NCAA investigates 13 former basketball players for sports betting violations

The NCAA is investigating potential violations of sports betting rules involving 13 former men’s basketball players who competed for six schools.

Cases include athletes formerly associated with Eastern Michigan, Temple, Arizona State, New Orleans, North Carolina A&T and Mississippi Valley. The schools are not under investigation or at risk of being penalized.

The NCAA’s integrity monitoring program and network of sources flagged text messages and direct messages on social media platforms and revealed unusual betting activities around regular-season games. The violations include student-athletes betting on and against their own teams, sharing information with third parties for purposes of sports betting, manipulating scoring or outcomes and/or refusing to participate in the investigation.

“Arizona State University is aware of the NCAA investigation and outcome related to a former student-athlete who is no longer enrolled at ASU,” the school said in a statement. “The university cooperated fully with all inquiries and was not implicated in any way.”

The NCAA Committee on Infractions has resolved three similar cases, concluding that three men’s basketball student-athletes who played for Fresno State and San Jose State violated the NCAA’s rules against sports betting and manipulated game outcomes. In the case involving Fresno State and San Jose State, the enforcement investigation concluded that Mykell Robinson, Steven Vasquez and Jalen Weaver bet on one another’s games and/or provided information that enabled others to do so last season. Two manipulated their performances to ensure winning bets. Their eligibility was permanently revoked.

The NCAA said it will not name the athletes in the six cases until after the investigation. None of them are enrolled at their previous NCAA schools.

“The NCAA monitors over 22,000 contests every year and will continue to aggressively pursue competition integrity risks such as these,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement. “I am grateful for the NCAA enforcement team’s relentless work and for the schools’ cooperation in these matters.”

Baker said the rise of sports betting is creating more chances to commit violations.

“While legalized sports betting is here to stay, regulators and gaming companies can do more to reduce these integrity risks by eliminating prop bets and giving sports leagues a seat at the table when setting policies,” he said.