NCAA Study Finds 36% of D-I Men’s Basketball Players Harassed by Bettors

The NCAA has released a new study that shows betting-related abuse has become a big part of the student-athlete experience for many Division I men’s basketball players, with more than one in three saying they’ve dealt with harm related to sports wagering in the past year. 

According to the NCAA’s Student-Athlete Needs, Aspirations and Perspectives study, 36% of Division I men’s basketball student-athletes said they had experienced social media abuse linked to sports betting, while 29% reported interacting with a student on campus who had placed a bet on their team.

Because the survey focused on behavior students had experienced over the previous year, the betting-related questions were limited to those who were in their sophomore year or beyond and had interacted with fans for at least a year as a college athlete. 

While basketball players reported the highest incidence of harassment, athletes from other sports also experienced abuse. When taken as a whole, 7% of athletes across Division I men’s sports said they’d received negative or threatening messages from bettors, and 9% said a student had told them they had won or lost a wager based on their team’s performance. The occurrence of betting-related harassment in women’s sports was much lower at 1% for both measures. 

Former Butler guard Pierre Brooks II described his experience with betting-related harassment, saying, “That happens all the time. I got one from a previous game before. They do it all the time.” He continued: “Like, if people don’t meet their over or under, they always DM me. It’s actually pretty common.”

Men’s Basketball Shows Highest Rates of Betting-Related Abuse

The study’s results show that betting-related interactions are most common among athletes in high-profile men’s programs, where visibility and prop-market availability tend to be highest. The 36% of male collegiate basketball players reporting harassment was the highest rate reported in the study, and the 29% who’ve interacted with student bettors on campus shows how much legal wagering has crept into everyday campus life. 

Outside of basketball, a not insignificant number of Football Bowl Subdivision athletes also reported they’d been exposed to betting-related harassment, with 16% saying they’d received negative or threatening messages tied to betting, and 26% saying they’d interacted with a student who wagered on their team. While this number is lower than men’s basketball, it shows that betting-related contact isn’t confined to a single sport. 

Female student-athletes reported almost no comparable behavior, with just 1% saying they received betting-related messages or comments.

Survey Shows How Betting Affects Student-Athletes

The NCAA study was a brief, confidential survey administered to Division I student-athletes via the Teamworks platform. The NCAA collected responses between September 30 and October 5, surveying just under 6,800 athletes across 153 schools. The NCAA estimated the response rate at 12%.

The 19-question survey, which took three minutes to complete, asked about performance technology, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee resources, mental well-being, and fan behavior related to sports betting. While the NCAA acknowledged that women’s sports and white student-athletes were slightly overrepresented compared to the overall demographics of Division I, the study still provides a snapshot of student-athlete experiences with betting-related behavior.

Findings Come Amid Flurry of NCAA Cases

The results of the study come at a time when collegiate and professional sports are under increased scrutiny amid a wave of investigations and indictments. During the last few months, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions has issued multiple decisions involving Division I men’s basketball players who were found to have engaged in betting-related misconduct, including wagering on their own games, manipulating their performance, and giving inside information to known bettors. 

On September 10, the NCAA announced it had revoked the eligibility of three basketball players from Fresno State and San Jose State for gambling violations after investigators found that, “As part of a coordinated effort, the student-athletes bet on their own games, one another’s games and/or provided information that enabled others to do so during the 2024-25 regular season.” 

Only a day later, the NCAA announced that it was investigating potential betting violations involving 13 former men’s basketball players across six schools for “…betting on and against their own teams, sharing information with third parties for purposes of sports betting, knowingly manipulating scoring or game outcomes…”

More recently, the NCAA found that six players at New Orleans, Mississippi Valley State, and Arizona State had engaged in game manipulation and sharing inside information with bettors. The NCAA permanently banned the students involved in the betting scheme, which it described as “the starting point for student-athletes who bet on their own games or share information for betting purposes…” 

In a case that doesn’t involve NCAA proceedings, New Jersey authorities charged 14 in what prosecutors describe as an organized-crime sports-betting ring involving student-athletes “who operated sportsbooks” as part of the conspiracy.

NCAA Says Prop Bets Heighten Risks for Harassment

In response to the betting-related harassment and abuse experienced by student-athletes, the NCAA has made its position on prop bets clear, calling on state regulators and gambling companies to eliminate individual performance markets involving college athletes. 

As part of a campaign it launched in 2023, the NCAA said it would “advocate for updating existing state sports betting laws and regulations to protect student-athletes from harassment or coercion, address the negative impacts of problem gambling, and protect the integrity of NCAA competition.”

NCAA President Charlie Baker reiterated this stance when speaking about the findings from the survey, saying, “States and gaming operators that continue to offer these bets are putting student-athletes and competition integrity at risk.” He added, “The NCAA runs the largest integrity monitoring program in the country, and we educate hundreds of thousands of student-athletes about the damages of sports betting, but regulators, lawmakers, and gaming operators can and should do more.”

The Association reported that it has successfully petitioned four states to remove college player props and remains the only major U.S. sports body to ban commercial partnerships and advertising agreements with sportsbooks.

Survey Says: Growing Pressure on Student-Athletes

While the current study doesn’t assess misconduct by current student-athletes, its findings show the impact legal wagering has had on the well-being of student-athletes who say they’ve faced harassment and abuse linked to betting.

These experiences go far beyond traditional integrity concerns, with reports of harassment, pressure from bettors, and interactions with peers who bet on their teams, exposing students in high-visibility programs to increased betting-related conduct online and on campus. 

As states continue to expand legal betting markets, and the NCAA moves to allow student-athletes to bet on professional sports while maintaining its ban on wagering on college events, the data from this study suggests that betting-related pressures on players are likely to continue.