Iowa kicker Aaron Blom was charged Wednesday afternoon in connection with wagering on Iowa sports. The punishment, according to Division 1 regulations, are a permanent loss of college eligibility.
Blom operated a DraftKings account under his mother’s name to make 170 online sports wagers. Court documents indicate Blom attempted to gamble under his mother’s name to avoid scrutiny and sidestep NCAA policies. Blom now faces criminal charges for tampering with legal records.
Wagers tallied over $4,400 worth of bets, and eight were placed on Iowa sporting events. One of them was the 2021 Iowa-Iowa State football game. Blom did not appear in the game, but he bet the final score of the game would tally under 45 points. The final was 44 in a 27-17 Iowa win.
Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz spoke last week at Big Ten Football Media Days regarding his concerns with gambling.
“I think your #1 concern is if anybody is gambling on your team,” Ferentz said. “You’re obviously trying to avoid those kinds of things, that’s what the structures and rules should be about.”
“I have no knowledge of anything like that,” Ferentz continued. “We’ll deal with whatever the results are, we’d like to know sooner than later. We have no control over that, if a player hurts their ankle they’re not going to play. If it happens, we’ll deal with it that way.”
Ferentz mentioned nobody had yet been removed from the active roster. Other athletes included in the DCI’s investigation are former Hawkeyes basketball player Ahron Ulis and current Iowa baseball player Gehrig Christiansen, who were charged with tampering with legal records.
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