With March Madness on the horizon, the NCAA is setting out to protect student-athletes and raise awareness on problem gambling with a new campaign titled Draw The Line.
The effort is set to coincide with one of the busiest periods of gambling in the U.S., with the first round of the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship set to tip-off on Thursday.
"Sports betting is everywhere — especially on college campuses — so it's critical student-athletes get the real story about how it can impact them and their ability to play," NCAA president Charlie Baker said via a release.
"We know some bettors are harassing student-athletes and officials, so that's why we are advocating for policy changes at the state level and launching monitoring tools around championships to refer serious threats to law enforcement. The NCAA is doing more than ever to protect the integrity of the game and arm student-athletes with the truth about sports betting."
The move also comes on the heels of a report from the American Gaming Association which estimated that more than $2.7 billion could be wagered on the college hoops tournament, a staggering total that dwarfs the Super Bowl – another major betting landmark on the sporting calendar – by nearly double.
Protecting college students and student-athletes
With sports betting legal in more than 30 states, the prevalence of betting, particularly among college-aged individuals, remains extraordinary. According to one NCAA study, over two-thirds of students participated in sports betting, and roughly 10% of students suffered from gambling addiction.
In conjunction with the growth of betting from college students, student-athletes have been on the receiving end of increased backlash as a result, leading the NCAA to lobby and advocate for efforts to protect players. Recently, across states including Ohio, Maryland, and Vermont, legislators have cracked down on the ability for gamblers to place prop bets on individual college players.
“First and foremost, the occurrences of and increase in the harassment of student-athletes based upon their performance or statistics in an intercollegiate athletics competition presents a clear and present danger to the best interests of Ohio,” Ohio Casino Control Commission executive director Matthew Schuler wrote to Baker back in February. “Based upon the information the NCAA provided, it is apparent to me that player-specific prop bets may be directly related to player-specific harassment, including threats — meaning a decrease in the availability of these types of wagers could lead to a decrease in harassment.”
"Student-athletes are getting harassed by bettors, and billion-dollar ad campaigns are targeting young people across the country,” Baker said in a press release back in September 2023. “We need all the help we can get, including from regulators and sportsbooks, to protect student-athletes and protect the integrity of the games.”
Baker and the NCAA have remained steadfast in opposition to the way betting has grown in the world of NCAA sports. Back in November, the NCAA made a deliberate effort to crack down on any potential betting by its student-athletes, requiring anyone reprimanded for wagering on college to lose at minimum a year of eligibility, as well as participate in “sports wagering rules and prevention education as a condition of reinstatement.”
Alongside the NCAA’s Draw The Line Campaign, a pilot initiative with Signify Group that began late last year has aimed at targeting social media harassment for the 2023-24 championship season, focusing on select championships – such as March Madness – with a heightened risk for harassment and abuse directed at championship participants.
