By Madison Fessler and Dylan Lux / Jambar Contributors
The Ohio Casino Commission Control banned player-specific proposition bets on collegiate athletes in February 2024. The decision was made following the NCAA sending a request in late January.
The request came after threats were made against multiple University of Dayton men’s and women’s basketball players.
Kiersten Kleckner-Alt, associate athletic director of compliance for Youngstown State University, said with this law being passed, the expectation is that the amount of messages have decreased.
“The hope would be that they’re not getting as many online hate messages, but there’s still an opportunity for those disparaging comments to be made about their performance or something else,” Kleckner-Alt said.
Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of Enterprise Risk Management at the NCAA, describes prop bets as a wager that isn’t based on the total outcome of the game.
“Think about a football game … it would be any bet that’s on the first quarter outcome of the game or the first half or the third quarter,” Hangebrauck said. “The outcome of who’s going to have the first touchdown or the first sack. Any component of the game that’s not based off of the total outcome of the game.”
In a news release from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, it stated he was happy the OCCC took quick action to protect athletes from unnecessary harm.
“Amending rules to focus bets on the team and away from individual athletes will improve the marketplace in Ohio and properly focus betting attention on the teams and away from individual student athletes,” DeWine stated.
Ohio was the first state to ban prop bets in collegiate sports, now one of four states, as Louisiana, Maryland and Vermont followed suit.
The NCAA conducted a study with data science company Signify Group. It analyzed social media accounts for over 3,000 college athletes, 500 coaches, 200 event officials and 165 teams.
The study was conducted during the 2024 College Football Playoff, men’s and women’s basketball tournaments — March Madness — men’s and women’s college world series, volleyball and gymnastics championships — all hosted by the NCAA.
The analysis found 73% of abusive messages were sent during March Madness and women athletes received around 59% more abusive messages than men.
Hangebrauck said prop bets are dangerous in more ways than one, and that outlawing them could help protect the NCAA from manipulation.
“Proposition bets are really dangerous in a lot of different ways. They’re dangerous from a competition integrity standpoint,” Hangebrauck said. “It’s a lot easier to manipulate a certain part of a contest than the overall contest … one specific player, if they’re involved, then they can manipulate just the under on their activities and end up sitting out that game.”
Kleckner-Alt said there haven’t been reports of these messages being sent to YSU athletes, but there’s a support system in place if it were to happen.
“We have sport administrators that work with each program. We sit with our teams at the beginning of the year and this is a topic we talk to them about … We try to create spaces for them where they feel comfortable coming to talk to someone in administration if they feel like that’s something they’re dealing with,” Kleckner-Alt said.
There is a law in Ohio stating that if a person is identified as reaching out to college athletes, coaches or officials and harassing them from a standpoint of betting — either in person or on social media — that person will be banned from betting in the state of Ohio.
The law has been in place since Ohio legalized sports betting in January 2023.
Hangebrauck believes any state where sports betting is legal should have this law in place.
“That’s a law that really all the states that have legalized sports betting should have in place, so we’ve been advocating for that law too,” Hangebrauck said.
Kleckner-Alt, who’s from Canada, said the law is good but there are stipulations.
“Everything is a balance. As much as we can try to protect our athletes from that kind of behavior, we should try to do so. Free speech is extremely important to the American people and the Constitution, so you’re always going to be striking that balance between something we see as a core right and at what point do we try to limit that right to protect other peoples’ safety or wellbeing,” Kleckner-Alt said.
