Should Betting on College Sports Be Legal
.@AmerGamingAssn responds to NCAA President Mark Emmert, who is concerned about the potential impact of sports betting on college sports. His comments were made last week at the NCAA`s annual meeting in Orlando. Lyke added that a number of states — including New York and Illinois — allow sports betting on college sports, with the exception of games where local teams are involved. In New York City, sports betting is currently only legal at four backcountry casinos, not on the internet or mobile devices. Most people gamble legally, occasionally, and generally responsibly (i.e. setting and following time and money limits). However, for a small but identifiable subset of teenagers, gambling can quickly spiral out of control, affecting both mental and physical well-being. The potential for a completely different environment around the game was an important topic in New York this week at the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, where hundreds of college athletic leaders gathered for roundtables on a range of issues affecting their business. According to statistics collected by Mississippi`s Godfrey Sportsbook, bets on college teams accounted for 43 percent of all bets placed in January, 53 percent in February, 64 percent in March, 11 percent in April and just under one percent in May when there are virtually no college sports to bet on. Similar figures were not available for Pennsylvania, but at least the figures confirm that Mississippi would have given up many if it had banned betting on local sports teams. JD: Student-athletes report that coaches and teammates are their main influences, so programs that target these people, especially coaches, are helpful. I like the idea of including student association groups.
Campus-wide engagement is better. This is a broader student issue that does not just affect student-athletes. It`s important to understand that starting out as a fun and harmless activity can lead to other serious problems. One or two out of every 100 students who have a problem probably won`t set the world on fire, but if you consider the gambling problem as one of the many things that can negatively impact students` health and well-being, then your chances of resonating, so to speak, are much greater. It`s important to remember that every problem player tends to seriously influence a dozen other people: friends, girlfriends, peers, teammates, coaches, parents, and employers. And for student-athletes, it can jeopardize their eligibility. Senator Lindsay Graham and Pitt Heather Lyke`s AD believe that illegal sports betting in the United States involves only a “small group of people,” according to the Senate hearing. ? In fact, it was the root of a series of college basketball scandals that have surfaced regularly since the 1950s. Miller noted that most of these scandals were discovered by Las Vegas bookmakers, who noticed “abnormal activity” in sometimes relatively obscure games. JD: Today, the industry itself is the most receptive crowd. Years ago, I gave a lecture to the internet gaming industry and they considered me an outcast.
Someone in the audience emailed me afterwards and said that even though it was an interesting presentation, why did I go back and forth on stage? I said, “It`s harder to hit a moving target.” Now, the industry is turning to “responsible gaming.” They are concerned about the safety of players; Ensure that people do not lose their homes, drop out of school, engage in illegal behaviour, or commit suicide because they are overwhelmed by their gambling problems. No one wants that. Jeff Derevensky: There are several. Maybe all the others come from the overall normalization of behavior. The gaming industry has done a great job in this regard – they don`t even call themselves gambling anymore. Now it`s called “game.” They sell entertainment. They have moved away from the image of sin and vice associated with gambling to the point where it is now normal socially acceptable behavior. Television has also done a remarkable job of promoting gambling, not only through sports, but also through poker tournaments. ESPN has been able to develop low-cost programs in this direction that have attracted millions of people. Electronic forms of play have made it accessible to the average person 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Even the government is involved and supports lotteries as a simple form of “voluntary taxation”. Walk around the 10-15 year period, and you`ll notice something markedly different in the way bets are seen. And even if they can fight it, the NCAA folks are smart enough to know that a major change in sports betting laws will end up usurping any attempt to suppress events from states that make it legal to bet on their games. “If colleges really didn`t want gambling, they would argue for all lines of play in college sports to become illegal,” said David Ridpath, associate professor of sports management at Ohio University. “It has to be one or the other, not just: `Hey, this is illegal, we know it`s going to happen and, man, we`re making a lot of money, but we can look the other way. Student-athletes, athletic directors claim to eat, sleep, study and socialize with the general student population and are therefore easily accessible and could be led to accept game-changing bribes. At the same hearing in Illinois, another athletic director pointed out that there is still contact between athletes and other students, even when games are played out of state. In the end, the legislature banned betting on a college event in Illinois or the Illinois team, regardless of where it plays. “It`s hypocritical for a state to legalize sports betting and then say you can`t bet on college sports,” Slane said. “I think it creates less transparency.” However, who will get the biggest slice of the pie remains to be seen. There is no doubt that the NCAA will do everything in its power to reduce the ticket for sports betting transactions in one way or another.
If college athletes can now benefit from their name, image and likeness, will they also be able to get a sports betting salary in any way? JD: The landscape has changed dramatically. There are more states with casinos than ever before. When the NCAA launched its first gaming task force in 2003, only Nevada and New Jersey had casinos. Now there are many casinos in Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana and many other states. Electronic forms of gambling are also becoming increasingly popular. In 2003, very few people even thought about online gambling. Now you can bet on virtually anything online. There were chances of what Prince William and Kate Middleton would call their baby. You can bet on who will be the next pope or president.