In March, NCAA President Charlie Baker said the organization was asking state gaming regulators nationwide to ban proposition wagering, or prop bets, on college athletes because of evidence that gamblers are harassing collegiate players, both online and at games.
“Oh, yeah, it happens all the time,’’ Purdue center Zach Edey told The Athletic.
This month, Louisiana became the 12th state to enact the ban. It won’t be the last. Minnesota, one of five states where lawmakers are actively considering sports betting legalization, would ban the activity, which allows fans to wager through mobile accounts on aspects of a player’s performance during games — total rebounds or points scored for a basketball player; total touchdowns scored or total yards gained for a football player.
In Nevada, an effort to ban college player proposition bets hasn’t surfaced. Gaming Control Board Chairman Kirk Hendrick told The Nevada Independent an agency representative spoke with NCAA officials regarding concerns about harassment of college athletes and the integrity of collegiate sports.
“With the recent national proliferation of sports wagering, the [board] welcomes input from the NCAA, as well as Nevada’s licensed sports pool operators, and the public, to ensure Nevada continues protecting its citizens and the integrity of sports wagering,” Hendrick said in a text message.
Meanwhile, seven of the largest sports betting companies formed the Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA) at the end of March. The trade group plans to promote responsible wagering habits for its customers.
Jennifer Shatley, who has spent almost 25 years in the gaming industry focusing on responsible gaming issues and programs, was installed as ROGA’s executive director. In an interview with The Nevada Independent, she didn’t commit to the group specifically targeting certain types of wagers, such as proposition bets.
“The organization is focused on how to better promote responsible gaming, which will affect how people engage with the games and how they view it as entertainment,” Shatley said, adding that responsible gaming education would help bettors “understand that they’re more likely to lose when they gamble [on] those types of concepts.”
Thirty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have legalized sports betting following a May 2018 Supreme Court ruling that ended a nationwide ban on the activity outside of Nevada, which took $248.8 million in sports betting revenue in 2017.
The expansion hit across the U.S. like a tsunami and was bound to lead to some hiccups, given that sports betting has now grown to almost $11 billion in gaming revenue nationally during 2023, with operators taking in nearly $120 billion in wagers, according to the American Gaming Association. It’s led to a multimillion-dollar onslaught of advertising on TV, online and in sports venues themselves. It’s all in the name of customer acquisition.
JMP Securities gaming analyst Jordan Bender told investors in a March 28 research note that banning proposition wagers could cost sportsbooks $200 million in annual revenue based on 2023 totals. He said proposition wagers “serve as a diversification away from traditional gaming results.”
Simply put, it gives sportsbooks a way to increase revenue by offsetting losses from traditional game results, and creates more opportunities to place bets during a game.
In February, two Democratic congressional lawmakers introduced legislation that would use money raised by a small federal excise tax on sports wagers to fund problem gambling treatment and research, much to the dismay of Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), who has been trying to repeal the tax for nearly a decade.
Last month, Titus weighed in on several national sports betting headlines, including reports of “unethical sports behavior in NCAA basketball.”
She also expressed concern the issues could lead to federal oversight of sportsbook operators if the industry doesn’t take care of its matters.
“At this critical juncture, the regulated sports betting industry must adequately monitor integrity issues while providing protections for players,” Titus said in a statement.
Sportsbook operators are aware of the unwanted attention.
The operators — DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, ESPN Bet, Fanatics Sportsbook, Hard Rock Digital and bet365 — account for more than 85 percent of the revenue produced by legal online sports betting and online casinos in the U.S. The group has pledged to spend $20 million to fund ROGA efforts.
Only one of the seven companies, BetMGM, operates sports betting in Nevada.
Shatley said the organization would focus on the online gaming industry — which includes not just the more than half of U.S. states where sports betting is legal but also the seven states where internet casinos are licensed.
But she views the efforts as complementary to other responsible gaming organizations, such as the International Center for Responsible Gaming (ICRG) in Massachusetts, which was created by the gaming industry in 1996. The organization funds scientific research on gambling disorders and responsible gambling in the U.S.
“We want to be collaborative, and help move the research forward,” Shatley said. “The resources that have been put forth to do so will help advance the field.”
Shatley, who researched responsible gaming for three years as part of the UNLV International Gaming Institute, spent 17 years overseeing responsible gaming and corporate compliance matters for Caesars Entertainment. Caesars Sportsbook is one of the largest sports betting operators that is not part of the coalition.
An emailed statement provided by a Caesars Sportsbook spokesman noted the company has undertaken responsible gaming efforts for 35 years but did not say why it didn’t join ROGA.