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Ohio Colleges Want to be Excluded from Sports Betting

Gaming Floor of JACK Casino in Cleveland
Karen Kasler
Soon you may be able to go to local casinos like the JACK (pictured) to bet on various sporting events.

Ohio lawmakers have introduced bills to legalize sports betting. But Ohio’s universities don’t want to be dealt in on those bills or any others that involve expanded gambling.

The President of the Inter-University Council of Ohio, Bruce Johnson, says leaders of state universities want college sports excluded from sports betting. 

“People who run athletics departments across the state feel very strongly that student athletes don’t need to be confronted with additional challenge of having gambling right down the street on their athletic events.”

Johnson says the NCAA has strong rules preventing gambling on games by students and coaches. Because it can be tempting, he says legalized betting could increase the cost of compliance for colleges.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.