The NCAA and Gambling in College Sports: A Changing Landscape

The NCAA and Gambling in College Sports: A Changing Landscape

The landscape of college sports is changing. College athletes are now able to profit from their Name Image and Likeness (NIL), and the gauntlet of conference realignment has altered the future competitive landscape of college sports.^[1] However, the next big question for the NCAA is how gambling fits into it.

Gambling and sports have long been synonymous with each other.^[2] Prior to 2018, the number of states that offered legalized sports gambling was minimal.^[3]. Now, currently, thirty-eight states, in addition to Washington, D.C and Puerto Rico, have passed sports gambling legislation.^[4] With increased legislation that sets out to legalize sports gambling, it can be argued that the future of sports gambling will only become more prevalent. Naturally, this trend of legalized gambling has found its way into college sports.^[5]

The Prevalence of Gambling In College Sports

The presence of sports gambling within college sports is seen both in practice and in promotion.

In a recent survey conducted by the NCAA, it showed that “Sports wagering activity is widespread on college campuses—67% of students living on campus are bettors and tend to bet at a higher frequency. 41% of college students who bet on sports have placed a bet on their school’s teams.”^[6]

Additionally, flagship sports programs, such as College Gameday, a college football kickoff program that airs on Saturdays before college football “kickoff,” has a strong sports gambling presence. It “shows betting lines and odds (of the days matchups), and there’s a segment (during the broadcast) where hosts pick point spreads (of particular college football games that day).” ^[7]

Further, until recent rules were passed by the American Gaming Association, banning universities from partnering with sports books, universities had previously entered partnerships with sportsbooks as a mechanism to target college students and to promote sports wagering on college campuses.^[8]

Lastly, with the boom in legalized sports gambling, there have been incidents of student-athletes participating in the activity.^[9] One of the biggest scandals has involved more than forty student-athletes at the University of Iowa and Iowa State.^[10] A major issue that arises when student-athletes engage in sports betting is the effect it has on their eligibility (their ability to participate in college sports). The NCAA prohibits its student-athletes from participating in any form of sports wagering and enforces sanctions on its athletes that do so through restricting athletes’ eligibility.^[11]

The NCAA’s Historic and Current Stance on Sports Gambling

With the presence and participation of sports gambling on college campuses, its role in sports media, and the increased involvement of student-athletes participating in sports gambling, betting culture has seemingly become engrained within college sports. As a result, the NCAA is attempting to navigate the murky waters of how to deal with its athletes who engage in the practice.

Before, in 2018, the NCAA lived by the model that “all gambling is bad.”^[12] The NCAA still appears to have a similar stance against gambling as the infractions on the NCAA website state that “NCAA rules prohibit participation in sports wagering activities and from providing information to individuals involved in or associated with any type of sports wagering activities concerning intercollegiate, amateur or professional athletics competition” ^[13]

The NCAA’s zero-tolerance approach to student-athlete participation in sports gambling is advanced by its recent reinstatement guidelines for student-athletes who participate in sports wagering.^[14] The new reinstatement policy is set forth below:

• Student-athletes who engage in activities to influence the outcomes of their own games or knowingly provide information to individuals involved in sports betting activities will potentially face permanent loss of collegiate eligibility in all sports. This would also apply to student-athletes who wager on their own games or on other sports at their own schools.
• If a student-athlete wagers on their own sport at another school, education on sports wagering rules and prevention will be required as a condition of reinstatement, and the loss of 50% of one season of eligibility will be considered.
• For all other wagering-related violations (e.g., wagering on professional sports), cumulative dollar value of the wagers will be taken into consideration with the following terms for reinstatement:
  • $200 or less: sports wagering rules and prevention education.
  • $201-$500: loss of 10% of a season of eligibility, plus rules and prevention education.
  • $501-$800: loss of 20% of a season of eligibility, plus rules and prevention education.
  • Greater than $800: loss of 30% of a season of eligibility, plus rules and prevention education.^[15]

The new reinstatement guidelines for collegiate athletes who have engaged in sports betting are said to be a response to the changing landscape of sports gambling, as “previous reinstatement guidelines, which were implemented prior to the broader legalization of sports wagering, stipulated that in most cases, student-athletes who wagered on sports at any level would lose one full season of collegiate eligibility.”^[16]

The present rules seem to lay out a broader range of reinstatement considerations and attempt to match sanctions on eligibility with the level of involvement in gambling. However, the present reinstatement procedures make clear that any involvement in sports betting by student-athletes will face punishment.

The Future of the NCAA’s Approach

As discussed throughout this blog, sports gambling is a constant theme on college campuses. Additionally, the practice appears to be welcomed by the NCAA through its presence in major college sports programming such as College Gameday. These examples highlight the nuance the NCAA is facing with enforcing gambling restrictions on its athletes: college athletes live in a gambling-prone environment, and the NCAA seems to support sports wagering by the public, but if you are a college athlete, the NCAA will punish you for engaging in it.

To its credit, the NCAA appears to recognize this nuanced issue and is trying to address it. For starters, the NCAA is attempting to combat the pressure college athletes face from bettors through the help of state legislatures.^[17] The laws that the NCAA is advocating for are targeted to combat harassment and coercion student-athletes can be subject to due to sports gambling.^[18] Some of the laws the NCAA is advocating for include mandatory reporting hotlines for gambling authorities to report behavior to law enforcement, increased penalties for bettors who harass student-athletes, and mandatory education for operators to help identify harassment.^[19] Though these potential laws may protect athletes from outside pressure to gamble, they don’t seem to address student-athletes’ rights to gamble.

Additionally, “The NCAA has launched its first sports wagering e-learning module, designed to further educate more than 500,000 current and prospective student-athletes on problem gambling’s harms and the risks sports wagering poses to the integrity of their games.”^[20] However, the training module is centered around educating athletes on the risk of gambling rather than addressing athletes’ rights to gamble themselves.

Most notably, the NCAA is now considering new reinstatement guidelines that appear to be more lenient than the current ones in place.^[21] Draft concepts under consideration include:

• On a first offense, eliminate penalties that result in student-athletes being withheld from competition—regardless of the dollar value of the wagers and including bets placed on other sports at a student-athlete’s school—and require education on sports wagering rules and prevention.
• On a second offense, potentially involve withholding penalties, depending on the dollar value of the bet(s) in question.
• On a third or subsequent offense, resulting penalty could be a loss of one full season of eligibility. ^[22]

Under these proposed rules, athletes who engage in sports betting may not be punished, meaning they will not lose eligibility immediately if they are caught sports gambling. However, again, it still appears that gambling by student athletes will not be tolerated. Note that the new reinstatement rules do not apply to “wagering behaviors that potentially compromise the integrity of contests, including wagering on a student-athlete’s own team.”^[23] A vote on the new guidelines is set to take place at the end of October 2023 and will potentially be applied retroactively.^[24]

A Potential Unanswered Question

It could be argued that the NCAA’s current approach to addressing sports gambling within college sports is a two-tiered approach: one of which is enlisting the help of state legislatures to pass laws that protect its athletes, and the second of which is a system that is centered around educating student athletes on the risk of gambling.

But it must be asked if the NCAA is addressing the main issue at hand: should student athletes be allowed to gamble in any capacity? Current rules in place by the NCAA indicate that the answer is no; they should not be.^[25] But statements from the NCAA acknowledge that with the changing landscape of sports betting, the NCAA will continue to evaluate its stance on dealing with its athletes involved in the practice. ^[26] Could this include an approach that allows student-athletes to bet on games they are not participating in?

This question is not unique to the NCAA as athletes’ involvement in sports gambling has been addressed by most professional sports leagues.^[27] Each professional league differs on its gambling policies, where some leagues prohibit any form of sports gambling, others allow it in specific capacities.^[28] However, what is unique to the NCAA is the scrutiny it has faced in the past regarding past practices that forbid student-athletes from making money.^[29]

Past scrutiny of the NCAA’s treatment of its athletes may push the NCAA to give its players the freedom to engage in betting, rather than restricting their actions. If sports gambling is legal in a state that a student-athlete competes in, and many of their peers engage in it, isn’t this a right student-athletes’ should be allowed to exercise too? Perhaps the NCAA should allow athletes to engage in sports gambling, so long as it is not on a sport they participate in, if they comply with state regulations on gambling restrictions such as meeting an age requirement. On the other hand, it may be viewed that the NCAA is responsible for protecting its student athletes from the negative repercussions of gambling such as addiction and financial hardship. Based on that view, it may be argued that the current policy prohibiting student athletes from engaging in sports betting is the safest way to prevent them from facing the negative consequences of sports gambling.

Conclusion

What is clear is there is no easy answer. Sports gambling continues to become increasingly relevant in sports, and the lengths it will go are uncertain. The NCAA’s evolving stance on gambling in college sports is complex and multifaceted. As the landscape changes, so will the NCAA’s approach to addressing gambling with its athletes. Currently, it is probably the right decision not to allow student-athletes to gamble due to the uncertainty of what sports gambling may look like in the future. However, the question of if student athletes should or will be allowed to participate in sports gambling is only a question that will become increasingly relevant. The shifting dynamics of sports gambling will demand careful consideration as the NCAA navigates a path between protection and individual freedoms in a high-stakes environment.