Betting Bans: Where is the Line?
Recently, sports betting has become a major talking point again—specifically after Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s gambling history became public. Sorsby admitted to placing thousands of sports bets, including wagers involving his own team while he was at Indiana. The NCAA ultimately ruled him permanently ineligible, setting off a legal battle over whether that punishment went too far.
Unsurprisingly, the situation caused quite a stir.
There are plenty of opinions about sports betting and what it means for the integrity of sports, particularly as gambling becomes easier, more accessible, and more normalized.
I personally don’t engage in sports betting, but I’ve also never gambled at a casino. I know my luck, and the odds are not in my favor.
I do, however, have strong feelings about maintaining integrity in sports at every level. And for me, there is one line that shouldn’t be difficult to draw:
If a player bets on their own team, they should be banned from organized sports.
I don’t care whether they were playing in the game. I don’t care whether they bet on their team to win or lose. The principle of wagering on an outcome involving your own team crosses a line that organized sports cannot afford to blur.
The ISTJ rule follower in me can’t simply turn a blind eye because the player involved is young. We learn right from wrong well before 21, and I don’t believe for a moment that athletes making these bets aren’t questioning the decision while they’re making it.
At the same time, sports betting today isn’t the sports betting of 20 years ago.
You don’t have to walk into a casino or find a bookie. It’s on your phone. Betting odds are part of sports conversations. Gambling advertisements surround sporting events. The line between watching sports and betting on sports has become increasingly thin.
That accessibility complicates the line.
But surely there still has to be a line, right?
So Where Is the Line?
This is where I’m willing to admit there’s room for debate.
Should a college football player be allowed to bet on an NBA game? What about an NFL game? Should an athlete be able to wager on another college sport? What about another football conference? What about a game involving a future opponent?
Those questions get complicated quickly, and reasonable people can disagree about where the prohibition should begin. But I have a much harder time believing reasonable people can’t agree about where it should end.
You cannot bet on your own team. That’s the line.
Sorsby’s situation makes the distinction especially uncomfortable. Reporting indicates that some of his wagers involved Indiana while he was a freshman quarterback there, although he did not appear in a game that season. Texas Tech has also emphasized that he never bet against his team and was never accused of attempting to manipulate an outcome.
I understand why those distinctions matter when we’re talking about someone’s character. I’m not convinced they matter when we’re talking about eligibility.
Integrity Requires More Than Proving Someone Cheated
The argument against athletes betting on their own teams isn’t simply that doing so proves they fixed a game.
It’s that sports cannot afford to create circumstances in which fans have legitimate reason to wonder whether they did.
Maybe a player bet on his team to win. Maybe he didn’t play. Maybe nothing about the game changed because of the wager. But once the bet exists, so do the questions.
Did he know something about an injury that the public didn’t? Did he know who was starting? Did he know something from practice? Could a point spread influence a decision differently than simply trying to win? Did a teammate share information without realizing how it would be used? Maybe the answer to every one of those questions is no.
The problem is that we now wonder.
Sports depend on an extraordinarily simple agreement between the people competing and the people watching: the competition is real. Fans need to believe players are trying to win the game because that is the objective—not because the final score needs to land on a particular side of a number. Once that confidence disappears, something fundamental about sports disappears with it. And that’s trust – the foundation of all good relationships.
Addiction Deserves Treatment. Actions Still Have Consequences.
This is probably the most delicate part of the conversation.
Sorsby acknowledged a gambling problem and received inpatient treatment. Texas Tech publicly argued that his addiction deserves compassion and support rather than the permanent end of his college football career. The university outlined extensive treatment and monitoring measures intended to support his recovery.
I agree with part of that. I genuinely sympathize for this kid and the addiction he’s battling. Someone struggling with gambling addiction should be able to seek treatment without shame. A 22-year-old should not have his entire life defined by the worst decisions he made in college. Recovery should be encouraged. Education should continue. Universities absolutely should support students dealing with addiction.
But supporting someone’s recovery and allowing someone to continue participating in organized sports are not the same question.
Consequences aren’t incompatible with compassion. A person can deserve help while also losing the privilege associated with violating one of sports’ most fundamental rules. And that’s where I struggle with the argument that addiction should erase the athletic consequence.
If betting on your own team doesn’t warrant a bright-line response, I’m not sure what rule possibly could. Addiction isn’t a defensible excuse elsewhere, so it shouldn’t be here either.
The Sports World Helped Create This Problem
There’s another uncomfortable truth here.
Sports organizations can’t spend years cashing checks from gambling companies, filling broadcasts with betting lines, promoting sportsbooks, discussing parlays and normalizing gambling as part of fandom—and then act completely bewildered when young athletes develop gambling problems.
That doesn’t excuse an athlete who breaks the rules. But it does mean leagues, conferences, universities and media companies have some responsibility for the environment they’ve helped create. If we’re serious (which, sadly, I don’t think the NCAA is) about protecting young athletes, gambling education can’t amount to handing them a rulebook while the rest of the sports world tells them gambling is fun, easy, and literally everywhere. We can—and should—do much better at prevention and treatment.
But we can also maintain a line.
Those two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. Dichotomies are a very real part of life and college kids are well positioned to learn this. Even if that means hardship.
Some Lines Are Supposed to Be Hard
College sports are changing at a remarkable pace. NIL changed the economics, the transfer portal changed roster building, courts continue to challenge the NCAA’s authority, and legalized sports betting has changed how millions of fans consume games.
Some antiquated rules probably deserve to disappear. Others deserve to be reconsidered. But modernization doesn’t require abandoning every boundary that came before it. I can debate whether college athletes should be prohibited from every form of legal sports betting. I can debate whether betting on another professional sport deserves the same punishment as betting on college football. I can debate whether the NCAA’s broader gambling policies need to evolve alongside the world around them.
I can’t debate betting on your own team.
Sports betting may have made the line harder to see.
But it hasn’t erased it. And betting on your own team crosses that line. You will never convince me otherwise.
