The NCAA recently reported that 7% of all Division I men’s athletes reported negative or threatening messages from sports bettors over the last year, with college basketball players making up the largest percentage of social media abuse.
Key Takeaways
- The NCAA study found that 10% of 6,800 surveyed athletes have interacted with fellow students who bet on their school.
- Women’s sports were less affected.
- College sports’ governing body continues to call for player prop bans in the U.S. sports betting market.
The study found that 36% of men’s basketball players reported experiencing social media abuse from sports bettors within the last year, and 29% said they interacted with a student on campus who wagered on the team, according to the study done with sophomores and above.
Enjoying Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account“That happens all the time. I got one from a previous game. They do it all the time,” former Butler men's basketball student-athlete Pierre Brooks II said after an EPIC Global Solutions session last fall. “Like, if people don't meet their over or under, they always DM me. It's actually pretty common.”
Additional data
Nearly 10% of the 6,800 student-athletes who participated said at least one student told them they won or lost bets on their school.
Data from college athletics’ governing body also showed that 16% of Football Bowl Subdivision players received negative or threatening messages, with 26% reporting run-ins with students on campus about sports betting.
Women’s sports were much less affected, with 1% reporting those interactions.
The NCAA’s study, done via a mobile app from Sept. 30 through Oct. 5, asked questions concerning performance technology, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee resources, fan behavior related to sports betting, and mental well-being.
The research comes at a time when the NCAA is still investigating a gambling scandal involving nearly 30 men’s basketball players, and a former New Orleans player recently publicly admitted to shaving points to support his child.
Pursuing prohibition
This study is one of many that the NCAA has conducted in hopes of making changes in the U.S. sports betting market. The governing body says player prop betting has led to numerous harassment issues throughout the NCAA’s sports.
In 2024, NCAA president Charlie Baker petitioned state lawmakers and regulators to prohibit sportsbooks from offering over or under markets on individual stats, like rebounds or points, for college players.
Only a handful of U.S. legal sports betting states responded to the NCAA’s request to ban college player props, and over a dozen of the currently 38 legal sports betting states still allow for those markets. Daily fantasy sports operates in over 40 U.S. states, some with no legal sportsbooks.
“States and gaming operators that continue to offer these bets are putting student-athletes and competition integrity at risk,” Baker said. “The NCAA runs the largest integrity monitoring program in the country, and we educate hundreds of thousands of student-athletes about the damages of sports betting, but regulators, lawmakers, and gaming operators can and should do more.”
