With the legalization of mobile sports betting in their state this month, North Carolina college leaders can be sure their students will be participating in big numbers. Many of them already are.
Starting Monday, North Carolinians will place legal, online sports bets for the first time. Last year the state joined more than 30 others that have passed laws permitting and regulating sports betting. Its version has an interesting provision for higher education: Some of the tax revenue it generates will go to the athletic departments at 13 public colleges, all of which are HBCUs or public regionals. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, both of which generate over $100 million a year in revenue, are not included in the provision.) The state allocated $300,000 for each of the 13 colleges. After some other sums are doled out, including to a state agency to run addiction-treatment programs, 20 percent of the remaining tax revenue will be divided equally among the colleges.
“I’m excited, no matter how much it is,” said Janet Cone, athletics director at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, one of the institutions that will receive the funds.
At roughly $9 million, UNC-Asheville’s budget is one of the smallest of all Division I colleges, according to USA Today. That revenue comes from ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, and student fees, among other areas, Cone said. (In 2022, the university said most of its revenue came from student fees and institutional or government support.) Having another budget line will diminish the need to increase student fees and will contribute to mental-health programs, sports medicine, and nutrition for athletes, she said.
Cone declined to speculate on how much her department would get. The North Carolina legislature’s Fiscal Research Division estimated that in the first fiscal year after the law goes into effect, the state would see $64.6 million in revenue. Four years out, the division estimated revenue would reach $100.6 million. That would mean, according to that office, that each college athletic department would get $1.2 million in the first year and $1.7 million four years later.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision that gave states the power to decide whether to permit sports betting, gambling has moved out of casinos and the shadows and onto people’s phones. Thirty-eight states have legalized the practice in some way, with many, but not all, allowing it online. That means that in much of the country, people can place bets on a seemingly endless array of outcomes, from who will win a game to what color Gatorade football players will pour on their coach after the Super Bowl.
Sports betting is particularly popular among younger people, who gravitate to the gamified apps and and are intensely loyal to certain teams. They often start gambling by betting on a team they love as a way to feel more a part of a game, said Michelle L. Malkin, an assistant professor of criminal justice at East Carolina University who studies gambling.
“Now it’s seen as an acceptable way to engage in loving sports,” she said.
Malkin has spent years researching betting on college campuses. Initially she was against legalizing sports betting, but she changed her mind over the course of her research because she believes legalization makes it easier to regulate and get help to people with gambling addictions.
Still, Malkin is worried about what will happen in North Carolina. When sports betting is legalized, more people bet on sports. And when more people are betting, more are developing problematic habits that can be hard to break.
When sports betting is legalized, more people bet on sports. And when more people are betting, more are developing problematic habits that can be hard to break.
In a survey of North Carolina college students, Malkin found that 5 percent of the 1,600 respondents were at risk for severe gambling habits, but about 13 percent of male students were. (More women responded, which likely brought down the average, Malkin said.) When the activity is legalized, that rate seems to stay the same, she said.
“Almost none of these campuses are prepared or have any screening,” Malkin said. With online sports betting, she said, people tend to become addicted faster than gamblers who bet on card games.
Malkin also found that, on North Carolina campuses, 70 percent of male students had gambled within the past year, and 16.5 percent of college athletes had gambled.
The NCAA prohibits athletes from gambling, but that hasn’t stopped high-profile scandals. The Associated Press reported last year that the NCAA had logged 175 infractions since 2018. The University of Alabama, the University of Iowa, and Iowa State University have seen scandals involving betting by coaches or players.
To educate athletes about gambling risks, UNC-Asheville is working with the companies RealResponse and U.S. Integrity, Cone said. RealResponse offers an online platform for athletes to communicate confidentially with college administrators. They can share concerns or ask for help, said David Chadwick, the company’s founder and chief executive. RealResponse works with college teams, professional teams, and other types of organizations, he said.
Administrators can also use the platform to communicate with athletes, Chadwick said, and some have used it to share information about sports betting. Athletes can use it to ask questions about what is legal.
U.S. Integrity, the company that sniffed out the Alabama baseball scandal, monitors betting data to find and investigate suspicious behavior. RealResponse’s partnership with U.S. Integrity allows athletes to “report the misuse of insider information, potential game manipulation, and physical threats” to U.S. Integrity, according to a news release about the partnership.
“Education,” Cone said, “is a big part of this.”