Massachusetts officials joined NCAA President and former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on Thursday to announce a new initiative aimed at addressing the public health harm associated with youth sports betting.
BOSTON–Massachusetts state leaders joined NCAA President and former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on Thursday to announce a new initiative aimed at addressing the public health harm associated with youth sports gambling. did.
Baker said this harm not only affects young people who bet, but also student-athletes who are under tremendous pressure from bettors looking to profit from their individual performances.
Baker said he spoke with hundreds of college athletes before officially taking on the role of president about a year ago, and they talked about the tremendous pressure they feel from classmates and bettors about their individual performance. He said he did.
“The message I kept getting from them is that this stuff is happening so much that it's very difficult for us to just walk away from it,” he said.
Baker said student-athletes pointed to classmates who wanted to talk about things like, “How is so-and-so doing? Will he be able to play this weekend? What do you think his chances are?”
“It was the exact same conversation I had with my classmates and fellow alumni back in the '70s, but back then it was just cafeteria and cafeteria chatter,” said Baker, who played basketball at Harvard University. added. “Now it's currency.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the bill signed by Baker effectively made Massachusetts a participant in the market since the state legalized sports betting in 2022.
She said the burden is on states to make sports betting as safe as possible.
“Think about it: We are putting a highly addictive product – gambling – on a smartphone, which is a highly addictive device,” she said. “Sports betting used to be illegal almost everywhere, but in just a few years it has become legal in dozens of states across the country.”
In Massachusetts, it is illegal for anyone under 21 to bet on sports or casinos.
Campbell said young people will be more influenced by the teams they support than state government officials, so creating public-private partnerships like the new initiative he announced Thursday, the Youth Sports Betting Safety Coalition, will help. said it was important.
Campbell said coalition members include the Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics, Boston Bruins, New England Patriots, New England Revolution and NCAA. Her goal, she said, is to create a sports betting education, training and safety curriculum for youth ages 12 to 20.
NCAA data found that 58% of 18- to 22-year-olds have participated in at least one sports betting activity, and a Massachusetts Department of Public Health survey estimated that about half of middle school students have participated in some form of gambling. Campbell said it was found that .
Baker will ban “prop bets,” which allow gamblers to bet on stats a player accumulates during a game, rather than the final score, in states where the NCAA has legalized sports betting. He said he was asking for it.
Baker also said an NCAA survey of students found that students bet at essentially the same rate regardless of whether it's legal or not. It also found that one in three student-athletes have been harassed by a gambler, and one in 10 students have a gambling problem.
“Even if it's legalized in 38 states, it's basically a 50-state problem,” he said at a news conference at Boston's TD Garden. If you think there isn't, you're kidding.”
He said the ugliness and brutality of some of the messages on social media platforms from some NCAA Tournament athletes is disturbing.
Last year, NCAA officials determined the intimidation by bettors was serious enough for the teams to give them 24/7 police protection until they left the tournament, he said.
“This is a very difficult issue, especially for student-athletes, and for a lot of athletes who are actually in the bright lights, like a lot of the players here tonight, this is something we all want. “I think it's just one of those things, 'Look, it's taken off the table,'” he said.
