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In response to the NCAA calling for an end to prop bets and certain in-game wagers, the Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC) asked for feedback from the public through noon CT today and is expected to take action at its meeting on Thursday.
Those interested in commenting can do so via email.
On Jan. 16, the MGC said it received a letter the day before that “requested the exclusion of wagers on the performance of individual student athletes (also known as player prop bets) and first-half wager spreads on men’s and women’s basketball games in the NCAA.”
The letter was part of a larger NCAA effort to convince state gambling commissions to eliminate prop betting on college players and games. According to NCAA President Charlie Baker,
“The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a layered integrity monitoring program that covers over 22,000 contests, but we still need the remaining states and regulators to eliminate threats to integrity to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors.”
Protecting student-athletes
Missouri sports betting rules bar prop bets on student-athletes from Missouri schools and their opponents but allows prop bets on college players from schools outside the state. The MGC does allow first-half prop bets on Missouri teams.
Some Missouri student-athletes voiced concerns about added pressure they could face after legalization of sports wagering on Dec. 1. Former University of Kansas men’s basketball player Zeke Mayo said he received racist comments and threats of violence after games, suspecting “they came from angry gamblers who had lost money betting on his game.”
Some gamblers have gone as far as to send unsolicited Venmo requests to players under the premise of recovering their losses from betting on those players.
The NCAA’s call for stopping prop betting was accompanied by data, including one alarming statistic:
“In real-time data collected through NCAA surveys, 36% of Division I men’s basketball players report receiving harassment from someone with a betting interest. Player prop bets attach an individual student-athlete’s name to a bet and therefore increase the likelihood of betting harassment being targeted toward that student-athlete.
Only 4 states have fully banned college player prop bets
Of the 39 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have legalized sports wagering since 2018, only four of those – Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Vermont – have banned individual prop bets involving college athletes, according to NBC Sports.
Massachusetts is reviving efforts to ban prop betting, with state Sen. John Keenan expressing regret for an initial vote he made to help usher in sports wagering in his state. His S 302 bill would raise the tax on online sports wagering from 20% to 51% and ban in-play and prop bets.
The Cape Cod Times reported that Keenan raised the alarm last November at a Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies hearing:
“We unleashed an industry that now promotes betting on anything and everything imaginable and unimaginable all over the world, 24 hours a day, every single day. I want to publicly apologize to those who’ve lost the opportunity to sit and watch a game just for the enjoyment of the game, I want to apologize to those who find themselves in the dark spaces of betting addiction, and to those working through recovery and to their families and friends. I want to apologize to those who have lost loved ones to suicide because of gambling issues.”
Missouri’s sports betting law does include responsible gambling language as well as allocating at least $5 million from sports wagering taxes to address compulsive gambling. Within days, the MGC is expected to release revenue numbers from the state’s first month of sports wagering.
