I’m going to start this off with a disclaimer: I can’t stand the NCAA. They’re a decrepit relic of a bygone era whose only consistency is that the schools should be able to profit from free labor provided by their “student-athletes” in exchange for a degree that at best has depreciated in value over the years, and more commonly had a joke of an education behind it. When a punishment does come down from this toothless organization, they either go too far or not far enough; I can count with one hand the amount of times I heard about an NCAA punishment being levied and thinking to myself: “yeah that sounds right.” College athletics, and football in particular, will be better off once they free themselves from the yoke of the NCAA.
Alright, got that out of my system. With all of that being said, there’s a relatively new element of college sports that needs to be seriously reigned in. I know the first two guesses most will have are NIL and the portal/transfer craziness, but those guesses would be incorrect. I do have some issues with the portal as it currently functions, but for the most part I’ve got no issues with the ease at which players transfer. As Josh Pate would potentially say if he shared this view, whomst amongst us would like to be locked in for four years at a job you hate, and completely unable to leave when you find out your hiring manager lied to you about the benefits and work/life balance? No, for my part I’m pro-portal and pro-NIL, with some slight adjustments I would like to see. You see, the issue on the table today is gambling.
For lack of a better descriptor, gambling has attached itself like a parasite to the world of college and professional athletics. The ticker at the bottom of the screen is filled with point spreads and prop bets, to go along with the traditional scores and spreads. Ads for sportsbooks clog up commercial slots, both over the air and on streaming. Big time athletes even participate in a few of these ads! New stadiums being built are proposing sportsbooks onsite, and existing stadiums are adding them too. Some schools are even forming direct partnerships with these sportsbooks, and promoting them to the student body. For folks leery of the influence of gambling in sports, or with its promotion among younger people, it’s enough to make your hair stand on end.
For every person that hates the mixing of gambling and sports however, there are those of us that love being able to just bet on the games. I’m one of those people, and although the issues I raised above are concerning, there’s a not-insignificant part of me that loves just being able to open my phone and throw a bet on some PAC 12 after dark at will. I just think betting college football is flat out fun. For me, sports betting has been a way to learn even more about the sport, and the teams and players that make it up. I love it, and if you’re on this site, chances are you do too. Which is why we all kind of need to be on the same page about something: Pro and college athletes shouldn’t be able to bet on sports. If we want to keep being able to bet on sports, the active participants in those sports simply shouldn’t be able to.
I’ve seen a lot of “just let them bet” sentiment on social media when these betting scandals have been reported over the past couple of years. When Jameson Williams got suspended for 6 games due to betting on team property, there was a huge outcry in Williams’ defense. You had the same thing happen with Calvin Ridley back in 2021. In college, Alabama’s baseball coach was caught texting an associate in order to help him make a bet against Alabama. And over the summer, there was a gambling ring at both Iowa and Iowa state that was busted, which just yesterday led to criminal charges for ISU quarterback Hunter Dekkers. This stuff is a problem, and it’s a problem that the NCAA needs to crack down on ruthlessly.
The reason that these sportsbooks are able to rake in so much business is because we, as the end users, believe that the system is more or less free from the idea that these games are rigged. There will always be folks who cry foul when results that don’t go their way, and the scandals do happen. But for the most part, we are comfortable betting because we understand the risks and are not concerned with being defrauded in some way. It’s very much an honor system buoyed in part by state gaming commissions. For the athletes, sports leagues have education and training letting them know what they can and cannot do when gambling on sports. There have been plenty of incidents like Williams’ that can be plausibly attributed to misunderstanding the rules. Those players absolutely should not be demonized or implicated in some attempt to match fix.
HOWEVA, we’ve also had situations where players or coaches knew what they were doing was against the rules, and still went ahead and did it anyways. And this is where we run into the challenge of this sports betting industry relying on the honestly of the people in the game. Different leagues have different rules on who can bet at all or what circumstances are permissible for someone to bet. They vary from league to league so I’m not going to list them all out for you. Instead, I’ll just ask this question: why are we leaving it open to any kind of interpretation? Why not just have a blanket policy that says “If you can directly influence the outcome of a game/match/what have you through your decisions or actions, you are not allowed to bet on sports?” And I’m not just talking about their sport in particular, I’m talking all sports.
Like I said earlier, this whole system is based on the idea that the integrity of the games being played is more or less secure. The ability of players to bet on sports is a direct challenge to that. And with how interconnected the world is, the potential is there for a player to bet with insider knowledge on a sport that couldn’t be more separated from their own sport if it tried. In the age of social media, everybody knows everybody, and all it would take is a few messages from one person to the next in order to potentially rig an outcome. Now with larger team sports, the conspiracy to rig a game would have to go beyond just one guy, but think about prop bets. I love betting props, but if I found out that there was an issue with a player intentionally sabotaging a prop bet, I wouldn’t bet a single one ever again. The people involved would get found out and punished but the result happened already, the damage has been done.
Is this unfair to athletes, especially athletes that do follow the rules and haven’t gotten themselves into any trouble? Yeah, it is. I’ll admit that. But I get sick of seeing the same tired “*Insert league here* is punishing players for making bets while they advertise with the same sportsbook!” Those punishments are in place to prevent potential issues from arising, while still allowing players to enjoy sports betting. This isn’t some moral stand against players; this is about maintaining the legitimacy of the outcome of what happens on the field. The risk of that being compromised will always be there if the players are allowed to participate. We’ve seen it happen, as college and professional athletes have been busted betting on their own teams or schools (on another note, if we’re going to keep letting athletes bet, I’m begging athletes to please stop thinking these sportsbooks don’t know exactly who you are and what you’re doing). Hell, a couple of the leagues have already banned coaches and other personnel from doing it, so you know that they are aware of the risks involved. It sucks, but in my opinion it’ll be better for the game, and we aren’t depriving players of some fundamental right. Professional athletes are still going to make millions of dollars, and college athletes are not going to make life changing money from gambling.
I know this may across as doomering, and you know what? It might be doomering. We may never have another serious issue like the Black Sox scandal again. It just feels like we’re at a weird time in college sports, and the marriage to sports betting is a large part of that. In order for this to remain a thing that we can all enjoy, the various leagues have to punish violations by their personnel seriously. If they don’t, and the punishment is not e
nough to dissuade from the potential profit, then eventually it will happen. I for one don’t want to wait for that. Just make it really easy for all involved, and ban anybody involved in these leagues from betting. Period.