Fresno State, NCAA investigate gambling violations by multiple basketball players

Nearly seven years into the Wild West of widespread — and normalized — legalized sports betting, more evidence emerges of the potential problems arising from prop bets.

David Purdum of ESPN.com reports that Fresno State and the NCAA are investigating multiple men’s basketball players for making bets based on their individual performances.

Per the report, junior forward Mykell Robinson (pictured) and “associates” bet the unders on Robinson’s points and rebounds in games that he played. He was removed from the roster after a January 11 contest against Nevada.

Senior guard Jalen Weaver admitted that he placed a bet that he would exceed 11 points during a December 31 game against New Mexico. He scored 13.

Weaver has since been dropped from the team.

“I just made a bad decision, and I shouldn’t even have gotten involved with that,” Weaver told ESPN. “Now, I’m obviously paying for it. I bet on a game I played in, but I never tried to sabotage the season. I never bet on us to lose, never bet my unders.”

The NCAA has strongly opposed prop bets for college sports, based on the potential for the harassment of athletes and the risk to the integrity of competition.

“Sports betting issues are on the rise and while the Association, conferences and schools are doing everything possible to protect the games and the students who play them, it’s clear the types of bets offered and the prevalence of unregulated betting markets impede our efforts,” the NCAA said in a statement.

At a time when there’s plenty of public concern and speculation about point-shaving and game-fixing, the prop bet continues to be the most easily manipulated wager of them all. Especially when the goal is to bet that the player won’t meet specific performance thresholds. All it takes is a phony injury, a feigned illness, or a sudden cold streak, and voilá. Bet cashes.

It’s unclear how widespread these scattered pockets of betting scams are. It feels inevitable that a major scandal will happen, somewhere. Especially since there has been little or no effort to regulate the college and pro sports industry since the BET! BET! BET! boom started.

Why, you ask, do we mention the various sports betting scandals that pop up from time to time? We’ve yet to get the impression that the notoriously reactive NFL is sufficiently concerned about what could happen.

At the risk of going full Middle Earth nerd, remember when Aragorn asks Frodo at the Prancing Pony if he’s frightened and Frodo says, “Yes”? Aragon replies, “Not nearly frightened enough.”

Unless and until the NFL presses pause on stuffing its pockets with gambling money to be frightened enough about the worst-case scenario, the possibility of the worst-case scenario will continue to exist. And it feels inevitable that something big — and very bad — will happen.

Without meaningful and effective measures to prevent it from occurring in pro football, the NFL is playing a game of chance that the very bad thing will happen to it.

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