New Jersey Considers Legalizing In-State College Sports Betting
Garden State Would Be Reversing Nationwide Trend
As most states have moved closer to banning the betting on sporting events involving in-state colleges, New Jersey is actually considering legalizing in-state college sports betting.
Currently, New Jersey is among the few states that do not allow bettors to gamble on college sports where at least one team is located in said state. However, there is a bill (ACR 140) in the State Assembly which would lift that prohibition and allow New Jerseyans to bet on teams like Rutgers.
Multiple efforts similar to this one have been launched in the past but none have come to fruition. There is a growing groundswell in favor of such bans throughout the United States over concerns that allowing bettors to wager on college games happening the same state in which they are betting, coupled with the loosed NIL (name, image and likeness) laws which allow for college athletes to make money while in school, could lead to game fixing. Considering how many people bet on NCAA scores and odds, that’s a valid concern.
However, besides a few isolated incidents here and there, college sports betting scandals just haven’t been nearly as commonplace as supporters of such bans would think.
Also, the borders between states have never been more malleable than they are right now due to smartphones and social media so it’s not like a ban on in-state college betting in Pennsylvania, for example, could prevent a Maryland bettor from trying to rig a game between two Pennsylvania schools.
New Jersey Is Weighing Issue of Player Harassment
A less-reported but still relevant issue regarding in-state college sports betting is that student-athletes are often harassed on social media by bettors who might take prop bets on said athletes and, if those bets don’t hit, may go to Instagram or Twitter to make their displeasure known.
While blanket bans might reduce this kind of behavior, only targeted college sports prop betting bans would actually make a legitimate difference in preventing such harassment.
New Jersey is considering lifting the ban on in-state college betting while instituting a ban on college sports prop betting, another cause that has become more popular around the country.
This type of regulatory scheme could make more sense because it seems illogical for an in-state college ban to actually prevent the kinds of game-fixing that states are concerned about but a ban on prop betting could make the lives of student-athletes safer and easier.
With so many people wagering collective millions of dollars on NCAA betting odds and student-athletes often being thrust right in the middle of uncomfortable situations, it’s only right that state governments do whatever they can to minimize that kind of harassment.
While it would be close to impossible to fully stamp out — and would require the cooperation of major social media networks — a ban on prop bets for college games like New Jersey’s legislature is reviewing could be a smarter play.
Enforcement of Blanket Bans Can Be Rough
When states ban in-state college sports betting, they tend to enforce those bans by levying major fines on sportsbook operators — wittingly or unwittingly — offer lines on games involving in-state college teams.
Because sportsbooks typically use software to scrape large datasets to assess lines for the hundreds of college games on the board in any given week, mistake lines often slip through the cracks.
For example, if a New York sportsbook posts a betting line for a Syracuse game and accepts a bet of any size on said game, it is potentially liable for a massive fine even if the bet was for $10 and the bettor ultimately won.
Sometimes, those lines are posted through no fault of the sportsbook itself. Instead, the sportsbook’s data company or another third-party responsible for transmitting the book’s lines to the betting public is to blame. So, fines as high as $80,000 (more for second and third offenses) can be levied on sportsbooks for violations of these rules. Of course, the fine amounts are different by the state.
On a competition level, there is an incentive for New Jersey to want to allow college betting on in-state college teams and that’s to make the state not only more desirable for sportsbooks to operate in but also to increase the amount of handle the state’s operators can collect.
As in-state college teams, obviously, tend to be popular in their states, their games can attract large sums of money. If betting on University of Illinois games in Illinois were legal, then the state’s operators would see their handle totals skyrocket and, as a result, the amount of tax revenue flowing to the government off that increased handle would go up as well.
For NCAA betting news, odds analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.
