The NCAA on Wednesday approved a rule change that will allow athletes and athletic department staff to bet on professional sports.
Two weeks after the Division I cabinet approved the change, the boards of directors of Divisions II and III approved it, allowing the new rule to take effect on November 1.
This does not change the NCAA rule prohibiting athletes from betting on college sports. The NCAA also prohibits sharing information about college competitions with bettors. The institution also does not accept advertising or sponsorship of NCAA championships by betting sites.
Despite the change, the NCAA emphasized that it does not support sports betting, particularly for student-athletes.
NCAA President Charlie Baker anticipated the rule change would be approved when he spoke to the media Monday at a Big East roundtable about the future of college basketball.
“This change recognizes the realities of the current sports environment without compromising our commitment to protecting the integrity of collegiate competition or the well-being of student-athletes,” said Roberta Page, Slippery Rock athletics director and chair of the Division II Administrative Council.
The change comes as the number of NCAA enforcement cases involving sports betting violations has increased in recent years. Last month, the NCAA banned three men's college basketball players from betting on sports, saying they had bet on their own games at Fresno State and San Jose State and could share thousands of dollars in payouts.
“We run the world's largest integrity program in sports betting across all games,” Baker said Monday. “Unfortunately, we discovered that some student-athletes were involved in some problematic activity.”
