John Mateer Strongly Denies Involvement In Bizarre Gambling Allegations Stemming From Venmo Transactions
One minute John Mateer was studying a playbook. The next, his name is tied to a gambling rumor too absurd to believe, which he strongly denies.
If you haven't been paying attention to college football social media over the past 24 hours, Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer has found himself in a very awkward situation.
It all started Monday night when someone on social media posted screenshots of what appeared to be the Venmo account of John Mateer, who transferred to Oklahoma from Washington State.
To make matters worse, the descriptions used for his transactions included the term ‘sports gambling’, where it also described paying off a bet for a UCLA vs. USC game. Like, really?
This whole situation looks so dumb, that it had to be fake, right? What person in their right mind, who is a college quarterback, would make it known to their friends and the public that they were paying off a bet, which is illegal for college athletes? That's a rhetorical question, because I couldn’t for the life of me come up with a good excuse why this would be in the description, unless he was trying to play games with his friends.
UPDATE: Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer has released the following statement regarding the Venmo gambling allegations.
"The allegations that I once participated in sports gambling are false. My previous Venmo descriptions did not accurately portray the transactions in question,but were instead inside jokes between me and my friends. I have never bet on sports. I understand the seriousness of the matter, but recognize that, taken out of context, those Venmo descriptions suggest otherwise. I can assure my teammates, coaches and officials at the NCAA that I have not engaged in any sports gambling."
Ok, back to the screenshots.
Whoever was running that account leading up to these weird events scrubbed the transaction list in the early morning hours of Tuesday. Was this photoshopped? Did some rival team decide to have a little fun at Mateer's expense?
Also, it looks as though the person who started this whole ordeal was using a fake picture on their profile.
This led to even more confusion from those on social media and for us who cover the sport. Could someone be this unaware that sending money to your buddy to pay off a bet with that description could get them in a lot of trouble?
The University of Oklahoma also released a statement on Monday related to quarterback John Meeter.
"OU athletics provides ongoing education to its student-athletes, coaches, and staff on matters related to sports gambling. The department utilizes ProhiBet, which is an industry standard service offering comprehensive monitoring of sports gambling activities. OU takes any allegation of gambling seriously and works closely with the NCAA in any situations of concern. OU athletics is unaware of any NCAA investigation and has no reason to believe there is one pending."
John Mateer Claims He Doesn’t Gamble? Please Set Venmo To Private
According to multiple sources, Oklahoma officials were made aware of the situation late Monday night, and had already spoken with John Mateer. There have been numerous calls to the compliance department, and the Oklahoma QB made it clear to officials that he does not, and hasn’t ever gambled on college athletics.
Could this be someone on social media having fun at the players' expense? Sure, we've all seen the AI images and photoshopping work that's done on a daily basis. But, if this was his account, why scrub the transaction list?
In my opinion, and hopefully I'm wrong, John Mateer was being a real smart-ass with his buddies while at Washington State and started putting in some outlandish transaction descriptions that would garner a laugh.
Unfortunately for Mateer, the folks at Oklahoma aren’t laughing, especially when their phones start blowing up around midnight.
I would expect Oklahoma to address this matter in the very near future, with Mateer also issuing some type of statement.
All he has to do is deny this, and it would go away, if true. How are you going to prove it? If he WAS actually gambling among friends, I would love to see how the NCAA would actually find the evidence, especially if he wasn’t using an app or website.
Just another day in the college football world, where a screenshot from Venmo has us asking questions. For the love of all that's good, would you folks please start making your transactions private? I don't need to know that you paid someone for dinner or drinks. I get it, you had fun last night.