Big Ten’s SAIC asks Charlie Baker, NCAA to ban prop bets on college athletes
In a letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker, the Big Ten Conference Student-Athlete Issues Commission (SAIC) called for a continued push to limit or outright ban prop bets based on individual college athletes to reduce harassment and protect mental health and game integrity.
The SAIC wrote Tuesday that student-athletes are receiving angry messages, threats or criticism from bettors when wagers lose, including from fans who sit behind the bench “yelling horrible things” and on social media.
A 2025 study of more than 20,000 student-athletes found that 51% of Division I men’s basketball players had received social media abuse based on their performance, much of it coming from bettors.
“Prop bets are a direct avenue to the overwhelming number of death threats that student-athletes receive if they ‘ruin a parlay’ or cause a fan to lose a bet,” the letter to Baker states.
Baker has pushed state gambling regulators to ban sportsbooks from offering prop bets on individual college players. More than a dozen states prohibit sportsbooks from offering college props, but still jurisdictions allow them, including on alternate betting platforms such as daily fantasy and sweepstakes sites.
Missouri gaming regulators recently denied a request from the NCAA to eliminate college player props.
The SAIC also expressed concern about prop bets damaging the integrity of the game by creating doubt about a player’s performance.
“These athletes are often young and more susceptible to influence, including financial incentives that may encourage them to perform in a certain way or affect specific outcomes,” the letter says.
Last year, three Division I basketball players were ruled ineligible for participating in a gambling scheme centered on prop bets on individual statistics.
“While we understand that sports betting is becoming increasingly more common across the country and allows for states to generate increased tax revenue, prop betting represents unique risks at the college level,” the SAIC wrote. “We believe protecting student-athletes must be a priority. Limiting or eliminating prop betting on college athletics would be a meaningful step toward reducing harassment, protecting mental well-being, and preserving the integrity of college competition.”
