By ANNIE RYAN
Capital News Service
As legalized sports betting has expanded across the country, so have wagers on individual player performance rather than final scores.
Bets on players, including prop bets and Daily Fantasy Sports wagers, have surged in popularity, especially in college sports, where major events like the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, widely known as “March Madness,” now present thousands of these opportunities for fans.
Prop bets — such as how many 3-pointers a player will score or which player will score first — also have shifted pressure to individual athletes. Instead of just playing the game, many now take the court or field as targets for aggrieved bettors, as their performances are directly tied to wins and losses.
NCAA President Charlie Baker has referred to harassment that’s linked to sports betting as a “particularly urgent” problem facing college sports. He has urged the U.S. Congress and state legislatures to act by passing laws to protect players.
“I met with about 1,000 college athletes…and this was the number one issue they were talking to me about then. That was three years ago,” Baker told Capital News Service.
Chances to gamble on players, not teams, in college sports are not hard to find. During this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, online platforms offered nearly 21,000 opportunities to risk money on individual athletes, according to an analysis conducted by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.
Across the tournament, the average number of these wagers available on each game was more than 300. During the men’s basketball “Final Four,” the semifinal round that determines which teams will play for the national championship, gamblers had nearly a thousand prop bets to choose from, the Povich and Howard analysis found.
Each prop-betting line carries the potential for abuse aimed at a college athlete.
“These are young men and women who are dealing with all kinds of pressures that are unrelated to the sport they’re playing, and it’s kind of preposterous that we’re betting on them to start with,” said Ronald Rychlak, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and the university’s Faculty Athletic Representative to the NCAA.
The fact that prop-betting focuses on one player’s performance intensifies the pressure, Rychlak noted, adding, “It’s a very serious issue that students shouldn’t have to put up with.”
Common prop bets on basketball include so-called “over-under” wagers on an individual player’s points, rebounds and assists. During March Madness, some teams had all five starting players and several reserve players being wagered on including prop bets on whether players not expected to play extensively would score a single point or grab one rebound.
Prop betting dates to 1986 with a bet on whether Chicago Bears defensive lineman William “Refrigerator” Perry would score a touchdown in Super Bowl XX (he did). The wager drew significant attention and is often credited with launching prop betting into the mainstream.
Because prop bets place individual athletes at the center of betting outcomes, frustration from bettors can be laser-focused on one person. A missed shot or turnover can carry consequences beyond the court, showing up as direct messages, comments or posts from frustrated bettors.
“What’s your Venmo bro? Need my $431 you lost today.”
“Yo bro how much these apps pay you? I’m genuinely wondering cause you not making it to the league, give up. And if you do you gone be a nobody karma a bitch”
“ur ass gambling go-[kill yourself]”
Harassment of college athletes is tied to betting behavior and its interplay with emotion, gambling addiction experts say.
“People are placing bets with high expectations that they will win… When the person does not win, the loss begins a progressive cycle of chasing losses, which intensifies emotional responses,” said Deborah Haskins, a clinical professional counselor with the Maryland Council on Problem Gambling.
Haskins continued: “The constant 24/7 days a week advertising, luring consumers in, offering them bonus credits and other incentives, has created what is becoming a perfect storm of sports athlete harassment.”
Timothy Fong, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, notes that as legalized sports betting has gained in popularity, other norms have shifted. “It’s not just the expansion of sports betting online. It’s the celebration, the normalization of sports betting by popular media, by sports leagues themselves, by advertising, by social media influencers,” said Fong, who also is the co-director of the Gambling Studies Program at UCLA.
For its part, the NCAA has stepped up efforts to monitor and manage negative effects of sports betting on college players.
In March 2024, the NCAA launched a public and athlete awareness campaign called “Draw the Line.” The effort, which includes webinars and video, is aimed in part at encouraging players who’ve been abused by gamblers to report the incidents to coaches and other athletic department officials. The site includes a “sports betting contact form” that allows users to click through as “parent,” “official” and “student athletes,” and to share a concern or “information in detail” related to harassment.
During this year’s March Madness, NCAA outreach included a 30-second animated video that aired during game broadcasts and could be seen on the NCAA’s “Draw the Line” website. The video’s narrator seems to speak directly to players, saying: “When people are betting on you, every pass, every shot…it’s not just the coaches you hear.”
NCAA research indicates that many players have had that very experience. In March 2026, the NCAA reported that one in three men’s basketball players who participated in a Student-Athlete Needs, Aspirations and Perspectives survey said they had been victims of online, verbal or physical abuse tied to sports betting. One in four men’s basketball players said they’d experienced that harassment in-person. As the NCAA survey is designed, athletes decide what harassment means.
“We just ask whether or not they have been harassed by someone on social media, or have they faced abuse related to someone around sports betting,’ Lydia Bell, NCAA managing director of research, told Capital News Service.
NCAA efforts to strengthen gambling and harassment laws often focus on state legislatures.
Among the 15 states that have banned prop betting — the laws do not address wagers on individual players on DFS — are Maryland, New York and Ohio. More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia have imposed restrictions, such as limiting wagers on in-state teams. West Virginia passed a measure that mandates that bettors who harass student-athletes be banned from sports wagering in the state. In May, Louisiana passed a bill giving authority to the state’s gaming commission to ban gamblers who are suspected of making threats and harassing college athletes.
Lobbying efforts by the NCAA include letters from Baker to state legislatures debating sports betting bills and testimony at hearings in state capitals by NCAA staff. Austin Meo, NCAA assistant director of government relations, appeared before the New Jersey Legislature when bills were being considered in both 2024 and 2025.
“We’ve really tried to get rid of those [player prop bets],” said Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of enterprise risk management at the NCAA. “We feel like they put a direct target on the back of student-athletes.”
Cat Murphy, Xavier Board, Franklin Zessis and Isaiah Woodley contributed to this reporting.
