Will U.S. Legal Sports Books Offer College Player Props?
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00:00It does seem like every show I do here, I have somebody from Legal Sports Report coming
00:07on and entertaining this conversation.
00:10And as they say, where there's smoke, there's fire.
00:12I guess the question is, at this point, do you foresee any sports book that is legal
00:18in the United States offering college player props this football season, based on what
00:23the president of the NCAA said this weekend?
00:28Yeah, Craig.
00:29And the reason we do that is because last week in New Jersey, there was another gaming
00:33conference.
00:34And so what was the topic?
00:35It was NCAA player props.
00:36Mark Hicks, one of the executives from the NCAA, spoke.
00:39John Steinbrecher, the MAC commissioner, he spoke as well.
00:43John seemed a little reticent about this prop ban, said, well, you know, people aren't doing
00:47it legally.
00:48They're going to do it elsewhere.
00:49But obviously, as we've seen in Ohio, the amount of handle bet on college player props
00:54for the year 2023 was like one and a half percent.
00:57And so, you know, as Jay Snowden of Penn Entertainment, their CEO, said, you know, we don't think
01:02this is going to materially affect us that much in terms of handle and revenue.
01:06So we're fine with it.
01:07I think as far as I know, I think Montana seems like the only state that said they're
01:12not going to do this because they haven't had any incidents of athlete harassment.
01:16But, you know, we've seen a growing list, right, since Baker came out and said he wants
01:20this ban.
01:21Ohio said they'd ban it, Vermont, Maryland, Louisiana have all said they're going to get
01:29rid of it.
01:30It looks like, you know, New Jersey has legislation, North Carolina has legislation.
01:33I think in both the Republican and Democratic, those, you know, bills are led by opposite
01:38sides of the chamber.
01:40So that's super interesting.
01:41Obviously, both sides, everybody kind of sees that, you know, harassment is, you know, unnecessary,
01:46unacceptable.
01:47And then these athletes, a lot of them, as Mark Hicks said, have been betting on themselves,
01:50Craig, which is super interesting.
01:51Right.
01:52We saw Butte in one game.
01:54I think it was LSU Florida State a couple of years ago.
01:56He had taken, I think, his over on catches and was yelling at his quarterback during
01:59the game when he didn't have any.
02:01So that's something that's, you know, can't happen.
02:03Right.
02:04Everyone wonders why, you know, guys can't bet on themselves.
02:06Here's somebody that's causing problems.
02:08You know, maybe they're going, the game plan is going exactly the way it should.
02:12But here's a player who has more pressure on himself to, you know, hit his prop to make
02:16money.
02:17And that's going to cause, you know, potentially him to have a bad relationship with his quarterback
02:20right now or the offensive line or the other receivers or whoever it is.
02:24And that's why this can't happen.
02:25So, yeah, I mean, you know, in a year, maybe perhaps this could change.
02:29Doesn't seem like Montana is going to do it as of yet.
02:31Certainly a lot of other states are leaning that way toward a player prop ban.
02:34Yes, maybe people go offshore.
02:36But I think for the NCAA, this is a PR win because they don't want the harassment.
02:41I mean, I did have a legislator regulator from one state say, you know, everyone's a
02:45jerk.
02:46I didn't use the word jerk online.
02:48You know, it starts with player props for college.
02:50At what point does it end?
02:51Because there's always going to be, unfortunately, people who, you know, bet more than they can
02:56chew or whatever it is.
02:58And so this is an issue that's not going away.
03:01And we'll see what's next.