Sports law attorney and professor Robert Boland believes that to protect the integrity of college sports and help stifle sports betting scandals, the NCAA should never allow student-athletes to wager on the sport they play.
Key Takeaways
- Boland offered ways to combat the NCAA’s sports betting issues.
- Insider information and prop bets involving a single player are major threats.
- The professor says sports betting is rampant across college campuses.
At a time when college sports’ governing body is mulling recent legislation that could allow players to bet on professional sports without penalty, the lawyer at Shumaker and professor at Seton Hall University Law School says that would be a mistake.
“If you are a football player, you never, ever bet on football. And if you do, you risk being out forever,” Boland told Covers. “I hate draconian punishments. They rarely are the most effective forms of deterrent, but too many players have already lost their professional careers because they bet on sports, or bet on their sport, so having as bright a line as one can is helpful.”
The NCAA is at a crossroads. The governing body was set to remove a prohibition that kept college athletes from any type of wagering to allow them to bet on pro sports. It was supposed to go into effect Nov. 1. However, pushback from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and other collegiate stakeholders led the NCAA to delay the decision until later this month.
“The SEC’s presidents and chancellors believe the NCAA should restore its prior policy - or a modified policy - communicating a prohibition on gambling by student-athletes and athletics staff, regardless of the divisional level of their sport,” Sankey wrote last month in a letter to the NCAA.
Road to misconduct
Boland agrees, and following the recent NBA scandal involving Terry Rozier, the law professor says that with sports betting “rampant” on college campuses, information can be too easily passed. With current college players having relationships with former teammates who have turned pro, it opens up a door for misconduct.
“The flow of insider information poses a risk to both leagues that we haven’t had much time to assess, especially when we are discussing so-called proposition or prop betting that isn’t outcome determinative,” Boland said.
That theory applies to university employees and team staff members, Boland says. He believes allowing them to also wager on pro sports “expands the possibility that they will become targets for insider information or be used by gamblers in other ways.”
Integrity concerns
The NCAA has had its share of sports betting issues, including a baseball coach at Alabama passing information to a sports bettor, since PASPA was overturned in 2018 and states began legalizing wagering.
Still, the NCAA wants to relax its rules to a degree as sports betting has been legalized in 39 U.S. states, encompassing many of its institutions. Boland says sports betting “is so pervasive on campuses” and has “profoundly affected college sports on so many levels.”
NCAA president Charlie Baker has been fighting for student-athletes' well-being for years. He asked state legislators and regulators to prohibit college player props in March 2024, citing the harmful threats student-athletes receive from sports bettors as the reason why individual state markets shouldn’t be allowed. A handful of states complied.
Boland is also concerned about integrity when it comes to prop bets that a single athlete can control without affecting the outcome of a game. The NBA and MLB are currently dealing with gambling scandals centered around that very issue.
“These are easy targets for manipulation, and it would be great to eliminate or scale these back nationally,” Boland said. “While various states have strong prohibitions on certain types of bets and some ban prop betting altogether, the ability to travel or make a phone call means that individual state regulations can’t hold back the entire flow of dangerous bets.”
Solutions to issues
Boland says that just in his Seton Hall class alone he’s had a “surprising” percentage of students say they have at least one sports betting account.
“It is absolutely legal, and they are all old enough, but an unscientific show of hands and an imperfect sample suggest two things: Sports betting is widespread, especially in and around the college-aged population, and almost everybody is doing it.
“So, what do we do to make sure our sport outcomes are honest and ensure the fairness of the competitions and that they aren’t being manipulated in the face of widespread wagering?”
Boland suggests the NCAA get as much information as possible from sports betting operators and publicize data. This will help education, which he sees as a massive need. Boland says athletes must know that if they break the NCAA’s wagering rules, they will get caught.
“I am not sure that we can put legalized sports betting on college sports 'back into the bottle,' but we can ask schools to educate more about integrity and the potential risk of harm to everyone in the chain and offer more addiction and mental health services,” Boland said. “And finally, we can publicize the detection of illegal or harmful betting as a deterrent.”
