Commissioners to reconsider NCAA request in September
Hoosier bettors can still wager on college player prop bets, at least for the next three months. That’s after the Indiana Gaming Commission voted Thursday to table a request made by the NCAA to ban the wagers it says lead to threats toward student-athletes.
The commission, which was without its chairman and introduced two new members to the panel during its quarterly meeting in Indianapolis, will take up the issue again when it meets in September.
“We want a safe and prosperous ecosystem, and I don’t know yet how to do that, how to fairly balance compliance and commerce in this particular instance,” said B.R. Lane, who was appointed by Gov. Mike Braun last month.
Lane, whose background includes serving as the director of the Illinois Lottery and working as a compliance executive for IGT, said she wanted to talk to gaming regulators in other states before proceeding.
The next meeting will take place on Sept. 24 in Indianapolis.
NCAA: Prop Bets Lead to Serious Threats
NCAA President Charlie Baker has placed an emphasis on banning player prop bets for college games. Ohio became the first to adhere to the NCAA’s request in February 2024. Since then, Louisiana, Maryland, and Vermont followed suit.
Clint Hangebrauck, the NCAA’s managing director of enterprise risk management, said the governing body for major college athletics has identified thousands of threats aimed at players from people losing on player prop bets during the NCAA basketball tournament.
“We’ve seen death threats, things that we have to report to law enforcement and add security to our events,” he told the IGC. “It’s certainly a huge challenge that’s having a very negative impact on student athletes and their experience.”
During Thursday’s meeting, the commission heard more than an hour’s worth of presentations from both the NCAA and licensed sports betting operators. The IGC also received three letters in support of a ban from Indiana, Purdue and Butler, three of the state’s biggest college athletic programs.
“Sports betting has become ingrained in the sports landscape, but not all kinds of betting have the same impact,” wrote Scott Dolson, IU’s director of intercollegiate athletics. “Bets tied to the performance of a single college athlete carry risks that are less pronounced in team-based betting, placing an individual student-athlete directly at the center of the action.”
Dolson added that such wagers may lead student-athletes to bet on themselves. Doing so would make them permanently ineligible to play college sports.
Brendan Sorsby was a quarterback at IU four years ago. His betting history included making three single bets on props regarding his teammates, as well as including Hoosier football player props as legs in 11 parlays. That, along with scores of other wagers on college and pro sports, led the NCAA to ban him earlier this year.
Former Regulators Speak Out for Sportsbooks
Representatives from the Indiana sportsbooks, which included two former leaders of state gaming commissions, said they were sympathetic to the NCAA’s request. However, they argued that an outright ban on college player props would not produce the desired intent.
They also put the blame on social media.
“As all my colleagues have said, we find this deplorable,” said Sara Tait, a former IGC executive director who now serves as a vice president and head of legal – regulated industries at Fanatics. “The line between collegiate and professional athletics has also been blurred over the years, with compensation agreements and increased exposure, which is shifting fans’ expectations.
“So, college sports fans will remain on social media, regardless of any regulatory actions.”
Tait recommended that Indiana follow Ohio, but not with a ban. Instead, the state should use Ohio’s law banning anyone who threatens an athlete from placing a wager.
Louis Trombetta, FanDuel’s director of government relations, said that one of his last actions as the executive director of the Florida Gaming Control Commission was to write a bill that would address the issue of athlete harassment.
“The solution wasn’t to tell our sports betting operator that you can’t offer that bet,” Trombetta said. “It was, we need to support law enforcement to be able to respond to this activity, because it’s not a sports betting problem. It’s social media, and it’s a problem with the people who are making these threats.”
Also, by allowing college player prop bets to continue, sports betting representatives said it would allow them to identify suspicious betting behavior that might indicate a game or a certain market within the game is being fixed.
Weighing a ‘Delicate Balance’
With the IGC tabling the matter until late September, it means that student-athlete player prop bets would be available in Indiana for at least the first month of the upcoming college football season.
However, the move, as Lane mentioned, would give the commissioners more time to study the matter. That’s important since five of the six current members have less than a year’s experience on the state regulatory board.
“There’s a delicate balance between the interests of the NCAA and the Sports Betting Alliance, and I don’t think it would be prudent… (that) we should make a decision in a rush,” said L. Scott Pejic, who joined the commission last September.
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