March Madness wagering set to tip off with the games just 2 months after federal gambling charges
The NCAA basketball tournaments open this week and billions of dollars will run through a gambling market that has evolved from office bracket contests and illegal bookmaking operations into a booming industry where it’s legal in most states to wager on outcomes or a seemingly endless menu of statistics-based predictions within the games.
Ads for online sportsbooks are everywhere, discussions about point spreads are common on all media platforms, and opportunities to plop down a few bucks or more on a game, even in progress, are as close as your phone.
The tournaments will tip off just two months after federal prosecutors in Philadelphia announced criminal charges in a point-shaving scheme that allegedly involved six “fixers,” 17 former players and four players who were active with their teams this season. They are accused of attempting to fix 29 regular-season games over the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. Two of the players were banned by the NCAA after a separate point-shaving investigation.
“Our antenna is up all year-round,” NCAA managing director of enforcement Mark Hicks said. “If you look at it historically, when we’ve had concerns around contest integrity, they happen during the regular season. It doesn’t mean we’re immune in the championship segment. We monitor 22,000 contests throughout the year, so we’re vigilant all the time.”
March Madness generates more wagering than any other event in the United States. The American Gaming Association estimated a record $3.3 billion would be legally bet on the games this year.
The proliferation of legalized sports wagering the past decade has spurred the NCAA to increase efforts to keep games on the up-and-up. Players are warned about associating with people seeking inside information about their team or offering enticements to shave points, and support is provided for players who may be targeted for abuse from angry bettors. The NCAA’s “Draw the Line” campaign was relaunched during conference tournaments.
Prosecutors in the federal point-shaving case noted the players involved were mostly on low- and mid-major teams and didn’t have access to robust name, image and likeness pay packages. The alleged fixers offered each player $10,000 to $30,000 to ensure that their team failed to cover the spread of the first half of a game or an entire game. The fixers would then place wagers on those games.
The NCAA has no estimate for how often athletes are offered compensation to manipulate their performance to guarantee an outcome. Anecdotally, Hicks said, “there is no shortage of entrepreneurial people who look to take advantage of them for their own gain.”
Protecting players from all potential fixers and disgruntled bettors would be impossible. Big Ten Conference chief medical officer Dr. James Borchers said it is imperative for players feeling anxious and overwhelmed to have immediate access to mental health services.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” Borchers said. “The ability to gamble, it’s like a video game now. People on their phones, it’s part of what sport is. And then the ability to reach athletes on social media and have contact directly with people that are participating in these events, I don’t think there’s any way you can insulate athletes from the effects of gambling in today’s world.”
The NCAA and conferences provide resources in a variety of formats to educate athletes about what they can and cannot do with respect to gambling and about potential penalties, with loss of eligibility just the start. They are also urged to report suspicious activity immediately; Hicks said he has received “a handful” of reports from athletes about being approached by possible fixers.
This year, for the first time, NCAA Tournament teams are required to file player availability reports before each game. NCAA managing director of enterprise risk management Clint Hangebrauck hopes the publicly available reports will keep bettors from contacting players for inside information.
NCAA President Charlie Baker since 2023 has been calling on state gambling commissions to eliminate individual prop bets, including player scoring. Baker also has taken aim at team first-half under bets, which have a high integrity risk.
College player prop bets are allowed with no restrictions in nine states and with some restrictions in 14 states and Washington, D.C., according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Such bets are outlawed in 17 states.
Signify Group, which monitors and assesses social media messages to athletes for the NCAA, said there were fewer gambling-related messages to March Madness participants in 2025 than there were in 2024.
Hangebrauck partially attributed that to the NCAA’s “Don’t Be a Loser” campaign urging fans to not contact players about lost bets. In 2024, about 1 in 10 messages to men’s players were related to gambling.
Borchers, the Big Ten chief medical officer, said most athletic departments do a good job providing mental health services on campus. He would like mental health professionals available to athletes in real time.
“You think you’re doing what your team is asking you to do, and maybe your team is successful, and then you’re getting destroyed on social media from people saying you didn’t score as many points as you were supposed to or you didn’t come through for me,” Borchers said. “How do you manage that? It’s easy to say they should manage it. You’re talking 18 to 23 year olds, and they still have a lot of maturing and developing to do.”
___
AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness