Betting Abuse Hits High-Water Mark for NCAA DI Men’s Basketball Players

NCAA Division I men’s basketball players are facing unprecedented levels of betting-related abuse, with nearly half reporting targeted harassment from gamblers, according to a new survey. 

The NCAA’s Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in College (GOALS) study, released on February 5, found that 46% of DI men’s basketball student-athletes received negative or threatening messages from individuals who had bet on their games. 

This rate of reported abuse appears to be an outlier when compared to the larger student-athlete population, where only 7% of men across all sports and 1% of women reported similar betting-related threats. 

“The level of social media harassment our student-athletes must endure is unacceptable. These percentages are a reflection of the increased popularity of betting on college sports across the country and the negative environment it has created. We must continue to do everything we can to protect athletes from this type of behavior and preserve the integrity of college sports,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in response to the findings. 

Targeted Harassment Linked to On-Court Performance

The GOALS survey is one of the NCAA’s largest recurring efforts to measure student-athlete experience across divisions. The 2025 study is the fifth time this research has been conducted, following surveys in 2006, 2010, 2015, and 2019. 

For the latest report, over 20,000 student-athletes from 493 schools were surveyed from December 2024 to June 2025. While the research covered a range of topics, including sleep and academics, the findings on the social media abuse directed at men’s basketball players in high-visibility programs stood out as an example of how legal betting has, in many cases, led to student-athlete harassment. 

Key betting-related data from the study includes:

• Performance-Based Abuse: 51% of DI men’s basketball players reported being harassed on social media specifically regarding their athletic performance.

• On-Campus Pressure: Beyond digital harassment, 29% of these players reported interacting with students on their own campuses who had placed wagers on their team’s outcomes.

• Sport-Specific Disparity: While basketball players face a “firehose” of abuse, other sports show much lower rates of bettor contact; for instance, only 17% of FBS football players and 3% of DI men’s soccer players reported receiving threatening messages from bettors.

The numbers suggest that betting-related harassment is most common for student-athletes competing in sports with extensive media coverage and widely available wagering markets. Outside of the basketball numbers, the study found that 16% of Football Bowl Subdivision athletes and 22% of Division I men’s tennis players reported receiving negative or threatening messages tied to betting.

NCAA: Ban Prop Bets to Curb Athlete Abuse

The 2025 GOALS study isn’t the first time DI basketball players have reported high rates of betting-related harassment. The NCAA’s Student-Athlete Needs, Aspirations and Perspectives study, released in November 2025, found that 36% of DI men’s basketball players had experienced social media abuse from bettors. 

The NCAA has made bettor harassment of student-athletes central to its case that wagering menus that include individual player prop markets compromise game integrity and the safety of college athletes. The association has repeatedly argued that wagers tied to a specific player’s statistics, rather than the final team score, trigger the targeted harassment and “spot-fixing” risks seen in the data. 

In a January 15 letter to state gambling regulators, the NCAA urged states to remove what it describes as “high-risk” wagers, including individual player props and certain game props (such as first-half under markets). The NCAA has also said many of its recent game-manipulation investigations have been linked to individual prop bets or first-half under markets.

However, not all regulators are on board. In Missouri, the Gaming Commission formally rejected the NCAA’s request to restrict college player props and first-half under wagers, with the chair, Jan Zimmerman, explaining the decision by saying, “I just don’t feel that I have enough information to grant a request by the NCAA to prohibit this type of sports wagering because I don’t know enough yet.”