Back in October I published a post regarding the professionalization of college sports and deploring the manner in which the money chase was undermining the intent and image of intercollegiate athletics. While some student athletes are now able to richly benefit from their skills, all are being forced to adhere to schedules determined by their institution’s financial needs. They are being treated as if they were employees rather than students.
March Madness brings our attention in a big way to another recent development that is a threat to the integrity of intercollegiate athletics: sports betting, now available in 38 states and allowed online in 29.
When the US Supreme Court ruled in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) in May 2018, that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was unconstitutional, it opened the door to the major expansion of sports betting in the United States. Enacted in 1992, PASPA sought to make it unlawful for states to implement sports gambling within their boundaries, although it allowed Nevada’s existing authority to be grandfathered. It also included a provision giving New Jersey, home to Atlantic City, another gambling mecca, the option of initiating sports betting if it did so within one year. New Jersey declined to do so.
A chief sponsor of PASPA was US Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), a former college and professional basketball player. At the time, Bradley, expressing the view of a majority of Americans, told a senate hearing legislation was needed in order to safeguard the integrity of sports at all levels. The act was justified under the commerce clause of the US Constitution given its obvious economic impact. It passed 88-5 in the US Senate and by a voice vote in the US House. President George H. W. Bush signed the legislation.
Although in force for a quarter century, PASPA was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2018 because, in their current opinion, it violates the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In the opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court claims that “PASPA’s provision prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling schemes violates the anticommandeering rule.”(Italics added) In other words, the Congress cannot tell States what they can and cannot do, since the Constitution “confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States.”
Anticommandeering is a fairly recent legal concept apparently adopted to replace the long-ago discredited doctrine of nullification. The Roberts Court has shown on several occasions a desire to restore our federal system to pre-Civil War days when “states’ rights” was considered paramount in some quarters. Short shrift is given the 14th Amendment.
Until the Murphy v. NCAA decision, the professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) opposed sports betting vigorously. There was deep concern about the addictive nature of sports betting and fear of the influence of gamblers, who in the past have willingly sought to corrupt athletic contests in pursuit of personal profit. The court’s 2018 decision has been considered an imprimatur for sports betting, resulting in the removal of all restraints on gambling previously recognized by the professional leagues and the educational institutions that govern the NCAA, as well as state governments.
Take the case of North Carolina, which on March 11 of this year became the 38th state to legalize sports betting in the aftermath of the Murphy v. NCAA decision. The effective date of legalization was a few days before the beginning of the annual Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament.
According to the NC Education Lottery Commission, which is charged with implementation of sports betting in the state, NC residents wagered $198 million during the first week of betting and took home $141 million. Commission chair Ripley Rand projects the state will collect more than $7.6 million in taxes, the result of an 18% tax on gross wagering revenue. But Sterling Carpenter, head of the Gaming Compliance and Sports Betting Division of the commission, expects North Carolinians to bet in excess of $594 million during the first month.
While the top GOP leaders in the NC legislature have long touted the revenue benefits of sports betting in addition to pushing for expanding casino sites and for legalizing video gambling, little debate or study was devoted to considering the potential harm to people or to sports. Sen. Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore evidently hope to offset the income tax cuts being implemented with revenue from gambling, likely to be provided by low-income families in NC. Unfortunately, NC’s governor, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, apparently is going along with their strategy insofar as it relates to sports betting.
But gambling addiction should not be dismissed so summarily. John Holden, a management professor at Oklahoma State University, has written extensively about the gambling industry. He told USA Today that the great failure of the last five years is the lack of attention paid to problem gambling by both operators and state governments. “It’s largely an afterthought.”
The prestigious Mayo Clinic has confirmed the need for concern:
Gambling can stimulate the brain's reward system much like drugs or alcohol can, leading to addiction. If you have a problem with compulsive gambling, you may continually chase bets that lead to losses, use up savings and create debt. You may hide your behavior and even turn to theft or fraud to support your addiction.
Reinforcing the danger of gambling addiction is the rapid spread of sportsbooks promoting online sports betting. More than 40 sportsbooks are operating already, many of them with direct connections to some of the major professional sports leagues as well as to colleges and universities with significant intercollegiate programs. This shared interest combined with the ongoing emphasis of sports on television likely raises the potential for gambling problems to develop. March Madness viewers are being assaulted by persistent commercials urging them to bet, frequently featuring a well-known professional athlete providing his or her stamp of approval.
The definition of sports betting also has been broaden beyond what the average person might expect. So-called “prop” bets, where wagers are tied to some aspect of the game rather than simply to the outcome. There are game props, team props and player props. The last drew the ire of UNC basketball center Armando Bacot. Quoted in USA Today, he complained he had received more than a hundred direct messages from upset bettors after the Tar Heels defeated Michigan State in the second round of the NCAA tournament, although he had scored 18 points. “I guess I didn’t get enough rebounds or something.”
Clemson basketball coach Brad Brownell was quoted in the same article expressing concern about the issue, “We get phone calls in our office sometimes. When things obviously don't go a bettor's way, we get some nasty calls. I know players probably get that through social media."
Excessive sports gambling is likely to have an impact on the perception that many fans have of integrity in sports. Accusations and rumors of corrupt behavior on the part of players and coaches already are percolating.
Last May, the University of Alabama fired baseball coach Brad Bohannon who allegedly was providing useful inside information to a bettor. The Temple University men’s basketball team attracted attention in early March 2024, when it lost 102 -72 to the quintet from the University of Alabama at Birmingham after the betting line opened with UAB as only a 2.5 point favorite. Could have just been a bad night for the Temple players, but who knows? That’s the problem with so much money floating around.
The sports betting saga might be viewed as an add-on to the lottery. Just another example of American politicians trying to avoid a fundamental political question: how do you structure a fair and equitable tax system to support the basic needs of society?
But gambling of any sort whether the lottery or sports betting does not meet the test.
It is an unreliable source that requires frequent incentives to maintain demand. It appeals most of all to those least able, or equipped, to participate. It is sad to watch agents of any state working vigorously to encourage that state’s most vulnerable citizens to throw their meager dollars away.
Sports gambling encourages potential corruption. College athletes have always been targeted by the unscrupulous who seek to rig the game. But in today’s world their susceptibility is likely higher given that there is already considerable discussion about how student athletes do not share in the bounty produced in intercollegiate athletics today. And, unfortunately, with sports gambling so ubiquitous, no matter how student athletes actually behave, the suspicion will be there and the image of college sports will suffer.
College and university administrators and trustees are largely responsible for the crisis facing intercollegiate athletics today since it has been under their watch that college sports have become more and more decoupled from the real mission of their educational institutions. But in unleashing sports betting the US Supreme Court can take credit for delivering what may turn out to be the final blow to the integrity of college sports.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/article286378120.html
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/compulsive-gambling/symptoms-causes/syc-20355178
https://wi-problemgamblers.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/PGAM-Brochure-Updated-2022.pdf