The NCAA is poised to take action against another group of men’s college basketball players who are accused of violating the organization’s sports betting rules.
Just one day after levying bans against three former NCAA student-athletes, the governing body of college sports in America is pursuing additional sports betting violations against 13 former men’s basketball players who competed across six institutions:
- Arizona State
- Eastern Michigan
- Mississippi Valley
- New Orleans
- North Carolina A&T
- Temple
The NCAA Committee on Infractions is investigating alleged violations that include student-athletes wagering on or against their own teams, sharing information for gambling with third parties and knowingly manipulating the scoring or outcome of competitions.
An unknown number of the student-athletes also refused to cooperate with the probe.
An updated version of the NCAA guidelines includes punishments for student-athletes who influence the outcome of their own games or provide gambling-related information to third parties.
Student-athletes who manipulate the outcome of competitions face permanent loss of collegiate eligibility in all sports. The loss of eligibility also extends to student-athletes who wager on their own games or on other sports at the institutions they attend.
Student-athletes who bet on their own sport at another school face the loss of 50% of one season’s eligibility, while other betting-related penalties are based on the value of the bets.
NCAA gambling investigation is ongoing
The NCAA plans to release the names of the student-athletes alleged to have violated its sports betting guidelines once the infractions process has concluded.
The 13 student-athletes at the institutions were included in the investigation after unusual wagering activity was detected by a monitoring service, leading to reports to the NCAA. The organization looked into the reports and collected evidence, including text messages and direct messages on social media to discover that wagering violations occurred.
“The NCAA monitors over 22,000 contests every year and will continue to aggressively pursue competition integrity risks such as these,” said President Charlie Baker. “I am grateful for the NCAA enforcement team’s relentless work and for the schools’ cooperation in these matters. The rise of sports betting is creating more opportunity for athletes across sports to engage in this unacceptable behavior, and while legalized sports betting is here to stay, regulators and gaming companies can do more to reduce these integrity risks by eliminating prop bets and giving sports leagues a seat at the table when setting policies.”
Former Fresno State players receive NCAA ban
Earlier this week, the NCAA handed permanent bans to three former Fresno State basketball players after an investigation found the student-athletes had manipulated their performances for gambling purposes. The infractions took place during the 2024-25 regular season by Mykell Robinson, Steven Vasquez and Jalen Weaver.
The student-athletes were under investigation after Fresno State men’s basketball coach Vance Walberg self-reported a gambling issue with his players to the university.
The NCAA enforcement team found in its probe that Robinson and Vasquez discussed over text messages plans for Robinson to “underperform” based on his statistical categories for a DFS operator. Robinson, Vasquez and a co-conspirator collectively wagered $2,200 on a game. The group pocketed $15,950 after Robinson underperformed during the contest.
Robinson and Weaver also wagered on themselves. Vasquez and Robinson failed to cooperate with the NCAA probe, while Weaver admitted to his DFS wagering.
