They work with athletes. They work with coaches. They work with the application of the law, the guardians of the sports integrity of commitment and even the casinos themselves, from Las Vegas to their iPhone. They press politicians, carry out public awareness campaigns and then try to do everything again.
Criticize the members of the NCA for any number of problems. But there should be no doubt that they want to prevent their games from being committed, their players corrupt and their athletes be harassed and threatened by players who are not successful.
However, with hundreds of teams and hundreds of thousands of athletes, it can feel impossible.
“It is absolutely a challenge,” said Mark Hicks, managing director of the NCAA that leads the anti-game and antiambling education efforts of the association.
The most recent male basketball season, for example, included a handful of suspicious suspensions. These did not involve the madness of March or the football of the SEC, but the dark bets (say, the totals of the first half) in the loser and low rings teams.
How do you try to stop that?
Well, last week, NCAA became creative with a movement that might seem naked hypocrisy, but in reality it is a bit intelligent of a rarely known organization.
As David Purdum de ESPN reported, NCAA has reached an agreement with the Genius Sports Technology firm to authorize licensed betting houses to receive official championship events data, including male and female basketball tournaments. Books can also use the NCAA and brand logo in their applications.
What seems to be the last sports commitment of sports “DO-AS-SAY, not what is not for profit, comes with an important capture of the NCAA.
In order to use the valuable real -time data, considered the best available for precise bets and in the game, the betting houses must make a series of concessions. The most notable is the prohibition of individual bets, particularly bets on low performance, which the NCAA considers the most easily manipulated and, therefore, make athletes students attractive.
It is much easier, for example, than a single athlete score fewer points than expected than for the performance of a whole team to be manipulated. The player can miss some shots or get out of the game due to “injuries” or “disease.” This is how the case was developed with the NBA player Jontay Porter.
As such, the sophisticated criminal game rings are encouraged to reach that player. The NCAA says that this is particularly the case in smaller schools in the middle of the loser seasons in which players show a lack of awareness of their vulnerability, not to mention the lack of null money in their venmo accounts.
Athletes can also easily bet on themselves, or make a friend do it, in ways that seem more innocent than being attacked by some gangsters, but it is still the same crime.
“There is a belief that the manipulation of sports matches is an organized crime agreement and that cannot be denied,” said Hicks. “But at the same time we have entered a space where easily [athletes] You can bet on themselves or give information to the second year student in the entire hall that, 'hey, I don't feel great today'.
In addition, their own bets focused on individual performance open athletes to threats and online harassment of the players. The NCAA has also sought laws against that.
When giving sports houses that will not accept such bets as a potential advantage over sports betting houses that still do, there is now a competitive commercial advantage to stop accepting such bets. In theory, it should lead to a decrease in more problematic bets.
“The NCAA data will only be available for sports chains if they eliminate the risky bets of their platforms and accept to cooperate completely with the NCAA investigations and provide key information, including geolocation data and device records,” said Tim Buckley, senior vice president of External Affairs of the NCAA.
It is not clear how many betting houses, including ESPN Bet, will sign. The NCAA says that the income of any agreement will be used to finance more sports educational efforts.
In no way this solves the problem. Nor is it likely to end, or maybe even make a significant cut, in sports bets in general. And yes, those who desperately seek support bets will still find outings, legal or not.
In the great scheme of things, this can be just a sand castle against an ascending tide, but it is still something. This should produce a tangible impact, even light to moderate.
“It's very easy and with all the different offers and bets on people's statistical performance … it's really fragile,” Hicks said. “We want to believe that these games are unpredictable, who are playing for people who have no hidden motifs. They are playing to win. But it is a fragile system.”
The NCAA has always known this and always opposed the legalization of sports bets, even when it would improve television ratings. However, once that dam was broken, he has pressed state and federal legislators to prohibit bets on supporting individual players (Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio and Vermont do so today).
For decades, the NCAA exercised considerable power, through the application of the draconian rules and a influential thug pulpit addressed to an audience that trusted it. Those days have gone mostly.
However, the challenges are greater than ever in many ways.
Tuesday was not a cure. However, it was an intelligent use of what NCAA still has.
