Sports Betting: Risks & Ripple Effects Teach-Out

As sports betting becomes more common in college athletics, University of Michigan professor Richard Paulsen considers its effects on student athletes, including harassment, pressure from bettors, and the need for stronger protections.

Takeaways: Player Incentives, Protections, and Labor

Key Takeaways

We have prepared a list of key points from the Player Incentives, Protections, and Labor Considerations interview for your reference:

1. Sports betting has materially changed the risk environment for college athletes. Legalized sports betting has intensified scrutiny of individual athlete performance, especially through prop bets that isolate single plays, statistics, or moments. This shifts how fans and bettors perceive athletes—from members of a team to financial instruments responsible for winning or losing money. As a result, athletes experience new forms of pressure, exposure, and vulnerability that did not exist at this scale prior to widespread betting legalization.

2. Bettor-driven harassment is a growing player safety issue. Financial losses escalate fan anger, and athletes increasingly report direct harassment when bets fail—particularly when prop bets are involved. Social media and digital payment platforms have lowered the barrier for abuse, with bettors using tools like Venmo to demand repayment or send hostile messages. These behaviors move beyond fandom into targeted harassment, creating real mental health and safety concerns for student-athletes and prompting intervention efforts from the NCAA and its partners.

3. Prop betting expands integrity risks and opportunities for corruption. By enabling wagers on highly specific actions (e.g., first serve, missed free throw, or coin flip), prop betting creates granular points of manipulation that are harder to detect than traditional game-fixing. College athletes—many of whom will never play professionally—face a different incentive structure than professionals. With lower future earnings at stake and limited financial resources, some athletes may be more susceptible to illicit approaches, point shaving, or coercion.

4. Labor dynamics and player protections are increasingly intertwined. As college athletes occupy a gray zone between students, workers, and public figures, betting-related harms are becoming part of broader labor conversations. While unionization efforts have historically focused on compensation and working conditions, inadequate protections from harassment, coercion, and betting-related risks may further motivate collective action. Safety, not just pay, is emerging as a core labor concern in college sports.

5. Revenue incentives have outpaced athlete-centered safeguards. States, leagues, and institutions rapidly embraced sports betting for tax revenue and sponsorship dollars, often without centering athlete welfare in policy design. Player protections—such as education, harassment mitigation, and integrity monitoring—have largely been reactive rather than proactive. This reflects a broader systemic tension: the financial benefits of betting expansion have been prioritized, while the downstream consequences for athlete safety, mental health, and ethical sport governance are still being addressed after the fact.

Reflection Questions

In your daily life, you may have one or more than one of the following roles. Think about the questions that we have posed here. How can you use the Player Incentives, Protections, and Labor Considerations interview to respond to these questions?

• Public health professionals:
  • How can public health-oriented prevention and policy frameworks address the harassment and coercion risks discussed in the interview?
• Young adult casual bettors:
  • How does knowing that individual athletes may face emotional harm because of prop bets change how you think about your own betting choices?
• High school or college athletics professional:
  • What policies or conversations could you introduce at your school to help student-athletes understand the risks of being targeted by bettors, even before they reach college?
• Parent or guardian:
  • How would you explain to your teen the real-world consequences that athletes face when people bet on their individual performance?

Additional Resources

1. Point Shaving: Corruption in NCAA Basketball
2. The Economics of Sports Gambling, Freakonomics
3. NCAA, Venmo Partner to Combat Harassment of College Athletes, ESPN