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The rise of legalized sports betting has been a welcome development for reasonable people who don’t take things too seriously. Unfortunately, there are far too many degenerates who won’t think twice about harassing an athlete if their wager fails to hit, and the president of the NCAA is calling on Congress to outlaw certain types of bets as a result.
It’s been more than six years since the Supreme Court issued the ruling that opened up the sports betting floodgates in America, and 38 states (along with Washington, D.C.) have passed laws that allow people to get in on the action within their borders while capitalizing on the new source of revenue for their government’s coffers.
There are always going to be downsides accompanying the normalization of any vice, and this one certainly hasn’t been an exception.
You’d be hard-pressed to find many sports fans who aren’t annoyed with the sponsorships, ads, and promo codes that now permeate basically every broadcast, and more and more athletes have to deal with the small but nonetheless notable minority of bettors who will slide into their mentions or even confront them in person over a gamble that failed to pay off.
Earlier this year, the NCAA released the result of a study examining the harassment student-athletes are subjected to online that found 12% of the abusive messages compiled were sent their way by “angry sports bettors.”
Now, NCAA president Charlie Baker has turned to Congress in the hopes of cracking down on that growing trend, as NPR reports he appealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee to ban prop bets concerning the performance of individual players while speaking on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, noting:
“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.”
According to Action Network, 13 states currently have a blanket ban on all individual player props, while an additional six have rules in place preventing sportsbooks from listing them for student-athletes who attend a school in the state.
The hearing was connected to the SAFE Bet Act that’s co-sponsored by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal and New York State Representative Paul Tonko, which would not only ban the prop bets in question but would outlaw “bonus bets” promos and introduce some much-needed rules to address the plague of betting ads that currently litter the airwaves.
As NPR notes, it’s unlikely the bill will be put to a vote before the end of the current legislative session, but the two lawmakers intended to reintroduce it next year if it ends up being tabled.