A bill to ban player prop betting in college sports advanced unanimously through a New Jersey State Senate committee last week.
S-3080, introduced by Republican State Sen. Kristin Corrado in April 2024, “prohibits sports wagering licensees in this State from offering or accepting wagers on player-specific proposition bets on collegiate sports or athletic events.”
It was approved by a 5-0 vote by the Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee on Thursday and is set to go before the full state senate body.
Harassment of student-athletes an increasing concern
The legislative action in New Jersey comes amid growing incidents of athletes being harassed by bettors.
According to an NCAA study, one in three student-athletes received abusive or threatening gambling-related messages last year.
Several states already do not allow their licensed sportsbooks to offer player props in college sports. Ohio, Maryland and Vermont added the ban after passing sports betting laws. The ban was written into the original laws in Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
NCAA President Charlie Baker is leading the charge to ban college player prop bets, lobbying state and federal lawmakers.
As governor of Massachusetts, Baker signed the state’s sports betting bill into law in Aug. 2022. As president of the NCAA, a position he assumed in March 2023, he continues to sound the alarm on potential harm caused by player prop betting.
“The horrific messages we are seeing across online platforms is absolutely unacceptable,” Baker said in a March statement. “Angry fans are sending numerous abusive messages and threats to student-athletes, publicly and privately, because of lost bets placed on the athlete’s performance in a game. These actions severely threaten student-athlete mental health and well-being, while harming the college athletics environment. We need fans to do better. We need states to do better and ban player props that target student-athletes and detrimental abuse.”
Sports betting operators, naturally, oppose a restriction on what they can offer bettors
“We should be increasing penalties for those who harass student athletes, period, full stop,” lobbyist Bill Pascrell III pushed back during the committee hearing last Thursday, per the Press of Atlantic City.
A 2024 bill to create a federal sports betting framework included a provision to ban player prop bets. The SAFE Bet Act has not gained significant traction.
Game Manipulation
While there haven’t been any reported incidents of college athletes manipulating their own performances under the influence of prop bets, it’s reasonable to believe the temptation is there. College sports certainly want to avoid what the NBA went through with former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter.
Porter was banned from the NBA for life after a league investigation found he shared his health information with gamblers, removed himself from games so that the “under” on his prop bets would cash, and himself bet on games.
Suspicions of game fixing in college sports have cropped up, including the ring Porter was involved in reportedly gambling on college basketball games.
While Baker has mentioned protecting the integrity of the games as a reason player prop betting should not be allowed, Pascrell stressed during last Thursday’s hearing, “There is no proof that prop bets encourage match fixing. There are no studies to show that.”
Gambling remains prominent issue in New Jersey
Like in many states, gambling has been a hot topic in this year in New Jersey, a state that to many industry observers is a model for betting laws.
New Jersey is trying to stop Kalshi from operating within its borders, arguing the prediction market is essentially a sportsbook that is circumventing sports betting regulation and taxation. The state has plenty of support in its case.
Legislative efforts are also underway to ban sweepstakes casinos in the state.
