Column: Given the NBA’s woes, the NCAA should go back to banning bets

The NCAA chose a hell of a week to getting into the gaming industryisn’t it?

Within 24 hours of approval of a rule change that will allow student-athletes and athletic department staff to bet only on professional sports, the FBI arrested more than 30 people as part of a major gaming and sports betting program. The level of sophistication alleged in a 22-page indictment reads like a Scorsese screenplay with four New York mob families, a current NBA player and a head coach all allegedly involved.

For NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the news and the arrests are a public relations nightmare.

But for the NCAA, it’s a warning.

Since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling paved the way for sports betting, more than 35 states have legalized it, so I understand why the industry no longer feels dirty. But the governing body of more than half a million young athletes must remember that nothing will ever clean up this industry.

A century ago, the Black Sox scandal nearly destroyed American baseball. One hundred years later, we discover that 16 professional tennis players – including a US Open champion – were match fixing for gambling syndicates in Russia and Italy. Meanwhile, Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose has been banned for life for betting on baseball games as a manager and Tim Donaghy, an NBA referee, is arrested for betting on games. Last year, former NBA player Jontay Porter placed multiple bets on games using another person’s account. We call him “old” because the league banned him for life.

So if NCAA officials believe it’s too burdensome to enforce its current ban on play (it’s investigating multiple violations at multiple schools), imagine what life inside the organization would be like without some sort of deterrent.

In fact, no imagination is required. Just read the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The FBI says the gambling scheme began in 2019, spread across 11 states and involved crime families with origins dating back more than a century.

Hidden cameras, programmable card shufflers and X-ray tables were among the pieces of technology used to steal tens of millions of dollars from victims during rigged poker games, according to documents. Among those allegedly involved in the scheme were Chauncey Billups, Hall of Fame player and head coach of the Portland Trailblazers. Authorities said Billups, who led the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 championship, used his celebrity to lure victims. Additionally, the FBI said that Damon Jones, a former Lakers player and assistant coach, shared inside information about LeBron James’ health with bettors in 2023. Terry Rozier, an active NBA player with a $100 million contract, was also arrested.

Now consider this: There are approximately 40,000 young men and women playing NCAA basketball and approximately 8,000 head and assistant coaches leading teams. How confident are you that March Madness won’t take on a different meaning if coaches and players are allowed to bet on games and end up underwater? A recent UC San Diego study found that internet searches seeking help with gaming addiction increased 23% between 2018 and June 2024.

And while that’s true, the new rule maintains the ban on student athletes and coaches betting on college sports — so there are safeguards against match-fixing — but tilting results are just one of the game’s possible harms. The International Tennis Federation found that angry players accounted for 40 percent of social media attacks targeting players, with several threats credible enough to submit at the FBI. And there’s already evidence that students who aren’t athletes are using student loan money to place betsAnd a 2023 NCAA survey found that 14% of Americans aged 18 to 22 bet at least a few times a week.

A further 16% use a bookmaker.

I repeat: a bookmaker.

This feels like a tragedy we can all foresee coming.

And we are to believe that the NCAA will be equipped to protect student-athletes from predators when the Mafia is supposed to use professional athletes and x-ray machines to rob card players who supposedly know better? The human brain’s decision-making process isn’t fully developed until age 25, and the NCAA just voted to allow 18-year-olds with “name, image, likeness” money to go into the deep waters with the sharks.

Given what just happened in the NBA this week, the responsible decision on the part of the NCAA would be to suspend the rule change – which is set to take effect on November 1 – and re-evaluate the risks. It’s one thing for sports betting to cost a professional athlete a lot of money and cause them to lose their career. It would be worse to see addiction or debt steal a young person’s future before it begins.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow