NCAA Reinstates Ban on Pro Sports Betting
Late last week, NCAA Division I members voted to rescind a proposal that would have allowed student-athletes and athletics staff to wager on professional sports. The rule had been approved in October but triggered a 30-day review because it passed with less than 75% support. During that window—amid a surge of high-profile gambling cases across both college and professional sports—more than two-thirds of Division I schools voted to overturn it. As a result, the longstanding ban on all forms of sports wagering by NCAA athletes and athletics staff will remain in place across all three divisions.
To understand why this decision matters, it helps to look at how quickly the sports-betting landscape in the United States has changed over the past several years. Here’s some background:
What was the federal ban?
From 1992 to 2018, sports betting in the United States was largely restricted by a federal law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).
PASPA didn’t ban betting itself — instead, it banned states from legalizing or regulating sports betting, with a few exceptions:
Nevada (full sports betting)
Delaware, Montana, and Oregon (limited sports lotteries/parlay games)
For the rest of the country, the law essentially froze things in place and prevented any new state from creating a regulated sports-betting market.
What changed in 2018?
In Murphy v. NCAA (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down PASPA as unconstitutional.
The Court said PASPA violated the “anti-commandeering doctrine,” meaning the federal government can’t force states to enforce federal regulatory preferences. Once PASPA fell, states were free to decide for themselves whether to legalize sports betting.
What happened after PASPA was overturned?
A rapid national shift:
40+ states (and D.C.) now allow some form of legalized sports betting.
Betting became embedded in professional sports broadcasts, sponsorships, advertising, and fan engagement.
Pro leagues moved from opposing betting to partnering with sportsbooks.
Access to mobile betting skyrocketed.
Why does this matter for college sports?
The NCAA now operates in a country where sports betting is:
highly accessible,
heavily marketed,
financially integrated into pro sports.
This broader environment has created:
more opportunities for student-athletes to access betting,
more risk of misuse or integrity issues,
more cases crossing NCAA enforcement desks.
