The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has forbidden athletes and athletic department staff from betting on professional sports. The news comes after the NCAA voted on Friday to overturn a rule change that would have allowed those bets.
NCAA Implements New Rules
The rule change permitting gambling on professional sports was scheduled to take effect Nov. 1. However, because it had been approved by less than 75% of the Division I cabinet, a seldom-used provision allowed every Division I school 30 days to vote on whether to overturn it.
More than two-thirds of Division I members needed to vote against the change in order to block it. This threshold was met on Friday, just one day before the 30-day window was set to close. Even if the measure had moved forward, athletes and athletic department staff would still have been prohibited from betting on any NCAA events.
Late last month, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey sent a letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker outlining his concerns about the proposed rule change. Notably, the SEC’s two representatives on the Division I cabinet had supported allowing betting on professional sports. The Division I member vote also extended to Divisions II and III, which have been preparing to adopt similar changes. As a result, wagering on pro sports will remain prohibited across all three divisions.
Several Betting Scandals have Shook the NCAA Recently
NCAA’s decision comes on the heels of several high-profile gambling scandals that have intensified concerns about competitive integrity in both college and professional sports. For example, in late October, an NBA coach and player were arrested as part of a major crackdown on two large-scale betting schemes. Furthermore, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused of using confidential player information to place winning wagers on NBA games.
However, November was also a month that saw the NCAA being shaken by gambling-related scandals. Earlier in the month, the NCAA banned six basketball players following their involvement in three separate sports-betting cases.
The NCAA is a nonprofit organization that oversees collegiate athletics for roughly 1,100 schools in the United States and one in Canada. It also administers college sports programs and supports more than 500,000 student-athletes who compete each year. In recent years, the NCAA enforcement has been handling an increasing number of sports-betting violation cases, with there currently being about a dozen cases investigated.