NCAA reiterates its call for ban on prop bets

As sports betting scandals continue to pop up with increased frequency, NCAA president Charlie Baker is taking another stand.

In a letter released on Thursday, Baker once again called on state gambling commissions “to adjust state laws and regulations to eliminate gambling on individual prop bets and other high-risk prop bets such as first half unders.” The letter was released just hours after news broke of the latest sports betting controversy, which involves 17 different college basketball programs and 39 total players.

“The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a layered integrity monitoring program that covers over 22,000 contests, but we still need the remaining states and regulators to eliminate threats to integrity to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors,” Baker said in a statement released on Thursday.

In addition to reiterating his request for a ban on prop bets — which he first made in 2023 — Baker also called for sports betting commissions to enact “stricter accountability for bettors found to have harassed student-athletes.” The NCAA president requested that his organization and other sports leagues receive a “formal seat at the table” when it comes to gaming regulators and operators determining what type of bets they are willing to offer.

As for the prop bets, Bakers specifically pointed to the emerging college basketball scandal as evidence of the type of risks such markets can create.

“As demonstrated by today’s law enforcement and recent NCAA activities, player prop bets may entice student-athletes into engaging in sports betting by betting on themselves to outperform a player prop bet related to their own game performance,” he wrote. “The prop bets also increase the risk of ‘spot fixing,’ or would-be match fixers targeting student-athletes and other sporting participants to fix a portion of a contest – for instance, first half under spreads -spead markets without having to fix the whole contest.”

Baker also noted that more than half of the 39 states plus Washington D.C. that have legalized sports betting currently allow individual college athlete prop bets, while four gaming commissions (Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio and Vermont) have banned such markets in recent years. Ohio has even taken its efforts a step further, with Governor Mike DeWine examining whether the Buckeye State should continue allowing individual props and micro bets in professional sports in the wake of the gambling scandal involving two Cleveland Guardians pitchers.

“We appreciate your attention to this matter and know you are dedicated to a responsibly regulated marketplace in your state,” Baker wrote on Thursday. “We welcome an opportunity to revisit these discussions and explore potential preventive measures with you and your team soon.”

Come this May, it will have been eight years since the Supreme Court first struck down the federal ban on sports betting. Suffice it to say, both the leagues and states and are still wrestling with the fallout, with each new scandal only intensifying the spotlight on the industry.