WASHINGTON — The president of the NCAA appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday to express support for some federal regulations around sports gambling — including a ban on a type of wager known as "prop bets" in college sports.
In the six years since the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for legal sports gambling across the U.S., harassment and abuse directed at student-athletes has grown, said Charlie Baker, speaking to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"We believe that when bettors can't gamble on college athletes' individual performances, they're far less likely to attempt to scrutinize, coerce or harass student-athletes," Baker said.
Proposition bets, or prop bets, are a wager in which a bettor gambles on something besides a game's final outcome — such as whether a certain player will score, or how many assists they log. Such bets on college sports are currently allowed in about 20 states, or roughly half of those that have legalized sports gambling.
Those wagers can lead to harassment, Baker said. The NCAA says 10 to 15% of its Division I athletes have reported being harassed by bettors — an experience especially common among football and basketball players.
"They get demands for money from unhappy bettors for trivial things that don't impact the result on the field," Baker said. "Many have received death threats from bettors, and they also receive other, in-person threats and accusations directed at them while they're leaving or coming onto the field of play."
He pointed to the example of Armando Bacot, a University of North Carolina basketball player who said in March that he had received dozens of angry messages from gamblers about the number of rebounds he recorded during an NCAA tournament game.
The harassment also comes in-person from classmates and friends, Baker added. "They basically say, 'Look, you're my friend. I'm not looking for you to lose a game, I just need you to miss the first two free throws,'" he said.
Baker also called for federal regulations designed to prevent known harassers from betting again in the future.
Senators met to discuss a bill to regulate sports gambling
Tuesday's hearing in Congress concerned a bill that would aims to place major regulations on sports gambling. Nearly 40 states, along with the District of Columbia, allow some form of sports gambling.
The industry has grown exponentially since 2018. Last year, Americans wagered an estimated $120 billion on sports. Research and surveys have shown that legalization has led to increases in irresponsible gambling, debt and bankruptcy.
Young men may be at the highest risk. A study commissioned last year by the NCAA found that two-thirds of college-age men have wagered money on sports, and men were more likely to wager very frequently.
The bill, called the "S.A.F.E. Bet Act," was co-authored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. In addition to banning prop bets in college sports, it would ban gambling platforms from offering promotions like "bonus bets," limit gambling ads during broadcasts of sporting events, prevent gamblers from using credit cards to make deposits and require gambling companies to conduct affordability checks on high-volume gamblers.
Blumenthal's bill has little chance of passing before the current session of Congress concludes in January. But Blumenthal and the bill's co-sponsor, Rep. Paul Tonko, are both set to return to Congress next year.
Republicans raise the issue of transgender athletes
Two Republican senators used their time to grill Baker about the issue of transgender women in NCAA women's sports.
A little more than a half-million student-athletes compete across the NCAA's three divisions. Of that total, Baker said Tuesday he was aware of fewer than 10 who are transgender.
The politically potent issue resurfaced this fall when a handful of NCAA women's volleyball teams chose to forfeit matches against San Jose State over reports that one of its players was a transgender woman.
In response to a lawsuit, a federal judge and later a federal appeals court cleared the way for the athlete's participation — a fact Baker repeatedly pointed to, as Sens. John Kennedy and Josh Hawley criticized the NCAA for allowing her to play.
Some states have passed laws banning trans women and girls from competing in women's sports. In Idaho and West Virginia, federal judges have temporarily blocked those laws; the two states have appealed to the Supreme Court.
A separate lawsuit, filed in federal court by the anti-trans activist and former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines, has challenged the NCAA's policies specifically. The NCAA has asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.
The current legal situation is "murky," Baker said. "I would love to work with you folks on creating clarity around this question," he added.
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