College sports and sports gambling don’t mix

Sports gambling has become ubiquitous since it was legalized by the Supreme Court in 2018. Nearly every state offers the opportunity to bet on games, providing a reliable stream of revenue that fills state and local government coffers.

For many, placing a bet on a game is a benign form of entertainment. For others, it grows into an addiction that bleeds them of their money, and in some cases, their families, their homes and their sanity.   

The ease with which casual sports gambling transforms into addiction is symptomatic of how widespread the problem has become, with young men at the highest risk of becoming gambling addicts. When a group of college athletes was discovered to be fixing games in which they were playing, it appeared that sports gambling may have reached rock bottom. Yet the recent situation around Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby shows that rock bottom has a further basement. 

Sorsby himself is not why big revenue-generating college sports have become dysfunctional, of course. He is, however, a product of such dysfunction, fueled by the three-headed monster of Name, Image and Likeliness or NIL, the ease at which college athletes can move between schools via the transfer portal, and extended player eligibility.  

Individually, each of these factors does not present a concern. Yet when they are exploited collectively by athletes, they create a fertile environment for abuse — one that has facilitated the situation now faced by the NCAA and all power conference........

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