Following incidents involving college athletes being harassed by angry bettors over their performance, New Jersey is considering banning proposition bets on the statistical performance of college athletes. The state argues that student athletes are more vulnerable to pressure and harassment due to their accessibility compared to professional players.
A bill before the state Legislature aims to ban proposition bets, commonly known as 'props,' which involve betting on specific outcomes of a player's performance in a game, such as touchdowns thrown by a quarterback or rebounds collected by a basketball player.
The NCAA reports that 1 in 3 players in heavily bet-on sports have experienced harassment from gamblers, prompting the association to advocate for a nationwide prohibition on such bets. If passed, New Jersey would join 13 other states that already ban college prop bets.
However, opponents of the ban argue that the harm from college prop bets has not been significant and that prohibiting such bets could drive bettors to illegal black market operations. New Jersey currently allows betting on college games but restricts it for in-state teams or games played by out-of-state teams in New Jersey.
The bill, which was approved and released from an Assembly committee, still needs to be passed by both chambers of the Legislature and signed by Governor Phil Murphy to become law. New Jersey's pivotal lawsuit challenging the ban on legal sports betting in most states led to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to offer sports betting, resulting in 38 states currently offering it, with Missouri soon to become the 39th.
