When it comes to betting on college sports, Tom McMillen has the credibility to put in a word or two. He served as a U.S. congressman, and maybe more important, he was a basketball All-American at the University of Maryland.
He worries that the continued expansion of sports wagering on collegiate games could result in a game-fixing scandal which would have a devastating effect on the sport, according to Southern Maryland News.
“I would say 99 percent of the sports-betting scandals that have occurred had been in the college market,” McMillen said.
He cited Boston College’s basketball program, which got caught shaving points in the 1978-79 season. Almost 30 years earlier, the City College of New England and at least six other schools were involved in a notorious incident involving players being paid to throw games.
“I think there’s just that general fear that college kids could be exploited in this environment,” said McMillen, now CEO of LEAD1, an organization that represents athletic directors and programs of the Football Bowl Subdivision.
According to a recent poll conducted by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland, in collaboration with the school’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement and The Washington Post, concluded there was less support for wagers in college sports than the pros by 66 to 55 percent.
Ryan Ridgeway, a 30-year-old warehouse worker from Laurel, Maryland, supports betting on professional sports but is wary about college sports because of the varying player finances.
“At the professional level, they’re already getting paid millions of dollars, I feel like they’d be less likely to throw a game,” he said. “Since [college athletes aren’t] getting paid millions of dollars, they have more of an incentive to throw a game.”
Of the 30 states with legal sports betting, 18 have some type of restriction on college athletics. In Maryland, wagering on both college and pro sports is only permitted at retail locations.
The ubiquity of mobile betting is another concern of gambling addiction experts. Dr. Deborah Haskins, the President of the Maryland Council on Problem Gambling, said that being able to place bets on a cell phone at any time makes it easier to slip into compulsive behavior.
“You’re seeing more people who are experiencing negative harms from gambling because now they can literally stay in the game 24/7. Gambling beyond your means economically … you’re spending more and more beyond what your budget is,” she said. “Compulsive gamblers sometimes resort to drastic measures like using mortgage and rent money for gambling.”
In the poll, 20 percent of sports fans said they bet on pro sports in the past five years compared to 17 percent of all respondents. Regarding college sports, only 11 percent of sports fans said they had bet in the last five years compared to 9 percent of all respondents.
