When regulated sports betting was legalized in the United States via a Supreme Court decision, few anticipated the impact it would have on college athletes. Across the country student athletes are facing some pretty extreme harassment aggrieved bettors who’ve placed, and lost, prop bets on their play.
As this problem worsens, state gambling commissions are grappling with whether or not they should ban college-level player props entirely or find some other solution to the problem. Last week, the Wyoming Gaming Commission (WGC) decided to nothing (for now) but their discussion on the topic provided some interesting insights into the dilemma college-level prop bets are posing for lawmakers.
As it stands, states now are generally either embracing the “Ohio Solution” to the problem by banning college-level props entirely; or the “Iowan Solution” which is to merely ban in-state college props. Wyoming, however, chose neither after hearing testimony from WGC operations manager Michael Steinberg. Steinberg summed up the situation in comments reported on by iGaming Business saying, “We all agree that harassment of student athletes is bad and something that should not be tolerated. The question then becomes, is banning prop bets going to eliminate the harassment of athletes?”
But Steinberg and the other commissioners weren’t entirely convinced that an outright ban was the best solution for addressing player harassment. Commissioners pointed out that they had requested data from the NCAA on the effectiveness of prop-bet bans and were told that no such data exists. For now, they’re betting that keeping prop bets in the regulated environment is the best solution. But this issue is far from solved and industry watchers can expect to see plenty of discussion on the topic when college football gears up for action in August.