinhardt, a defense attorney representing eight of the athletes. “It yielded some guilty pleas to the equivalent of traffic tickets.”
The only crimes the athletes in Iowa were accused of were gambling before turning 21 or using an account that didn’t belong to them. The only convictions resulted in a $645 fine. Meanwhile, some of the case’s investigators have raised questions about the roots of their own probe. In the deposition summarized in court records, Ludwick alleged that DCI obtained its evidence through illegal searches of a gambling database.
“Numerous other Special Agents,” he said in his deposition, “share the same belief and have refused to participate in this investigation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...et-sports-investigations_inline_collection_19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...et-sports-investigations_inline_collection_20
None of the agents involved responded to messages seeking comment. The Iowa Department of Public Safety, which oversees DCI, declined to answer questions but issued a statement defending the probe, saying “agents conferred with legal experts” throughout.
The athletes in the cases, which have all concluded with plea deals or dismissals, declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests. Their sports careers were all derailed or ended, their families and attorneys said. Some have transferred, seeking a fresh start. Others didn’t have that option. Lee’s violation of NCAA policy meant he lost his senior season.
“They’re being punished for a lifetime by adults who didn’t follow rules,” said Van Plumb, a lawyer representing Lee and several other players. “This will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”
Iowa was an early adopter. It legalized sports betting in 2019, with 18 operators rushing into the market. Last year, bettors in the state placed more than $2 billion worth of wagers, generating $186 million in corporate profits and $13 million in taxes.
In 2021, Iowa’s Department of Criminal Investigations started a unit focused on sports betting. That year, a member of the unit, Special Agent Brian Sanger, wrote a memo urging the state’s gambling regulator, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, to license tracking software from a company called GeoComply, according to emails obtained by the Des Moines Register.
The system, installed in Iowa by September 2022, compiles geolocation data on every account created and every bet placed on many of the country’s biggest online sports betting platforms, including DraftKings and FanDuel. Through the company’s analytics tool, Kibana, which flags clusters of heavy activity, clients can home in on a location deemed suspicious, such as a prison or a high school, and view every device that opens a betting app there to look into potential violations of gambling laws.
But the state licensed the sophisticated software without establishing clear policies on how exactly the database can be used in criminal investigations.
Under state law, “customer records,” “surveillance records” and other information gambling companies provide to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission are “confidential, unless otherwise ordered by a court, by the lawful custodian of the records, or by another person duly authorized to release such information.” How GeoComply, a third-party contractor holding those records, fits into that clause remains up for interpretation — Iowa courts have yet to rule on the issue.
Under its terms of service, GeoComply placed that determination in the hands of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, the regulator licensing the software. In an August 2022 email, viewed by The Washington Post, the commission’s administrator, Brian Ohorilko, explained to GeoComply that his agency would authorize DCI to use the system only under certain circumstances, citing the Iowa legal code containing the confidentially clause. But his language listing those conditions was vague and brief, including that criminal investigators could “review abnormal wagering activity or patterns that may indicate a concern about the integrity” of a sporting event. He did not address who was supposed to decide what counted as “abnormal” or a “pattern” or whether investigators needed to present any evidence before launching such a review. With those loose guidelines in place, GeoComply granted DCI agents login access to Kibana.
Ohorilko, who is no longer with the commission, didn’t respond to an interview request. In response to questions seeking more information about the Kibana approval process, Tina Eick, the administrator who replaced Ohorilko, laid the responsibly for legal compliance on DCI: “IRGC has no role in how DCI conducts their investigations,” she said.
Sanger seemed to have a more straight forward understanding of what the law allowed. In his 2021 memo, he said he believed GeoComply could “share all their data” with “state investigators,” according to the Register.
Like many young Americans, Lee had begun wagering on games lately. He was old enough to legally gamble in Iowa, but the NCAA bars athletes from sports betting, with strict penalties for violations that range from mandatory training (for any bet at all) to an outright ban (for wagering on their own team).
Mark Ludwick, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations agent, told Lee he was working on a case focused “solely on gaming operators” such as DraftKings and FanDuel, according to a motion filed by defense attorneys summarizing Ludwick’s deposition for the case. He even “reassured” Lee he faced “no adverse or criminal consequences.” So Lee opened up. He had created a FanDuel account in his girlfriend’s name, he admitted, and wagered $885 on a variety of events — including 12 Iowa State football games.
When Ludwick reported the interview to his supervisor, the agent quickly realized his assurances to Lee were hollow, according to the summary. His boss “congratulated” him for “obtaining a confession.” Ludwick said he then “advised his superiors that he would no longer participate in the investigation, and requested reassignment,” according to court records.
The investigation pushed forward, and three months later prosecutors charged Lee and nearly two dozen other athletes from Iowa State and the University of Iowa with crimes related to their gambling activity, spanning from misdemeanor underage betting to felony identity theft for using an account registered under someone else. The NCAA acted, too, suspending all of the players.
Some of the most decorated athletes in the state were implicated. Paniro Johnson, a champion wrestler, wagered $45,640 across 1,283 bets, including roughly two dozen on Iowa State sporting events, according to a criminal complaint. Iowa State starting quarterback Hunter Dekkers, authorities said, wagered “more than $2,799” across 366 bets, including a 2021 Iowa State football game in which he served as a backup. He was one of at least nine athletes accused of breaking a long-standing sports taboo: gambling on their own games.
The unprecedented crackdown illuminated how deeply the expansion of legal online gambling has infiltrated some college locker rooms, spurring calls for reform that include proposals to ban prop bets in college sports and to curtail harassment by fans.
But records and interviews with people involved in the case also demonstrate how disjointed the efforts are to hold sportsbooks, schools and athletes accountable, spotlighting the tensions emerging between the growing popularity of online sports betting and a regulatory system erected on the fly to contain it.
Isaiah Lee admitted setting up a betting account in his fiancée's name and betting on sports, including Iowa State football. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register/Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Iowa State's Paniro Johnson, right, was also implicated in the case. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen/Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Former Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers was accused of making bets, too, including on Iowa State football games. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
While the NCAA maintains strict rules against betting, gambling operators have advertised on university campuses and targeted young adults as potential customers. Law enforcement units designed to root out bookies and organized crime rings find themselves toiling to unearth infractions in an industry no longer hiding in the shadows.
“This case was investigated like a major, sprawling criminal conspiracy,” said Mark Weinhardt, a defense attorney representing eight of the athletes. “It yielded some guilty pleas to the equivalent of traffic tickets.”
The only crimes the athletes in Iowa were accused of were gambling before turning 21 or using an account that didn’t belong to them. The only convictions resulted in a $645 fine. Meanwhile, some of the case’s investigators have raised questions about the roots of their own probe. In the deposition summarized in court records, Ludwick alleged that DCI obtained its evidence through illegal searches of a gambling database.
“Numerous other Special Agents,” he said in his deposition, “share the same belief and have refused to participate in this investigation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...et-sports-investigations_inline_collection_19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...et-sports-investigations_inline_collection_20
None of the agents involved responded to messages seeking comment. The Iowa Department of Public Safety, which oversees DCI, declined to answer questions but issued a statement defending the probe, saying “agents conferred with legal experts” throughout.
The athletes in the cases, which have all concluded with plea deals or dismissals, declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests. Their sports careers were all derailed or ended, their families and attorneys said. Some have transferred, seeking a fresh start. Others didn’t have that option. Lee’s violation of NCAA policy meant he lost his senior season.
“They’re being punished for a lifetime by adults who didn’t follow rules,” said Van Plumb, a lawyer representing Lee and several other players. “This will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”
Opening the floodgates
In the years since the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports gambling, the sports betting industry has boomed, with 38 states now allowing online wagers that before 2018 could be made only at casinos or through bookies.Iowa was an early adopter. It legalized sports betting in 2019, with 18 operators rushing into the market. Last year, bettors in the state placed more than $2 billion worth of wagers, generating $186 million in corporate profits and $13 million in taxes.
In 2021, Iowa’s Department of Criminal Investigations started a unit focused on sports betting. That year, a member of the unit, Special Agent Brian Sanger, wrote a memo urging the state’s gambling regulator, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, to license tracking software from a company called GeoComply, according to emails obtained by the Des Moines Register.
The system, installed in Iowa by September 2022, compiles geolocation data on every account created and every bet placed on many of the country’s biggest online sports betting platforms, including DraftKings and FanDuel. Through the company’s analytics tool, Kibana, which flags clusters of heavy activity, clients can home in on a location deemed suspicious, such as a prison or a high school, and view every device that opens a betting app there to look into potential violations of gambling laws.
But the state licensed the sophisticated software without establishing clear policies on how exactly the database can be used in criminal investigations.
Under state law, “customer records,” “surveillance records” and other information gambling companies provide to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission are “confidential, unless otherwise ordered by a court, by the lawful custodian of the records, or by another person duly authorized to release such information.” How GeoComply, a third-party contractor holding those records, fits into that clause remains up for interpretation — Iowa courts have yet to rule on the issue.
Under its terms of service, GeoComply placed that determination in the hands of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, the regulator licensing the software. In an August 2022 email, viewed by The Washington Post, the commission’s administrator, Brian Ohorilko, explained to GeoComply that his agency would authorize DCI to use the system only under certain circumstances, citing the Iowa legal code containing the confidentially clause. But his language listing those conditions was vague and brief, including that criminal investigators could “review abnormal wagering activity or patterns that may indicate a concern about the integrity” of a sporting event. He did not address who was supposed to decide what counted as “abnormal” or a “pattern” or whether investigators needed to present any evidence before launching such a review. With those loose guidelines in place, GeoComply granted DCI agents login access to Kibana.
Ohorilko, who is no longer with the commission, didn’t respond to an interview request. In response to questions seeking more information about the Kibana approval process, Tina Eick, the administrator who replaced Ohorilko, laid the responsibly for legal compliance on DCI: “IRGC has no role in how DCI conducts their investigations,” she said.
Sanger seemed to have a more straight forward understanding of what the law allowed. In his 2021 memo, he said he believed GeoComply could “share all their data” with “state investigators,” according to the Register.