If there’s ever going to be a total ban on Indiana sportsbooks offering college player props, it may have to come from the state legislature.
- The Indiana Gaming Commission rejected the NCAA’s request for a blanket ban on college player props, saying lawmakers should decide the issue.
- Indiana will continue allowing pregame college player props while prohibiting in-game props despite NCAA concerns about athlete harassment and betting integrity.
- Supporters of keeping the markets argued a ban could push bettors toward unregulated sportsbooks without addressing the broader social media harassment problem.
Members of the Indiana Gaming Commission met Thursday in Indianapolis and voted unanimously to reject an NCAA request for a blanket ban on state-regulated sportsbooks offering college player props. The decision followed a previous meeting in June when the commission deferred a decision on a possible college player prop ban.
This time, Indiana Gaming Commission members, while expressing concern about harassment, said the issue should be decided by elected lawmakers rather than appointed regulators.
That was partly due to concerns about conduct the NCAA described as potentially criminal and potentially addressable under existing laws. There were also questions about whether “good cause” had been established to prohibit college player props entirely, and the fact that commission staff had yet to receive a complaint.
“We have a bigger issue here, and the legislature … in my opinion, would be the appropriate place to address that,” commissioner B.R. Lane said.
Whether the Indiana legislature now takes up the issue remains to be seen. However, the commission’s rejection of the college player prop ban leaves the sports betting status quo in place in the state, at least for now. That means college player props are available before a game at Indiana sports betting sites, but not during.
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Thursday's decision also allows the state’s sportsbooks to offer markets that may also be available through offshore sportsbooks or federally regulated prediction markets. These operators may be available anywhere in the U.S., including in states that have yet to authorize sports betting.
“Banning these markets in Indiana, I would argue, would not stop a single harasser,” said Joe Maloney, president of the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA), before the vote was taken. “It could push activity to unregulated, untaxed, perhaps illegal settings that this commission can't see, can't regulate, doesn't have the ability to tax, and can't use to identify who's actually responsible.”
The NCAA has found more receptive audiences in other states, such as Ohio, which agreed to ban college player props entirely in 2024. Other states have never allowed college player prop betting, and others still don’t allow sports wagering at all.
Then there are states that restrict college player props but don’t ban them entirely. This includes Indiana, which prohibits in-game college player props, as well as Missouri, which prohibits college player props involving games with Missouri colleges.
On Thursday, the NCAA urged a proactive rather than reactive approach to the harassment it says has been increasingly lobbed at student-athletes. The governing body says it has reported thousands of messages to social media platforms and law enforcement.
Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of enterprise risk management for the NCAA, gave the commission some examples of abusive social media messages aimed at student-athletes in Indiana, such as: “Yo, no big deal, but if you don't get 22 points and 12 boards, everyone you know and love will be dead.”
"I could sit here and read messages like these for hours, but I imagine nobody would want me to,” Hangebrauck said.
The NCAA’s managing director of enforcement, Mark Hicks, said the risk to the integrity of a sport grows when the outcomes are “vested” in a single player.
“This notion alone demonstrates that prop bets are, in fact, a significant risk,” Hicks said.
In what could be an interesting bellwether for where we're at sports betting/prediction market-wise, the Indiana Gaming Commission is meeting today to discuss possibly banning college player props at state-regulated sportsbooks: pic.twitter.com/Zi2zjADqrm
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) September 24, 2026
One example Hicks gave to the commission (without using his name) was former Indiana quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who admitted to placing bets involving his team while on the roster, as well as on Indiana basketball games.
“And yes, he may have gone offshore and done that as well,” Hicks said. “But at least this body would not have sanctioned those events to which he then admitted to wagering on here in Indiana.”
Maloney agreed that the problem of student-athlete harassment is real and said the SBA members are committed to working with social media companies to identify harassers and have them suspended or banned from online sportsbooks.
However, he also noted NCAA research suggests athletes are receiving more sexual and sexist messages than betting-related messages.
“There's a conversation, particularly right now, about athlete wellness, and it's not exclusive to betting,” Maloney said. “This is very much a social media problem.”
