Are NFL Games Rigged? What the Rules, Official Reviews and the Law Say

A rigged game would be one whose result is arranged in advance or steered by someone with an interest in the outcome. In law, the nearest term is bribery in a sporting contest. Federal law, 18 U.S.C. 224, makes it a crime to carry into effect, attempt to carry into effect, or conspire with another person to carry into effect a scheme in commerce to influence a sporting contest by bribery, knowing that the purpose of the scheme is to influence the contest. The page on point shaving in the NFL reproduces the statute and explains the wording.

So the question can be split into three parts: who controls the game on the field, who checks the calls afterward, and what stops a participant from taking money to change the result. The sections below take them in that order.

The rulebook says an NFL game is played under the supervision of seven officials: the referee, umpire, down judge, line judge, field judge, side judge and back judge. The officials' jurisdiction begins 100 minutes before the scheduled kickoff and ends when the referee declares the final score.

The referee has general oversight and control of the game and is the final authority for the score. If members of the crew disagree about the number of the down, a decision, or the application, enforcement or interpretation of a rule, the referee's decision is final. Responsibilities and mechanics are set out in the Mechanics Manual that the league publishes each year.

The rulebook also gives the league office a role during the game. The replay official and designated members of the league's officiating department may consult with the on-field officials to provide objective information about on-field rulings and the correct application of the playing rules.

Instant replay is part of the rules, in Rule 15, and it does not depend on the referee alone.

Coach challenges. Each team is permitted a minimum of two challenges. A team is allowed a third challenge if it is successful on at least one of its first two, and a fourth is not allowed. A challenge needs an available timeout and costs one if it is unsuccessful.

Reviews started by the replay official. Only the replay official, or the league's Senior Vice President of Officiating or his or her designee, may start a review of a play that begins after the two-minute warning of each half, a play in any overtime period, a play on which points are scored by either team, and a try attempt, successful or not. The same list includes on-field rulings of an interception by an opponent, a fumble or backward pass recovered by an opponent, a failure to reach the line to gain on fourth down, possession by the kicking team at the end of a kick, and the disqualification of a player.

Who decides. All replay reviews are conducted by the Senior Vice President of Officiating or a designee, in consultation with the replay official and the referee, who has access to a field-level video monitor. An on-field ruling is changed only when the senior vice president or the designee determines that clear and obvious video evidence warrants a change.

The league describes its own checks on officials on its Football Operations site. According to the page headed Performance Evaluation, league officials, supervisors and former coaches grade each of the seven officials in a crew on every play of every game, working from Art McNally GameDay Central at league headquarters in New York.

In a typical week, supervisors begin evaluating the past weekend's games on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday and Thursday the evaluations are complete and shared with the crews. An official can ask for clarification of the grade on any play, and those plays are reviewed on Wednesdays when supervisors meet to review every play together by teleconference. The page also says that a compilation of plays that may need disciplinary action is prepared, and that if a play warrants further review it is passed to league executives, who determine and hand out fines or suspensions.

Replay officials have a similar routine. The league's page on replay officials says they work with senior officiating staff in Art McNally GameDay Central and with the game's referee, meet each week in season with their assigned crews to go over the previous week's replay and administrative decisions, are tested weekly on the rules, and are tested again at the NFL Officiating Clinic each July.

These pages describe a system of checks on officials. They do not publish the grades, and this page does not report any, so they cannot be used to decide whether any particular call was right.

The league's gambling policy covers the participants. The Associated Press reported on October 24, 2025 that the league asked all 32 teams to reiterate key aspects of the policy and to make the document available to players. As quoted in that report, the policy prohibits players from placing any bet on NFL football, from throwing or fixing any NFL game or event, and from sharing confidential, non-public information about any NFL game, player or event with any third party.

The policy text was not published with the report, so this page relies on the quoted passages and does not describe penalties or procedures that the report did not mention.

Federal law applies whether or not the league has a rule. The statute quoted on the point-shaving page defines the offense as a scheme to influence a sporting contest by bribery, and Congress enacted it in 1964. A report of a crime would be a matter for law enforcement and for the league's own investigators, and this page does not describe any case.

Fans often point to a penalty, a missed call or a surprising result. Those are matters of judgment inside a system that has the checks above, and the sources used here do not rank how often calls are right. This page does not give a percentage of correct calls, because the league page it cites does not publish one.

The page also does not review the history of any scandal, and it does not rate any team or official. The question of whether a specific game was fixed is answered by evidence about that game, which the sources here do not contain. What they show is the structure: seven officials, a referee with final authority, replay reviews decided by the league's officiating chief, weekly grading of every play, a player gambling policy and a federal statute.

The game rules are from the official NFL playing rules: Rule 19 on officials, with the referee's authority and the support from the league's officiating staff, and Rule 15 on instant replay. The grading process comes from two NFL Football Operations pages:

• Performance evaluation
• Replay officials

The statute is 18 U.S.C. 224, published by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. The gambling policy passages are as quoted in the Associated Press report of October 24, 2025.

League pages and policies change, so the page will be checked again when a new edition of the rulebook is published. More football pages are on the NFL hub, and the page on games that end in a tie covers another rule that decides results.