NCAA ups ante

The NCAA has upped the ante building around the increasingly polarizing subject of prop betting on college sports in the US. On Tuesday, NCAA executives publicly voiced fresh concerns over college prop betting while reiterating the body’s call for states to ban the market outright.?

a target on their back.”

Clint Hangebrauck, NCAA Managing Director of Enterprise Risk Management, likened the option of placing side wagers on specific players to putting? “a target on their back.” Hangebrauck believes the market leaves student athletes “much more susceptible to receive harassment”.

Hangebrauck as linked the steady increase in harassment of athletes to the wildfire growth of sports betting across the US and within college campuses.?“It’s really been an unfortunate growing phenomenon,” he stated.

The NCAA’s latest push for states to ban prop bets on specific athletes comes after four have already outlawed the market. 

Growing exodus?

The NCAA is urging states to ditch prop bets, and four have heeded its call this year alone – signaling a potential watershed moment.?

Ohio was first to ban prop bets in February, while last week the Massachusetts Gaming Commission voted unanimously to add a ban on bets on individual collegiate sports to state gaming law.

At the top of officials minds is player safety, given the torrent of abuse and threats student athletes receive from disgruntled bettors. John Parsons, Interim Senior Vice-President of the NCAA’s Sport Science Institute, told the press on Tuesday that the abuse, however, wasn’t just reserved for collegiate stars, but “is happening across all of our divisions.”

highly negative and critical messages”

Parsons claims a torrent of “highly negative and critical messages” targeting students, officials and coaches have a “direct” link to sports betting. The NCAA exec said there was no question the abuse came from “somebody angry because they lost a bet.”

According to the Ohio Casino Control Commission’s Director of Operations Amanda Blackford, the body started hearing “a lot” about student athletes “getting Venmo requests from their peers when they lost a game, or didn’t make a free throw.”

The pro props corner

According to media reports, some of the US’ leading sportsbooks lobbied the OCCC against banning prop bets. 

Penn Entertainment cautioned the Commission that a ban could force bettors to the illegal market. FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Fanatics wrote the OCCC a joint letter suggesting student athletes and their sporting codes were “better protected in the light of licensed sports wagering than in the darkness of illegal gambling.”

Hangebrauck, however, expressed skepticism over the sportsbooks’ claims, stating: “We really haven’t seen anything that’s supportive of it.”