Gambling and gambling scandals in college sports

The Ethical Dilemmas in Sports:

Betting

Randy Ozbirn

SPMT600 B001

Research Methods for Sports and Health Sciences

Dr. Barry Shollenberger

July 22, 2018

The Ethical Dilemmas in Sports:

Betting

The question everybody is wondering is if the NCAA is willing to take on gambling and the

college athletes who are gambling on games involving their college or university. The NCAA,

who was once one of the organizations who was willing to confront any college or university for

wrongdoing, now has its hand full with gambling, corruption, sex scandals, and a Federal Bureau

of Investigation probe of coaches being paid to direct players to a number of agents. The industry

at the fastest growing rate in the world remains to be the gambling industry and with corpor-

ations from around the world being willing to invest billions of dollars per year to bring in

customers from every country and every age group, the industry isn’t slowing down. In most

of the jurisdictions there are age limits placed on gambling but the majority of college athletes

and students continue to find a way to participate. The NCAA has gone as far as to ask for

federal regulations on gambling. This coming after the United States Supreme Court voted to

overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) (Moriarty and Kirshner

2018). The law that was overturned prevented all states from forming regulations for all local

betting.

In 1995, there was over half a trillion dollars legally wagered by Americans across the

United States. Profits from this same period were approximately $44.4 billion dollars, in sports

gaming alone. The profits from sports gaming in 1995 exceeded the total revenues from the

movie industry, sports entertainment, and music industry combined. Online gambling

opportunities have caused a great deal of discussions concerning gambling, concerns that have

never been seen before. Usually these discussions are more focused on the benefits that are

associated with gambling than of prohibition gambling and the associated benefits that are more

directed with the regulations that normally come with gambling.

The NCAA was passionate in its argument against the Supreme Court on ruling to allow

betting on college sports. Not only did the NCAA argue its stance but professional league players

would join the NCAA on its argument. The NCAA went even farther, threatening to relocate any

college sporting event, regular season or postseason that was scheduled in Delaware during

2009, if the state allowed any type of gambling on any college sport. There were a few states that

would be grandfathered, Delaware excluded, that college sports gambling would be allowed in.

Those states were Montana, Oregon, and Nevada. Now is ball is back in the court of the NCAA

and it now has to decide if the governing body of all college sports will integrate and use

gambling on college sports to its advantage.

The NCAA’s financial gain could be tremendous with revenues from gambling on college

sports. I’m sure the thought of being able to bet on players and games during March Madness, in

real time, would appease to many who gamble on college sports. The NCAA profited an

estimated $857 million from Turner Sports for the rights to broadcast the NCAA tournament

during March 2018. If making gambling legal during the tournament, I’m sure those numbers

would be much greater. The number one question on everybody’s mind is more this, will the

athletes who participate under the NCAA begin to see and type of money that is taken in by the

profits the organization would make on gambling. Two schools, Marshall and West Virginia,

already have a tentative deal made that would provide each school with a portion of revenue that

would come from betting on college sports.

Most of the individuals who gamble will do it legally, responsibly, and occasionally but there

is a smaller group of younger gamblers who can spin out of control, both physically and

mentally. Most student athletes who gamble are very similar to these youth, problem and social

gambling. An NCAA commission found in 2012 that 39% female student athletes gambled in

some fashion during the past year (Derevensky and Paskus). The rate for male student athletes

was a much higher 57% for the same time period (Derevensky and Paskus). In an attempt to

protect the integrity of college sports, regulations set forth by the NCAA prohibit any student

athlete from placing a bet on any college sports event that there is a collegiate championship

conducted by the NCAA. Any student athlete who violates this rule could lose any remaining

eligibility, which would also have a negative impact on his/her team as well as the individual.

Bibliography

Derevensky, Jeffrey L. and Paskus, Tom. Mind, Body and Sport: Gambling among student-athletes. An excerpt from the Sport Science Institute’s guide to understanding and supporting student-athlete mental well. Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-gambling-among-student-athletes

Moriarty, Morgan and Kirshner, Alex. (2018). The NCAA wants the federal government to regulate sports gambling. SBNation. Retrieved from https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/5/14/17352170/ncaa-statement-supreme-court-ruling-legalized-sports-betting

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