Brendan Sorsby admits wagering nearly $90,000 during college career as NCAA fight heats up
A district court judge in Lubbock, Texas, will take center stage Monday afternoon as attorneys for Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby seek a landmark injunction against the NCAA that could allow him to play this season after admitting to placing thousands of bets over the past four years, including on his own team.
The gambling saga involving the Red Raiders' currently ineligible star quarterback has caught the attention of the college athletics world, with his time at Texas Tech potentially coming to an end after just five months.
Now, in Lubbock district court documents obtained by OutKick, attorneys for Brendan Sorsby are laying it all on the line in hopes of a judge granting him an injunction to play, and they are basing a portion of their case on the diagnosis of a doctor based at an Arizona rehabilitation center.
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In hopes of getting a judge to rule against the NCAA, Sorsby's legal team provided a plethora of information to the court on Friday, including how the quarterback was able to place so many bets while enrolled at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech.
ESPN's David Purdum was first to report the amount wagered and details outlined in court documents, which OutKick has confirmed through txcourts.gov.
According to a 111-page affidavit filed, the quarterback had placed $90,000 worth of bets over the past four years, dating back to his first year playing for the Indiana Hoosiers. Sorsby, per his attorneys' filing, used multiple betting apps to place wagers, including FanDuel, Underdog, Hard Rock Bet and PrizePicks.
BRENDAN SORSBY ADMITS TO GAMBLING ON HIS OWN TEAM, SUES NCAA IN LUBBOCK COURT FOR INJUNCTION
But, he did not do this on his own, getting help from friends to place bets on different sports that included the NBA, PGA Tour and MLB, along with college football.
The quarterback admitted to transferring at least $60,000 to friends who were placing bets for him.
And, the most consequential of them all might have come while he was a scout-team quarterback at Indiana. Sorsby, through the filing, admitted to placing at least 2,900 wagers for over $30,000 during his time in Bloomington.
Wagering on his own team cost the Texas Tech QB his eligibility
The damaging bets came during the 2022 season, when Sorsby says he placed at least 40 different wagers on his own football team during the redshirt season. The court filing says that the quarterback was making bets that ranged from $1 to $114 during a two-month period from September to October of that year.
In his defense, Sorsby claims that he only bet on the Hoosiers to win, and that he stopped placing bets prior to playing in his Indiana debut that came against Penn State that season. According to NCAA rules, a player can participate in up to four games and still preserve a redshirt season.
But also, NCAA rules prohibit a student-athlete from wagering on any sport that also has a championship game at the collegiate level. This means, betting on your own team to win is obviously against the rules. For this, along with thousands of other bets placed on different sports, the NCAA has deemed Sorsby ineligible for the upcoming 2026 season.
In a previous motion, attorneys representing Sorsby blamed the NCAA for not supporting the quarterback during this situation, and rather using his gambling addiction against him.
"Mr. Sorsby is currently ineligible to play for Texas Tech due to prior violations of the NCAA's sports gambling rules. Rather than support a student-athlete's recovery from a gambling addiction, the NCAA has weaponized his condition to shore up a facade of competitive integrity," the complaint read.
While Sorsby contends that he "never bet on the Indiana team and/or individual members of the team in a game in which he participated. He did not engage in any activity designed to influence the outcome or integrity of an intercollegiate contest or in an effort to affect win-loss margins", he is fighting an uphill battle.
Gambling only continued with the Red Raiders, using friends to place bets
There were questions as to whether Sorsby had stopped gambling after enrolling at Texas Tech, but the quarterback admitted in the filing that his addiction continued to spiral while in Lubbock.
Documents state that Brendan was using accounts belonging to two friends to place bets, while admitting to sending $5,000 to those same friends so they could gamble on MLB, NBA and PGA Tour events for him.
"Given the money I had and earned from NIL, the total amount of money I made from 2022 to 2025 was not a big deal to me. I never kept track of my betting over time, but I'm pretty sure I lost more than I won," Sorsby said in the filing.
But, given everything that has transpired over the past four years, with Sorsby recently completing a 35-day stint at a rehabilitation clinic in Arizona, the quarterback is still receiving support from Texas Tech.
In a letter to the NCAA on Friday revolving around his fight for reinstatement, the school continued to suggest a two-game suspension would be enough punishment for the crime.
"By imposing a two-game suspension on Sorsby and allowing him to continue his final season of eligibility, the NCAA would not be creating bad precedent, nor flouting existing precedent," the school noted. "This is a case of first, and perhaps last, impression.
"Has the NCAA ever had an athlete who admitted to placing thousands of bets, and the only bets on his former team were for his team to win when he was not suited up for the game and when the student's physician indicated he placed those bets due to an adjustment disorder with anxiety that caused him to place those bets to feel part of the team?"
Is the punishment fitting for the crime? Red Raiders fight for Sorsby
Yes, Texas Tech believes a two-game suspension would be sufficient punishment for Sorsby admitting to placing bets on his former team while he was on the roster.
And, the Red Raiders, along with Brendan's attorneys, are essentially painting the NCAA as the bad guys.
"Imposing a career-ending sanction on Sorsby will send the message to current and future athletes hiding in the shadows of the stigma of mental health challenged and addiction that they need to stay silent and never seek help or treatment because the NCAA will take a punitive approach by automatically applying the maximum sanction," Texas Tech argued.
It should be noted that Brendan Sorsby did not come forth with his problems with gambling until the NCAA was made aware of his past transgressions, along with Texas Tech not knowing about the issue when he enrolled at the school. It was a tip to the NCAA that started this investigation.
Now, Sorsby, along with Texas Tech and the entire collegiate athletics world, awaits a district court's ruling that could shake the entire foundation of which we currently live in.