March 27 (UPI) — NCAA president Charlie Baker wants states with legalized sports gambling to ban prop betting on collegiate athletics, he announced Wednesday.
“Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity and competition and leading to student athletes and professional athletes getting harassed,” Baker wrote in a statement.
“The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.”
Proposition (prop) bets are those unrelated to the score of a game. They can include an individual player’s expected points, rebounds and more.
This week, Baker said, the NCAA will contact officials in states that still allow the best and ask them to join Ohio, Vermont, Maryland and others in removing college prop bets from betting markets.
“The NCAA is drawing the line on sports betting to protect student-athletes and to protect the integrity of the game — issues across the country these last several days show there is more work to be done,” he said.
The NCAA prohibits betting activity and providing information to those involved in betting in relation to collegiate, amateur and professional sports competitions.,
The NCAA announced March 19 that it launched a “Draw the Line” campaign. The campaign provides student athletes with education on the effects of sports gambling, while also addressing additional issues with gambling.
The American Gaming Association estimated earlier this month that American adults would legally wager $2.72 billion on the 2024 NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
A 2023 NCAA study found that 67% of 18- to 22-year-olds on college campuses have engaged in sports betting. Several people — including coaches and athletes — have been disciplined in recent years because of sports gambling-related incidents.
The NCAA states on its website that “player-specific prop bets create circumstances where student-athletes and other athletics personnel received targeted harassment by bettors.”
The NCAA’s 2023 study found that 10% of respondents from Division I said they have been harassed online or in person by a person with gambling interest.
