According to Sports Illustrated sources, the NCAA might remove its prohibition on gambling. The Division I Board of Directors voted 21-1 to "adopting legislation to deregulate the prohibition of wagering on professional sports." The legislation has now been moved to the D1 council for discussion in the coming days.
While this sounds like a dramatic shift for the league, we have to note that this new adoption is for professional sports, and that gambling on collegiate sports would still be prohibited.
Why Might the NCAA Make This Change?
Per Sports Illustrated, the NCAA's Enforcement Division spends considerable resources chasing down minor infractions and small penalties relating to the current prohibition. Removing this restriction would open resources within the division to chase down more important infractions, such as point shaving or game-fixing.
As Matt Banker stated to SI: "Is pro sports gambling by a college athlete or coach the biggest threat to college athletics? It’s not."
The NCAA is attempting to align itself with the moving trends of its student-athletes, allowing them to engage in a harmless pastime.
Student athletes caught betting on professional or college sports can face fines and, in the more severe cases, the loss of a student's college eligibility.
Harmless And Not Popular Pastime
Loosening restrictions on sports gambling is an easy win for the NCAA. Sure, sports gambling has swept the nation since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was repealed in 2018. According to a 2023 NCAA survey, 60% of students gambled, a number that has surely increased now that sports gambling is legal in 40 states, with Missouri becoming the latest state to legalize.
But that proliferation hasn't reached the ranks of student athletes. A year following that 2023 survey, the NCAA conducted its fifth survey of student athletes and found that only 21.5% of male athletes and 5.1% of female athletes bet on sports.
In fact, not only did the survey find that far fewer student athletes gambled on sports than the general college population, but the number was actually falling. For male athletes, the percentage has been steadily declining in every survey since 2008, when 29.5% bet on sports. Female athletes have also seen a decline, but less sharply, falling from 6.6% in 2008.
The NCAA credits its drive to educate student athletes on the harms of sports gambling for bringing those numbers down. Since 2022, the league has collaborated with EPIC Global Solutions to deliver a sports gambling harm prevention education program, which has reached over 75,000 student athletes, coaches, and s.
