Louisiana has joined greater than 30 different states the place sports activities betting is allowed in banning participant props involving school student-athletes.
Tight finish Nick Storz celebrates throughout an LSU Tigers soccer sport. Sports activities bettors in Louisiana will quickly be barred from legally betting on a university participant’s particular person efficiency after the state agreed to the NCAA’s needs that prop bets be prohibited. (Picture: LSU Athletics)
On Monday, the Louisiana Gaming Management Board (LGCB) issued a bulletin informing its regulated retail and on-line sportsbooks that bets on a person school participant’s efficiency will quickly be prohibited. The rule will go into impact at 8:00 a.m. CDT on Aug. 1, 2024.
“Any proposition or ‘prop’ wager on a person athlete’s efficiency or statistics taking part in a university sporting occasion” will change into excluded from the state’s Official Sports activities Betting Catalog on August 1. Solely proposition bets primarily based on full school workforce outcomes will stay.
Ronnie Johns, chair of the LGCB, acknowledged that the regulatory adjustment “might current challenges” for operators.
Sports activities betting operators shall use their greatest efforts to adjust to the intent of this notification,” Johns mentioned.
The LGCB’s motion comes after the NCAA petitioned the gaming regulator to regulate its sports activities wagering guidelines to exclude school participant props. The NCAA’s needs are particular to particular person video games, not season-long bets like who will win the Heisman Trophy.
Faculty Props Tossed
Louisiana follows Ohio, Maryland, and Vermont in not too long ago telling its sportsbook licensees to cease providing school participant props. The NCAA says such wagers have elevated student-athletes being harassed on-line through social media and in particular person.
NCAA President Charlie Baker says participant props are among the many school sports activities governing physique’s paramount issues relating to sports activities playing. Together with elevated dangers to athletes, such bets, Baker argues, enhance sport integrity dangers, as a student-athlete may be extra inclined to throw a sport in trade for a bribe.
Sports activities betting points are on the rise throughout the nation with prop bets persevering with to threaten the integrity of competitors and resulting in student-athletes {and professional} athletes being harassed,” Baker mentioned in an announcement. “The NCAA has been working with states to take care of these threats, and lots of are responding by banning school prop bets.”
With Louisiana’s forthcoming school participant prop ban, simply three states proceed to permit such bets — Kansas, Michigan, and Wyoming.
Oddsmakers say participant props account for a comparatively small quantity of their total motion. When the Ohio On line casino Management Fee banned school participant props in February, the company’s government director, Matthew Schuler, mentioned such bets represented lower than 1.5% of the cash legally wagered by means of the state’s sportsbooks.
Louisiana’s Sports activities Betting Market
Throughout Louisiana’s 2022/2023 fiscal 12 months, the LGCB reported that the state’s on-line sportsbooks took greater than $2.2 billion in bets. Retail oddsmakers accepted about $307.1 million in wagers.
On-line sportsbooks saved practically $206.9 million of the motion, whereas in-person betting received $38.4 million for a mixed haul of roughly $245.3 million.
Three states reported greater than $1 billion in gross sports activities betting income final 12 months, with New York main the way in which at $1.7 billion. New Jersey was second at $1.006B and Illinois was third at $1.002B.
The remainder of the highest 10 consists of Ohio ($936.6M), Pennsylvania ($686.9M), Virginia ($560.2M), Maryland ($514.1M), Arizona ($492.4M), Massachusetts ($483.2M), and Nevada ($481.3M).
