NCAA Votes on Lifting Betting Ban for College Athletes

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00:00The NCAA sports betting rules, again, as you've written, could shift with a vote on pro wagering,

00:05you know, obviously surrounding what athletes, what staff are able to do. It's all, you know,

00:12it generally tends to put people's brains in a pretzel. So I'm going to allow you to unravel

00:18it a little bit and tell people what they should expect going forward. Yeah, thanks. I'll try to do

00:23my best. It's always difficult when you're talking about rules for the NCAA, for college

00:30athletes, which as we know, just the way we even define what a college athlete is, has rapidly

00:35changed over the past couple of years. So there's going to be a vote that's actually expected today

00:40where the division one council and the NCAA is going to vote whether or not they're going to

00:46lift a prohibition that currently prevents college athletes, coaches and staffers from betting on

00:52professional sports that are sponsored by the NCAA. So, you know, the NCAA has a lot of partnerships

00:57with the NFL, NBA. This would effectively, you know, kind of get rid of this big rule that some

01:05sees maybe an oversight, allowing, you know, these students and these athletes and coaches to pretty

01:11much have the same rights that normal college students have. Anytime you talk about, you know,

01:17betting and college athletes, it can kind of get, you know, people can get kind of worried. So this

01:22wouldn't allow, I want to be clear, this wouldn't allow, you know, athletes to bet on their own

01:26sports. Like if I'm playing for, I don't know, the Penn State football team, I wouldn't be allowed to

01:31bet on the spread of the game. That would still very much be illegal. And I don't think we're ever

01:35going to get that rule to change. But there's gonna be a vote this week. If that vote happens,

01:40then the, or if that's approved, then the D2 council and the D3 council in July are going to have

01:45to come and also, you know, rectify the agreement and approve it as well. But this, the D1 council

01:52is kind of the big hurdle. Usually what they do is then followed by the division two council and

01:56division three council. So yeah, it could, it's, it sounds like a big change, but it's really more

02:01of a minor kind of thing. And it seems like from what I'm hearing so far, that it has a lot of support.

02:07Well, and part of what you wrote about in this article as well is, you know, the NCAA probe that

02:11at Iowa and Iowa state that found more than a hundred athletes, staffers violated betting

02:17rules. Some did wager on their own teams, which obviously, as you noted, is a no, no.

02:21Then 2023, we had the investigation with the university of Alabama fired its baseball coach

02:26after suspicious betting activity. I think the sort of where it gets, there are so many areas where

02:31it gets kind of, you know, gray would, would put it kindly, but one of them, you know, you mentioned

02:36it, like, let's say you play for the Penn state football team and all right, you want to play,

02:40forget college. You want to play some, a wager on the NFL. Well, what if, you know, old teammate

02:45of mine at Penn state's now in the NFL playing for the Steelers and I can contact him and get

02:50some insider info on what's going on in the injury report midweek before I feel like a spread is going

02:56to move or something like that. So that's where it just, you know, all of this gets very cloudy

03:00for lack of a better word, because they're just, these relationships extend as far as they do.

03:06Yeah, definitely. I mean, the NFL, it's cloudy for them as well. They have rules that say,

03:10literally say, don't tell your friends and family inside betting info. But again, how do you,

03:14how do you discern what that is? You know, if you text your buddy, yeah, my leg really hurts. I don't

03:18think I'm going to play. Is that inside betting info? If they go and use it without you knowing.

03:23So it is very cloudy and very muddy, but for what the, for what it's about for the NCAA is again,

03:28like those instances you mentioned, those, you know, they've seen various scandals pop up over the

03:33past couple of years when sports betting has been legal. They want to reduce the work for the NCAA

03:37to have to deal with these, you know, what they call small scale violations. You know,

03:41obviously, you know, they want to focus on the bigger ones where maybe a student is trying to

03:46throw a game. You know, we've seen investigations at, at Temple, we've seen investigations at Fresno

03:50State tied to actual, you know, throwing a game. I think the NCAA doesn't want to deal with these

03:55more smaller scale violations. And part of that too, is, you know, trying to de-stigmatize,

04:00you know, if I get a betting violation, or if I'm not sure about what's going on,

04:04they want to make sure these kids are getting help. They want to make sure that they're okay to

04:08come to the NCAA and talk about things, ask about things. They've rapidly ramped up their education.

04:13So a lot of this is, you know, about kind of decriminalizing things that maybe, you know,

04:17shouldn't be looked at in that light, treating it as more of a mental health issue and treating,

04:22you know, treating it now more as an addiction kind of topic, instead of just sports betting taboo,

04:29we're going to suspend you, you know, your career is over.

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