NC legislators want to protect student-athletes from online betting harassment
Raleigh, N.C. (Queen City News) – Several North Carolina legislators believe the state should do more to protect college athletes from online harassment from bettors.
A bill filed in early May seeks to ban prop bets, or proposition wagers, on non-professional athletes.
North Carolina gamblers collectively placed more than $1.3 billion in mobile sports bets in March and April.
Hundreds of those who didn’t win their money back took their frustration out on players like former UNC forward Armando Bacot.
“I looked at my DMs and I got like a hundred messages of people telling me I suck because I didn’t get enough rebounds,” Bacot said in the midst of the 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. “I definitely think it’s getting a little out of hand.”
State Senator Julie Mayfield said she has been against legalizing mobile sports betting from the beginning, and now is working to eliminate prop betting on amateur athletes through her bill.
“Our athletes are being subject to more and more aggressive harassment on social media from people who are losing money on them, and I just think that’s unacceptable,” said Mayfield.
Mayfield said she echoes the calls from NCAA President Charlie Baker to stop the practice.
NCAA officials report during the Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships, AI software detected more than 54,000 social media posts or comments with abusive content, even death threats, directed at student-athletes. More than 540 of those messages were specifically betting-related.
Women’s basketball team members received nearly three times as many harassing comments than men’s basketball team members.
States like Maryland, Ohio, and Louisiana have already banned college prop bets.
Gambling policy experts said more lawmakers are differentiating between students and professionals for betting rules.
“We have to account for the fact that these are young adults,” said Brianne Doura-Schawohl, a problem and responsible gambling policy expert. “Young adults that don’t often have the resources, the support, and even the mental capabilities. And remember, the brain doesn’t fully develop until 25.”
Mayfield expressed similar sentiments.
“If you’re a pro sports player, you’ve got an infrastructure around you. You have a team, there’s staff, you have media and PR people. You’ve got a whole structure that can help screen you from that stuff, that can help you, or respond to it, or whatever. But college athletes don’t have that,” she said.
Mayfield hopes the bill sparks more conversations around player protections, such as requiring sportsbooks to hold bettors with bad behavior accountable.
“If we’re if we’re going to allow them to be here, then I don’t have a problem requiring them to do things that are going to protect our athletes. Our young, college athletes,” she said.
State Representative Marcia Morey filed an identical bill in the state house.
Several supporters of sports betting, including State Representative Jason Saine, push back against the efforts to ban some prop bets.
“Banning prop bets is just a new way for those opposed to sports betting to attack a law that has been in place less than six months,” Saine told Queen City News’ reporting partner in Raleigh.
Doura-Schawhol said the common factor among similar pieces of legislation around the country is a focus on student-athlete’s mental health.
“Our culture very much has transitioned in the last decade about being less concerned with filtering ourselves, saying whatever we feel. When we put this extra element of skin in the game and there’s money to be had or lost, what we’re doing is we’re saying the welfare of the athletes is not a top priority and they’re really starting to suffer the price,” she said.
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