Several times a month, Mark Potter arrives on college campuses armed with slides, videos, and his own personal story, that of a former professional rugby player whose athletic career was derailed by gambling. And, of course, he brings along the NCAA rules that bar athletes from betting.
It’s a busy job, and it’s getting busier: Potter and his colleagues at EPIC Risk Management, the U.K. firm tapped by the NCAA to provide gambling education to college athletic departments, will visit 75 schools this year. And he says his phone has been ringing this week with more administrators scrambling to arrange educational programming, worried that sports gambling could do to their athletic departments what it’s done at Iowa, Iowa State and Alabama, three schools from Power Five conferences suddenly engulfed in betting scandals.
“It’s an issue that you can almost ignore until it hits you in the face,” Potter said this week. “You can assume that it’s not an issue on your campus because maybe you don’t see it like alcohol or drugs. And I think when things come out in the news, it makes you say, ‘Oh, I think we better do something to mitigate against this because we don’t want that to be our college.”
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This series will examine the impact of legalized gambling on sports, through news coverage, accountability journalism and advice for navigating this new landscape. Read more.
Irregular betting around an Alabama-LSU baseball game set off alarms last month, eventually leading to the firing of Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon, who was accused of tipping off a gambler that the Tide’s star pitcher would miss a start. In Iowa, the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into wagers placed by more than three dozen athletes across football, basketball and other sports at Iowa and Iowa State.
The NCAA won’t comment on active investigations, but a spokesperson says the organization is “monitoring the situation.” The Alabama case appears to be isolated to one coach. In Iowa, Brian Ohorilko, the administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, told the Des Moines Register none of the athletes’ gambling activities seemed suspicious. But the headlines have cast renewed scrutiny on the vulnerability of college sports and athletes in this age of legal sports betting.
While the scope and details from the three gambling-related events are still largely unknown, this is in many ways the very controversy the NCAA and college administrators feared lurked quietly on its doorstep these past five years. It’s why pearls were clutched and bylaws were passed. The trio of events might not mark a day of reckoning, but it may prompt immediate reflection on the relationship between sports gambling and college athletes and their athletic departments.
“One of the things that often comes with the legalization of gambling is scandal,” said Brett Abarbanel, a UNLV professor and the executive director of the school’s International Gaming Institute, “and then there’s pushback and then learning from that scandal and then trying to refine what we’ve done.”
The NCAA knows college athletes have long flouted these rules. In 2016, the organization surveyed its athletes anonymously and found that one in four male competitors admitted to wagering on a sporting event, a transgression largely done in secret because of a federal law that outlawed sports betting everywhere but Nevada.
Not many felt that number would magically shrink when the Supreme Court struck down that law in 2018 and states across the country began legalizing sports betting. (It’s now legal in 33 states, plus Washington, D.C.) Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, said college-aged students are more prone to risk-taking behaviors and are especially susceptible to problem gambling.
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“I think what we’ve seen is the risk has increased recently with the expansion of legalized sports betting,” he said, “but that’s piling on top of existing risk and lack of compliance.”
Given that history — and that it was regulators who flagged the incidents in Iowa and Alabama — it’s unclear whether they signal a growing problem or a long-standing one under a stronger microscope. Jason Robins, chief executive of DraftKings, the nation’s largest online sportsbook, argues it’s the latter.
“Things are getting caught and escalated appropriately quickly,” he said in an interview. “That’s a sign that the system is working, to me.” Before legal betting, he argued, scandals “would come out months or even years after the event occurred. In the legal market, you’ve seen pretty immediate identification of issues. I think that’s the best deterrent.”
The NCAA’s rules also may lead to more bets getting flagged, for better or worse. Even as states have relaxed laws governing sports betting in the five years since the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the NCAA’s rule book is unchanged.
“As the sports wagering landscape continues to rapidly evolve, the national office is actively gathering data, analyzing trends and preparing information for the membership to consider,” the NCAA spokesperson said. “Any rule changes would be a membership decision.”
It’s a busy job, and it’s getting busier: Potter and his colleagues at EPIC Risk Management, the U.K. firm tapped by the NCAA to provide gambling education to college athletic departments, will visit 75 schools this year. And he says his phone has been ringing this week with more administrators scrambling to arrange educational programming, worried that sports gambling could do to their athletic departments what it’s done at Iowa, Iowa State and Alabama, three schools from Power Five conferences suddenly engulfed in betting scandals.
“It’s an issue that you can almost ignore until it hits you in the face,” Potter said this week. “You can assume that it’s not an issue on your campus because maybe you don’t see it like alcohol or drugs. And I think when things come out in the news, it makes you say, ‘Oh, I think we better do something to mitigate against this because we don’t want that to be our college.”
ADVERTISING
This series will examine the impact of legalized gambling on sports, through news coverage, accountability journalism and advice for navigating this new landscape. Read more.
Irregular betting around an Alabama-LSU baseball game set off alarms last month, eventually leading to the firing of Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon, who was accused of tipping off a gambler that the Tide’s star pitcher would miss a start. In Iowa, the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into wagers placed by more than three dozen athletes across football, basketball and other sports at Iowa and Iowa State.
The NCAA won’t comment on active investigations, but a spokesperson says the organization is “monitoring the situation.” The Alabama case appears to be isolated to one coach. In Iowa, Brian Ohorilko, the administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, told the Des Moines Register none of the athletes’ gambling activities seemed suspicious. But the headlines have cast renewed scrutiny on the vulnerability of college sports and athletes in this age of legal sports betting.
While the scope and details from the three gambling-related events are still largely unknown, this is in many ways the very controversy the NCAA and college administrators feared lurked quietly on its doorstep these past five years. It’s why pearls were clutched and bylaws were passed. The trio of events might not mark a day of reckoning, but it may prompt immediate reflection on the relationship between sports gambling and college athletes and their athletic departments.
“One of the things that often comes with the legalization of gambling is scandal,” said Brett Abarbanel, a UNLV professor and the executive director of the school’s International Gaming Institute, “and then there’s pushback and then learning from that scandal and then trying to refine what we’ve done.”
New laws, old habits
The rules are clear, and stricter than they are for pro athletes: Under NCAA bylaws, athletes (and athletic department staff) can’t bet on any sport, college or professional, in which the NCAA stages a championship game. For instance: a Division I golfer or soccer player can’t bet on an NBA game because the NCAA hosts basketball tournaments to crown its national champions. But a college athlete could wager on horse racing or play slots at the local casino without fear of punishment.The NCAA knows college athletes have long flouted these rules. In 2016, the organization surveyed its athletes anonymously and found that one in four male competitors admitted to wagering on a sporting event, a transgression largely done in secret because of a federal law that outlawed sports betting everywhere but Nevada.
Not many felt that number would magically shrink when the Supreme Court struck down that law in 2018 and states across the country began legalizing sports betting. (It’s now legal in 33 states, plus Washington, D.C.) Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, said college-aged students are more prone to risk-taking behaviors and are especially susceptible to problem gambling.
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Odds Against
“I think what we’ve seen is the risk has increased recently with the expansion of legalized sports betting,” he said, “but that’s piling on top of existing risk and lack of compliance.”
Given that history — and that it was regulators who flagged the incidents in Iowa and Alabama — it’s unclear whether they signal a growing problem or a long-standing one under a stronger microscope. Jason Robins, chief executive of DraftKings, the nation’s largest online sportsbook, argues it’s the latter.
“Things are getting caught and escalated appropriately quickly,” he said in an interview. “That’s a sign that the system is working, to me.” Before legal betting, he argued, scandals “would come out months or even years after the event occurred. In the legal market, you’ve seen pretty immediate identification of issues. I think that’s the best deterrent.”
The NCAA’s rules also may lead to more bets getting flagged, for better or worse. Even as states have relaxed laws governing sports betting in the five years since the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the NCAA’s rule book is unchanged.
“As the sports wagering landscape continues to rapidly evolve, the national office is actively gathering data, analyzing trends and preparing information for the membership to consider,” the NCAA spokesperson said. “Any rule changes would be a membership decision.”