NCAA delays rule change allowing athletes to bet on pro sports

The NCAA is delaying a rule change that will allow athletes and athletic department staff members to bet on professional sports.

The Division I Board voted Tuesday to delay the effective date of the sports betting legislative change, moving it from Nov. 1 to Nov. 22, one day after the close of a membership rescission period.

A rarely used rule allows 30 days for each Division I school to vote to rescind a proposal if it is adopted by less than 75% of the Division I cabinet. The original vote to approve betting was under that threshold earlier this month.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sent a note to NCAA president Charlie Baker on Saturday expressing concerns about the rule change.

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Even if the rule on betting on professional sports changes, that doesn’t change the NCAA rule forbidding athletes from betting on college sports. The NCAA also prohibits sharing information about college competitions with bettors.

This comes less than a week after an NBA coach and player were arrested in a takedown of two sprawling gambling operations that authorities said leaked inside information about NBA athletes. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused of exploiting private information about players to win bets on NBA games.

Despite the change, the NCAA emphasized that it doesn’t endorse betting on sports, particularly for student-athletes.

Baker anticipated the rule change would be passed when he talked with the media recently at a Big East Conference roundtable on the future of college basketball.

“This change recognizes the realities of today’s sports environment without compromising our commitment to protecting the integrity of college competition or the well-being of student-athletes,” said Roberta Page, athletic director at Slippery Rock and chair of the Division II Management Council.

The change comes as NCAA enforcement caseloads involving sports betting violations have increased in recent years. Last month, the NCAA banned three men’s college basketball players for sports betting, saying they had bet on their own games at Fresno State and San Jose State and were able to share thousands of dollars in payouts.

“We run the largest integrity program in the world on sports betting across all the various games,” Baker said. “Sadly, we discovered some student-athletes involved with some problematic activity.”