Texas Christian University got bounced out of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in the second round by perennial powerhouse Gonzaga, 84-81. The team came agonizingly close after Damion Baugh sank a three-pointer at the buzzer. Too little too late. Baugh joined his teammates on the bus, quiet and pensive over what could have been.
But the three-pointer told a different story to some sports bettors. Gonzaga was favored by four points. The last second shot meant Gonzaga did not cover the spread. Baugh heard more than he wanted to as his Instagram account bore the brunt of messages from angry bettors. Such is the growing issue since the Supreme Court made sports betting legal in 2018.
The number of messages aimed at college athletes has grown, and in many cases include death threats or threats against members of the athlete’s family.
“Everybody playing sports growing up, we play until the whistle, play until the end of the game,” Baugh told ESPN. “People just forgot about that. Saying I shouldn’t have taken the shot is saying, ‘We don’t care about the game. We just wanted to win our money.’”
On March 7, a group of approximately 125 collegiate sports officials, state gambling regulators and sportsbook executives met to hash out different approaches to overcome these occurrences. Matt Holt, president of U.S. Integrity, a watchdog organization. said the increase in reported situations triggered his plea for a conference call.
“Colleges are stressed about it and have loads of instances of athletes being abused,” Mark Potter, head of delivery for Epic Risk Management, an international advocacy group dedicated to fighting problem gambling, told ESPN. “One college had over 200 [instances].”
Some 56 percent of Americans live in a place with legal sports betting. And as the percentage increases, the abuse on social media escalates, mostly in the men’ sports. But it’s only a matter of time before the threats go after women’s athletics.
“There’s some laws that have recently been enacted that, really to me, could really change the landscape of what college sports is about,” Dayton men’s basketball coach Anthony Grant told reporters.
In 2019, according to court records, Benjamin Patz, a 23-year-old bettor, sent threatening messages from an anonymous account to an unnamed Pepperdine basketball player: “Your throat will be severed open with a dull knife.” “Your entire family will be beheaded and burned alive.” “Watch your back, you’re a dead man walking.”
Patz might have been angry about lost wagers or tried to influence upcoming events he had bet on, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce and was sentenced to 36 months of probation.
“Anybody who is harassing student-athletes based on betting, it’s a clear indication that they have a gambling problem and should be seeking help and not continue to actively participate in any legal gambling sites,” said Casey Clark, senior vice president for the American Gaming Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents the casino industry.
Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, said that while not everyone who sends social media abuse to athletes has a gambling problem, there is a “huge overlap.”
Holt says the coalition will not only establish regional groups but push lawmakers into seeking legislative action.
Ohio is considering regulations that would prohibit bettors accused of harassment from betting with licensed sportsbooks. Betting related threats also make threats against athletes a crime.
“You have these lowlifes that somehow believe that the people that are there, on the field of play, are there to make money for them. Like someone who would bet on a horse,” Matt Schuler, executive director of the Ohio Casino Control Commission told ESPN.
According to the FBI, social media abuse becomes a crime when it’s tied to “an imminent threat to life” or includes threats against the “wellbeing of an athlete or their family members.”
“When these and other factors are met, that’s when the line between criticism and illegality is crossed,” Beto Quiroga, an FBI supervisory special agent, told ESPN.
The NCAA requires Division I schools to have mental health resources on campus and encourages athletes who receive social media abuse to alert their coaches.
Connor McCaffery, a senior guard who plays for his father, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery, works with Sportradar, an international sports data and integrity monitor, to urge student-athletes to be aware of mental health issues. He has sought counseling to help him deal with social media abuse. “It’s very prevalent,” he said. “And 100 percent, there’s been an uptick in the last year or two.”
Jim Brown, a former NCAA official, heads Sportradar’s integrity and athlete well-being services in North America. “Sports betting harassment online isn’t as prevalent in the international space,” Brown told ESPN. “I’m curious as to why we are seeing it in North America.”
In related college news, the NCAA men and women’s basketball tournaments have concluded, with UConn and LSU taking home the respective titles.
Now the American Gaming Association (AGA) will collect the nitty gritty statistics. Did 68 million Americans bet $1.5 billion wagering on the games? If so, administrators hope the college students are not a part of those numbers.
In Massachusetts, college athletes and employees are barred by the NCAA from betting in person or online. The state also prohibits wagering on in-state schools.
Athletes and employees can bet on horse racing, boxing, international rugby, and probably bowling, but not Super Bowl or fantasy football or the NCAA tourney.
“We send out a notice on Selection Sunday saying, ‘remember you cannot do anything with the NCAA Tournament,’” UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford told MassLive. “You can submit a free bracket and if you win something, that’s O.K. You can’t put money into anything to get money out.”
Boston College Athletic Director Blake James said, “We would be naive to think there wasn’t gambling going on before this law passed into place. It’s going to be all the more prevalent in Massachusetts with the passing of the law. We continue to educate and inform our students.”
Bamford has contacted the NFL, which offers its education program to colleges in states where legalized sports betting has been approved. He’ll have the FBI come in for a talk as well.
“The NFL has a really good in-house program. We’ve had some conversations with them about doing programming work, especially for football and men’s basketball next summer,” Bamford told MassLive.
According to research conducted by the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, 50 percent of sports gamblers are between the ages of 18–34. College students, especially men, (who represent 80 percent of the bettors) are a logical demographic to target.
“It’s a lot like the marijuana lobby. They’re smart. They know where the pockets are,” Bamford said. “DraftKings has been hammering us trying to infiltrate our campus. DraftKings is all over TikTok and Instagram. That’s where 18-22-year-olds are living.”
College athletic departments can benefit from revenue from ads. UMass currently has a sponsorship with MGM Springfield, but it’s for the downtown casino. The current ads and signage do not include any inducements or references to the on-site or online sports books.
Bamford said sports betting sites have approached UMass about advertising.
“They are hitting us up to see if we want to do it. There’s money to be made from a corporate sponsor standpoint,” he told MassLive. “I’m not comfortable with it just yet and as an institution, we might never get comfortable with it.”
According to Massachusetts law, fans can’t bet on college teams from inside the state (except in the NCAA Tournament), a distinction both Bamford and James appreciated.
“I was happy to see the Massachusetts schools were off the boards,” Bamford said. “Some of our kids are very naive about this.”
James agreed.
Wanna bet on a Massachusetts team anyway? Just drive to Connecticut or Rhode Island.
Beyond the betting ban, insider information is a concern. Athletes may pass such information on to friends and associates who now have info others are not privy to.
“NIL adds a whole other layer of somebody you get to know personally. There are so many layers to this. There are so many things you have to be cognizant of,” James told MassLive.
If athletes are not sure, ask, he said.
