US college concerned with gambling
Ohio State’s athletic director revealed his concerns on sports betting liberalisation and how to ensure transparency and sports integrity.
US.- The Supreme Court of the United States revoked the Professional and Amateur Sports Betting Act (PASPA) and allowed states to legalise the segment. However, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith explained his concerns with what sports betting might mean and how to ensure sports integrity and transparency.
Mr. Smith explained he’s not in favour of betting but he understands it’s coming sooner or later. For that matter, college administrators have made some proposals to safeguard against potential abuses from it, like the establishment of a weekly report for football.
The proposal was introduced to a National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics panel by the athletic director, who said: “We talked about the injury reports, and obviously that’s something we should think about making more transparent and having more consistency.”
The injury report would help integrity as all punters would know who might be available and who might not before placing a bet, instead of only people close to the team. However -and despite Ohio State’s coach Urban Meyer may be open to this possibility-, some coaches like Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh don’t even release a depth chart, let alone an injury report.
“(Sports betting) concerns me,” Smith said. “It concerns me from the point of view of the athlete — making sure we protect people. My biggest concern is educating, educating, educating, and then putting in firewalls to protect them.”
“We know gambling exists now,” Smith said. “We’re not naive. But as it becomes more transparent and prevalent, our kids are going to be more susceptible to people trying to influence them to do things. How do we protect them from making a bad decision?”
However, sports betting is coming whether he likes it or not and Mr. Smith knows it: “In my view, we’ll be fine and we shouldn’t overreact. I’m not supportive of (legalised college sports betting), but we are where we are and we have to deal with it,” he said.
