NCAA officials are reiterating fears the rapid expansion of sports betting has created new risks for student-athletes, and they are increasingly worried that the growth of prediction markets could make those challenges even harder to police.
- NCAA officials warned that prediction markets could create new integrity risks for college sports by expanding wagering opportunities outside traditional state-regulated sportsbook frameworks.
- NCAA Chief Legal Officer Scott Bearby said the association has tracked more than 1,500 gambling-related abusive messages directed at student-athletes since 2024, highlighting growing athlete protection concerns.
- The NCAA is urging greater oversight of prediction market contracts involving college sports, citing concerns about enforcement limitations, accessibility for students and potential manipulation risks.
Speaking during a panel at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States' Summer Meeting, NCAA Chief Legal Officer Scott Bearby said college athletics has already documented a sharp increase in gambling-related harassment of athletes, while warning that prediction markets may expose college competitions to integrity risks without the same enforcement tools available in regulated sports betting.
"Both of those activities, prediction markets and prop bets, would be high on our list to do away with," Bearby said.
While the NCAA has long opposed proposition wagers on individual college athletes, panelists said prediction markets have emerged as a growing concern because they may allow contracts on sporting events outside traditional state-regulated sportsbook frameworks.
Bearby said the NCAA has already seen evidence that legalized wagering is increasing pressure on athletes.
Since 2024, he said, the NCAA has monitored social media activity involving men's and women's March Madness and identified more than 1,500 sports betting-related abusive messages directed at student-athletes. The organization has referred the most serious threats to campus officials and law enforcement, while noting that gambling-related harassment continues to increase.
"The problem is getting worse," Bearby said. "If you add prediction markets with there being no enforcement there, it really ... manifests as a big problem.”
Prop bets
Much of the panel focused on proposition wagers involving individual player performances, which NCAA officials described as the most significant integrity threat because they require only one athlete to influence the outcome of a wager.
NCAA President Charlie Baker, a former Massachusetts governor who signed his state’s sports betting bill into law, has made banning prop bets such as a player’s point total or rushing yards a top issue, arguing for the ban at Congressional hearings and in public testimony.
Bearby cited an ongoing criminal investigation involving 17 schools and approximately 40 student-athletes connected to alleged prop bet manipulation. He said integrity monitoring systems have become more effective at identifying suspicious betting activity involving traditional sportsbooks.
Morgan State University Athletic Director Dena Freeman-Patton said student-athletes are particularly vulnerable because classmates, social media users and others often have direct access to them in ways professional athletes rarely experience.
She said harassment can create mental health concerns while exposing athletes to coercion tied to gambling activity.
Enjoying Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account"I think there should be more conversation around protecting the athletes," Freeman-Patton said. "There's not much that I've seen that speaks to protecting them."
Prediction markets
Prediction markets present a different challenge, panelists said.
Mid-American Conference Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher agreed that proposition bets represent the greatest vulnerability in college athletics and said his conference treats prediction markets the same as sports wagering when educating athletes.
"We're telling our student-athletes ... that's sports wagering, and we're going to treat it as such," Steinbrecher said.
Panelists also expressed concern that prediction markets could increase wagering opportunities involving smaller schools that traditionally receive less public attention but may be viewed as more susceptible to manipulation.
Freeman-Patton said lower-budget athletic programs often lack the financial resources available to major conferences while serving athletes who may face greater financial pressures despite the arrival of name, image and likeness compensation.
"Our student-athletes aren't making the six-figure paydays or the million-dollar paydays," she said. "They may be more susceptible."
Beyond athletes, Bearby said university officials have become increasingly concerned about prediction market platforms' accessibility to the broader student population.
After attending a recent conference of university attorneys, he said many institutions were worried about how easily college students could access prediction market applications and the potential addiction risks associated with those products.
"I think the prediction market - there's no limit, right, to what contract you can enter into over what game or what sport, and that's really scary to me," Bearby said. "It should be scary to everybody."
Although NCAA officials said they have spoken with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about regulation of college-related event contracts, Bearby emphasized that the NCAA is not negotiating directly with prediction market companies.
Instead, he said, the association is preparing comments questioning whether the CFTC has the resources to adequately oversee college sports contracts. He also expressed support for state efforts to prohibit prediction market contracts involving college athletics if legally permissible.
The NCAA's position reflects a broader debate unfolding across the gaming industry as regulators, courts and lawmakers wrestle with whether federally regulated prediction markets should coexist alongside state-regulated sports betting. While much of the legal fight has centered on jurisdiction, NCAA officials said their primary concern remains protecting student-athletes and preserving competition integrity as new wagering products continue to emerge.
"If I could change one thing," Steinbrecher, the MAC commissioner, said, "I'd get rid of the prop bets ... and we've got to do something around the prediction markets."
