00:00So with the federal indictments coming down pretty heavy on some of the college basketball props
00:05earlier this year with some players allegedly getting involved in point shaving and prop
00:09shaving and things of that nature, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Big Ten would like
00:13to just see this put to rest, meaning no more prop bets at all. I don't know that, Sam, that
00:18they'll be able to accomplish this, but maybe some minimum and maximum bets, again, do make some
00:24sense, unders in particular. I don't know what kind of changes we're headed for, but it does
00:28seem like something is in the works.
00:32Yeah, Craig, I would honestly introduce these folks to you because it seems like you have
00:36a good nuanced idea of how we deal with these sorts of things, these kind of bets that have
00:41become problematic, as opposed to just outright banning them. I think there's a lot of kind
00:45of conjecture about, you know, if you ban them, they'll all go offshore. Or, you know, if you
00:50keep them unbanned, people are just going to be betting on them more. It's going to be more
00:53socially acceptable. And certainly what the Big Ten Conference Student-Athlete Issues Commission
00:58said in their letter this week to the NCAA president, Charlie Baker, urging him to restrict
01:04or eliminate player prop wagers on college athletes. Now, they stopped short of making
01:09an actual recommendation of what exactly to do. They kind of just said, you know, these are
01:13problematic betting types, which they certainly have been cited in, you know, as you mentioned,
01:18multiple FBI indictments. I think the last one involved around 39 players at over a dozen
01:23different men's basketball programs. A lot of them, not just point shaving, but player prop
01:27specific as well. So the students kind of adding their, you know, their voice to the growing,
01:34the growing scrutiny around this. Now, Baker himself has actually been a proponent of eliminating
01:39college player props. He, you know, last year asked every state to impose a nationwide ban. Not
01:44every state complied, but already a lot of states, you know, don't allow wagers on college athletes in
01:49their states. Ohio, Vermont followed. So we've been moving in that direction for a while. It's a
01:55little bit different than the pros where these guys are making, you know, they're still making
01:58money in college, but they're making a lot more in the pros. You know, after the John Tay Porter
02:02scandal, FanDuel and other sports books moved to ban player props on basketball players who are on
02:08two-way contracts, making a lot less, thought to be more susceptible to, you know, this kind of
02:13nefarious activity or prone to harassment. So they banned that. And then you had the Terry
02:19Rozier situation anyway, where talking about a guy who was making about $26 million a year. So
02:24there hasn't been a catch all fix. We have seen sports books kind of react and change things.
02:29You know, they definitely don't want props outright to be banned because that's where a lot,
02:33they make a lot of their money. That's where a lot of same game parlays and parlay, you know,
02:38betting activity is tied up into. So there's definitely a growing push. We, you know, there's been talk
02:43about reform in Congress, where it comes from. I don't think anything will happen immediately,
02:47but I wouldn't be surprised to see everyone kind of leaning more in the direction of,
02:52like you mentioned, Craig tailoring these props where you can only bet overs, getting rid of some
02:56big names there. But certainly big news that the Big Ten Student Athlete Commission is adding their
03:01voice to the growing concern. And, you know, they sent the letter to Charlie Baker, who agrees with
03:05them, but he also legalized sports betting in Massachusetts. So it's quite a messy situation
03:10with all this stuff. I'm sure it's not the last we've heard about scandals or indictments,
03:14and we'll keep following the news here.
Comments