Indiana weighs ban on NCAA college prop bets

The Indiana Gaming Commission spent more than an hour Thursday hearing sharply different views on whether the state should prohibit proposition bets tied to individual college athletes. NCAA officials urged regulators to put student-athlete welfare first, while sportsbook operators argued that removing the wagers from legal markets would push bettors toward illegal platforms and reduce the industry’s ability to spot suspicious activity. In the end, the motion was tabled until its next meeting in September.

The June 25 hearing focused on a petition from the NCAA asking Indiana regulators to ban pregame player proposition bets involving college athletes. Traditional wagers on game outcomes would remain legal under the proposal, but bets linked to an individual player’s statistical performance would no longer be allowed.

“We’re not here to roll that back,” NCAA Senior Vice President of External Affairs Tim Buckley told commissioners, referring to legalized sports betting. “We’re here to explain why Indiana should join 19 other states in banning a very specific type of bet… bets on the individual performances of college athletes.”

Buckley said the NCAA continues to support regulated sports betting and regularly works alongside gaming regulators and licensed operators across the country. Still, he argued that player prop wagers create unique opportunities for harassment and manipulation even though they represent only a relatively small share of sportsbook betting activity.

College player prop bets face growing scrutiny amid Indiana concerns

NCAA officials told commissioners that individual player proposition bets have changed life for many college athletes, who increasingly receive abuse from frustrated gamblers over missed statistical milestones rather than the final score of a game.

Buckley pointed to NCAA research involving more than 556,000 student-athletes. According to the organization, nearly half of Division I men’s basketball players reported receiving abusive social media messages connected to sports betting, with many of those incidents tied to player props.

“Often times a play by a single athlete that has no bearing on the outcome of a game can change a prop bet,” Buckley said. “We know athletes are being harassed not only in person in the stands but also online by people believed to have a betting interest.”

The NCAA also submitted letters supporting its request from Butler University, Indiana University and Purdue University, as well as backing from the Big Ten Student-Athlete Advisory Group.

Clint Hangebrauck, the NCAA’s managing director of enterprise risk management, outlined the organization’s integrity efforts since sports betting expanded following the 2018 Supreme Court decision that struck down the federal ban outside Nevada. He said the NCAA has delivered in-person gambling education to more than 100,000 student-athletes, while another 25,000 have completed online training. The association also monitors more than 23,000 collegiate contests each year and screens roughly 20,000 officials.

Hangebrauck said the NCAA’s partnership with social media monitoring company Signify has uncovered thousands of abusive betting-related messages during recent March Madness tournaments.

“They talk about the student-athlete’s individual performance. ‘Why couldn’t you get me five more points or two more rebounds? You cost me $5,000 for this parlay,’” he said. “That is a pretty innocuous example. It gets a lot uglier than that where we’ve seen death threats, things that we have to report to law enforcement.”

NCAA Managing Director of Enforcement Mark Hicks argued that player props carry different integrity risks because a single athlete may be able to influence a wager without changing who wins the game.

Hicks described investigations involving athletes discussing prop bets before games, sharing information with proxy bettors and, in one case outside Indiana, intentionally underperforming after coordinating with gamblers. He also referenced a recent Indiana investigation involving wagers on teammates’ player props.

“We think having targets on the backs of student-athletes is especially concerning when you have player performance at stake,” Hicks said.

Commissioners asked whether states that already ban college player props have recorded measurable declines in athlete harassment.

“I don’t believe we have data to show that,” Buckley said.

The NCAA has pushed similar requests across the country. Earlier this year it called on state gaming commissions across the country to eliminate college player proposition bets, arguing that the wagers expose athletes to unnecessary abuse and increase integrity concerns. Not every regulator has agreed. Missouri’s gaming watchdog recently declined to move forward with a comparable request, saying existing rules already provide oversight and that broader policy questions should be addressed through the regulatory process. Meanwhile, lawmakers in North Carolina have also examined whether college player props deserve additional restrictions as concerns about athlete harassment continue to grow.

Indiana regulators continue weighing the evidence

Sportsbook representatives quickly focused on Buckley’s acknowledgment that the NCAA cannot show reduced harassment in states that already prohibit the bets.

Representing the Sports Betting Alliance, attorney Scott Ward said operators share the NCAA’s concerns but believe a ban would simply move betting activity away from regulated sportsbooks.

“We share the concerns of the NCAA with player harassment,” Ward said. “However, banning prop bets does not eliminate the harm. It simply eliminates visibility, driving bettors to unregulated markets where prop bets are already readily available.”

Ward argued that Indiana law requires the NCAA to establish “good cause” by demonstrating a credible threat to wagering integrity, rather than showing only that athletes experience harassment.

According to Ward, regulated sportsbooks generate detailed records that can be shared with gaming regulators, integrity monitoring services and law enforcement whenever suspicious activity appears.

DraftKings Vice President David Foppert said licensed sportsbooks sit at the center of that monitoring system because they collect customer identities, geolocation information, payment records, device data and every wager placed.

“Every dollar that comes onto a regulated operator’s platform is monitored, tracked and acted on,” Fabert said. “Every dollar in the illegal market goes into the darkness.”

Fanatics Senior Vice President Sarah Tait said the company has partnered with Signify and IC360 to identify customers who harass athletes online and remove them from its platform.

“There is no place for this behavior on our platform,” Tait said.

Former Florida gaming regulator Louis Trombetta, now representing FanDuel, argued that larger legal betting markets actually improve integrity because they provide stronger statistical baselines that make unusual wagering easier to detect.

Foppert echoed that position, saying suspicious betting patterns become much easier to identify when compared with high volumes of legitimate wagers.

Commissioners questioned whether that effectively meant sportsbooks were claiming that more betting leads to greater athlete safety.

Foppert replied that more betting data allows operators to give regulators and sports governing bodies better information when investigating potential manipulation.

The debate over proposition bets extends beyond college sports. The NFL has also circulated guidance to sportsbooks identifying certain novelty and highly specific proposition wagers that should not be offered because of integrity concerns, illustrating that even professional leagues recognize some betting markets can present elevated risks.

The commission ended the hearing without taking action, leaving Indiana’s current rules in place while regulators continue reviewing the NCAA’s petition.

Before the proceedings wrapped up, commissioners returned to the central legal question and asked Buckley whether player props present a credible threat to sports wagering integrity.

Buckley said they do.

He argued that college athletes are especially vulnerable because they often lack the financial resources, experience and institutional protections available to professionals.

“If someone’s only betting a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks on someone’s prop, that may not move the line in any meaningful way,” Buckley said. “But that could be the difference between a student-athlete getting into serious trouble… We should be taking those opportunities away at every possible turn.”

By the close of the hearing, everyone involved agreed that harassment directed at college athletes is unacceptable. The disagreement remained over whether banning player proposition bets would reduce that behavior or instead weaken the transparency that regulators and sportsbooks rely on to detect potential betting misconduct.

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