New Jersey Legislative Committee Bans College Player Props

A bill to prohibit sportsbooks from offering collegiate player props has advanced to the Senate floor and the news was met with welcome relief from supporters who have advised that student-athletes are the subject of harassment from disgruntled bettors.

College Player Prop Ban

New Jersey Senator Kristin Corrado’s S-3080 prohibits sportsbooks in New Jersey from offering player props on student athletes. Under the terms of the bill, a prop, or proposition bet, is defined as a “side wager on a part of a sport or athletic event that does not concern the outcome.”

S-3080 was unanimously approved by the Senate’s Government, Wagering, Tourism, and Historic Preservation Committee by a vote of 5-0 earlier this week. That means the bill has been advanced to the Senate floor.

“Proposition bets have led to a rise in the harassment of student-athletes and have threatened the integrity of college sports,” said Sen. Kristen Corrado, who introduced the bill in April following legislative attempts last year to ban college player props.

“I have heard about many individuals who have been the victim of online harassment because they didn’t perform to the expectation of a bettor who made a side wager. This legislation will ban player-specific prop betting in New Jersey, which will help curb that appalling behavior and make college athletic events safer for all participants,” she added.

NCAA Calls for College Player Prop Ban

Student athletes have been the victims of harassment by losing bettors who bet on whether a particular athlete will have over or under a designated number of points, rebounds, passes, assists, or any other category that the bookmaker feels is applicable to that athlete.

Should the athlete fail to meet those goals, bettors who wagered over feel disappointed and often direct their frustration at the student athlete. This has caused the NCAA to take notice and call for a nationwide ban on college player props but only a few states have joined the fight with Ohio, Maryland, and Louisiana the latest states to do so.

The NCAA launched a campaign directed at eliminating sports-betting abuse and the results showed that sports betting-related abuse fell 23% during this year’s March Madness tournament compared to last year’s tournament.

It should be noted that this year’s March Madness tournament saw fewer upsets as all four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four. This could have also factored into fewer harassment situations as the favorites won and covered the spread. Of course, that has little bearing on how the individual athletes perform but the insinuation is that players on good teams had achieved their goals and covered their player props.

NCAA President and former Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, has been at the vanguard of exposing student athlete abuse and calling for a ban on college player props.

“One of the first things student-athletes told me when I became NCAA president was that they were being harassed online by people who are following or betting on their games,” Baker said in the NCAA release. “From day one, it’s been a priority to study this issue, monitor the public interactions, protect student-athletes and allow them to focus on being students and competing at the highest level on the court with their teammates.”