Late last week, Ohio gaming regulators moved forward with a plan to ban individual player prop bets for all college sports. The move comes just one year after the Buckeye State implemented regulated sports betting and is a move that has already been implemented by 20 US States.
Ohio’s ban on college player prop bets comes as the US deals with a problem no one seemed to anticipate when regulated sports betting was first implemented; player harassment. Across the country, disgruntled gamblers are regularly harassing, and threatening, college players who don’t deliver on the terms of individual prop bets such as individual scoring totals. While professional athletes are presumed to be better equipped to deal with this kind of harassment, most college players are still, in many ways, just kids.
Player harassment has been on the NCAA’s radar for a while and the organization was pushing hard for the ban behind-the-scenes. NCAA President Charlie Baker praised the move in a comments reported on by ESPN.com saying, “Today’s decision by the Ohio Casino Control Commission to prohibit player-specific prop bets on collegiate competitions marks a significant step in the protection of student-athlete well-being and game integrity. I thank The Commission for recognizing the serious threats posed by prop bets and implementing controls to help safeguard student-athlete mental health from the risks of sports betting harassment and abuse.”
Last year Ohio also implemented policies that impose a lifetime sports betting ban on anyone convicted of harassing athletes because of their performance and it’s likely that other states will make similar moves.