Armando Bacot calls sports betting 'terrible' for players
In recent years there has been a rapid rise in sports gambling. That’s a change in college sports that North Carolina Tar Heels star Armando Bacot recently called terrible for the players themselves.
Bacot emphasized that it’s very hard with social media to not be aware of sports betting. Fans will let players know when they struggled, or even when the result of their game could have cost a fan some money.
“It’s terrible,” Armando Bacot said. “Even at the last game, I guess I didn’t get enough rebounds or something. I thought I played pretty good last game, but I looked at my DMs, and I got, like, over 100 messages from people telling me I sucked and stuff like that because I didn’t get enough rebounds.”
What Bacot is referring to in that instance is a prop bet. In his example, fans would have been betting on him to get more than a certain number of rebounds in a game and he ended up grabbing fewer rebounds than that amount.
This also comes at the same time that the NCAA is pushing states to remove prop bets from gambling markets because it can lead to players being harassed by bettors.
“I think it’s definitely a little out of hand,” Bacot said.
“But at the same time too, I get the point of it too. Like, if you bet a lot of money on something, and you’re, like, one pick away and somebody messes it up, I understand the part of fans being made. But it’s annoying, too, at times.”
The NCAA wants to change college sports betting
The NCAA is looking to remove prop bets from college athletics. To do so, NCAA President Charlie Baker is asking states to remove prop bets relating to college athletics from all betting markets.
Charlie Baker explained the logic behind this in a statement that he released on Wednesday.
“Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes and professional athletes being harassed. The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets,” Baker said in the statement.
“This week we will be contacting officials across the country in states that still allow these bets and ask them to join Ohio, Vermont, Maryland, and many others and remove college prop bets from all betting markets. The NCAA is drawing the line on sports betting to protect student-athletes and to protect the integrity of the game — issues across the country these last several days show there is more work to be done.”