Not long ago, conventional wisdom painted the typical gambler as a weathered middle-aged man in a smoky casino or a bookie’s parlor. Today’s reality is starkly different. Betting — especially on sports — has undergone a radical transformation in the last few years, expanding from shady backroom activities into a highly commercialized and media-driven industry.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal prohibitions in 2018, 38 states have embraced legal sportsbooks and Americans have wagered over $250 billion in this seven-year span. As talk of gambling now permeates broadcasts and leagues, this rapid normalization of sports betting is opening a Pandora’s box — look no further than the NBA’s latest black eye.
Just two months ago, a massive federal investigation exposed an illegal betting ring involving none other than a current head coach and a star player. Portland Trail Blazers Coach Chauncey Billups — an NBA Hall of Famer — and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested and indicted alongside over 30 others for allegedly running rigged betting schemes.
The allegations are frankly jaw-dropping. Rozier was accused of leaking insider information and planning his own in-game actions to manipulate bets. Prosecutors say Rozier tipped off associates that he would leave a 2023 game early with a fake injury. Lo and behold, he exited after nine minutes, enabling his co-conspirators to bet over $200,000 that he would underperform.
So why should college sports care about an NBA scandal? Allowing NCAA athletes to bet on professional sports blurs a critical line. Today, it’s ‘only on the NFL’ or ‘only on the NBA,’ but the normalization of gambling opens the door to more insidious behavior. If a Hall of Fame coach is susceptible, how can we expect unpaid — or now, partially-to-heavily compensated — 19-year-olds to resist engaging in illegal activity with potentially lucrative results?
Historically, the NCAA has taken a hardline stance — student-athletes and staff are strictly prohibited from betting on any sport, at any level. Yet as gambling becomes ubiquitous, enforcing that blanket ban has grown increasingly difficult. Recently, that safeguard came perilously close to being dismantled.
In an eyebrow-raising move, the NCAA’s Division I cabinet approved a rule change Oct. 22 that would allow college athletes and staff to bet on professional sports. While the proposal barred betting on college games, it signaled a willingness to let amateurs wager on the very professional leagues they aspire to one day join.
The proposal was initially set to take effect Nov. 1, but public backlash triggered a rescission window that ran through Nov. 22. By the end of that period, more than two-thirds of Division I schools had voted to overturn the change. The NCAA leadership had defended the rule as one that “recognizes the realities of today’s sports environment,” even as campus administrators, commissioners and addiction experts were warning it was a major step in the wrong direction.
The NCAA insisted the change was “not an endorsement of sports betting” and that they remained committed to protecting integrity. But that stance rings somewhat hollow when considering the broader climate. The NBA scandal shows how quickly insiders can be entangled in unethical behavior.
Even beyond the NBA case, alarm bells have already been ringing over the past few years within the collegiate world. Many institutions have seen an unsettling uptick in betting-related scandals, despite the NCAA’s current strict bans.
One of the most notable cases occurred last year at Notre Dame, where an external investigation discovered that over 60 percent of the men’s swimming team had been betting among themselves on their own meets, as well as events like the Super Bowl and March Madness games, behavior completely at odds with NCAA rules.
The Notre Dame scandal demonstrated how deeply betting culture has permeated campus life, even in less scrutinized sports. Notre Dame’s athletic director Pete Bevacqua lamented “a culture dismissive of Notre Dame’s standards,” and for good reason. Notre Dame’s administrators responded by suspending the entire men’s swimming program for at least one year due to the widespread gambling violations, leading to many student-athletes transferring and incoming recruits decommitting.
The situation in South Bend, Ind. was not an isolated incident. Over the past year, dozens of student-athletes at schools like Iowa and Iowa State were implicated in betting violations, ranging from wagering on pro sports to allegedly betting on their own teams. In one recently adjudicated case, a Fresno State men’s basketball player was found to have intentionally altered his performance as part of a prop-bet scheme.
Allowing student-athletes to gamble — even strictly on professional games — would send the message that gambling is a normal part of sports culture and a standard component of being an athlete. The fact that the NCAA came so close to telling student-athletes and athletic staff, “Well, okay, you can go ahead and bet on the NFL or NBA” seems naïve at best and reckless at worst. College sports are certainly not immune to the forces that led to the NBA scandal or the rise of betting apps that are predatory by design.
In fact, they may be more fragile — student-athletes are younger, less financially secure and under significant academic and athletic pressure. The last thing they need is the added strain of gambling losses or the ethical quicksand of betting entanglements.
Here in Virginia, the state legislature is grappling with this issue. While sports wagering is legal in the Commonwealth, state law currently forbids betting on Virginia’s college teams to protect amateur athletes. Still, every legislative session brings renewed pressure to lift that ban to capture tax revenue from the black market.
Unlike pro athletes, college players often aren’t insulated by private security and walk the same campuses as their peers and fans, making them far more accessible to retaliation.
Old Dominion men’s basketball player Jason Wade recalled that after a tough postseason loss, an enraged bettor — upset about losing a prop bet — actually confronted the team in person to complain that he couldn’t cash out his wager. As this altercation goes to show, the monetary implications have the potential to not only affect spectators, but the safety and privacy of players too.
“Who’s to say someone who is a million-dollar sports bettor wouldn’t offer my starting pitcher a million dollars to throw a game?” University of Lynchburg assistant baseball coach Cam Lane said.
His hypothetical isn’t far-fetched, either — high-rolling bettors have attempted to bribe athletes in the past. With more money sloshing around in both the collegiate sports and betting universes comes greater temptation for unscrupulous actors to see college kids as targets for co-opting outcomes.
Student-athletes at the University typically receive regular education on NCAA gambling rules — which, for now, is still a strict zero-tolerance policy — and Virginia’s athletic department emphasizes that any betting could cost players their college and professional sporting careers.
Yet these kinds of rules and reminders can only do so much when flashy sportsbook ads are everywhere and the NCAA itself almost allowed betting by collegiate athletes and staff. The reality is, gambling isn’t going anywhere — in fact, it’s likely to grow even more intertwined with college sports through NIL, sponsorships and media presence in the coming years.
On Nov. 22, the NCAA ultimately chose to preserve the guardrails that protect student-athletes and the integrity of college sports. That outcome matters, but so does how close the NCAA came to a different result.
The warning signs are hard to ignore — it is abundantly clear that this is not the time to experiment with loosening boundaries. Even with the proposal reversed, the NCAA has demonstrated its willingness to experiment with the edge of integrity. If the NCAA attempts again, it risks chipping away at the very values college sports are meant to uphold.
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