Casino Offers to Pay for Matthew Sluka to Stay at UNLV, School Declines

The Matthew Sluka saga has kept the college football world buzzing. It’s a modern college athletics tragedy, feeding hot-take ammunition to any and every person with an opinion. The story just took another turn.

The day after UNLV’s starting quarterback shared that he’s removing himself from the 3-0 Runnin’ Rebels lineup for the rest of the season after not receiving any NIL payments, his father and agent did a speaking tour with reporters. They shared that an assistant coach made a verbal offer of $100,000 for Sluka’s services and they hadn’t seen any of that money.

My first immediate thought — Can’t UNLV just take a couple of bucks to the roulette table down the street and make the money to pay your quarterback? One Las Vegas casino had that same thought.

Mike Palm, Circa Sports Vice President of Operations, told Brett McMurphy of the Action Network they were willing to pony up to keep UNLV’s CFB Playoff hopes alive. Even though college athletes cannot accept deals to promote casinos, Circa Sports has multiple restaurants that could use some promotion from Mr. Sluka.

“He could have even been a lifeguard at Stadium Swim,” Palm said.

When Circa Sports contacted UNLV on Wednesday morning, the school had already moved on. A UNLV official told Palm that Sluka was no longer with the program and “we won’t be doing business with the Sluka family again.”

Furthermore, the school released a statement that said they would not participate in illegal pay-for-play activities and there was never a formal agreement between the two parties.

It’s a bit odd for UNLV, of all schools, to take the moral high ground. But it’s abundantly clear that all bridges were immediately burned between the two parties. If Sluka and his agent were trying to put public pressure on UNLV to make a move, it failed disastrously.

This week’s drama happened just UNLV opens conference play against one of the better teams in the Mountain West, Fresno State. Ranked No. 23 in the Coaches Poll, they’ll turn to another former FCS star who can make plays with his legs, Hajj-Malik Williams. UNLV opened as a 4-point favorite. The line quickly moved to UNLV +1, but they are now back to a 2.5-point favorite in a matchup that could very well determine the fate of the Group of 5 CFB Playoff bid.

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