For years, college sports treated sports gambling as a little side hustle for Vegas. They saw it as a harmless habit for fans staring at odds. But now, the NCAA is sounding alarms after the Brendan Sorsby situation exposed the uglier side of what could happen to even a star athlete. President Charlie Baker’s answer came without hesitation when asked whether college athletics currently has a gambling problem.

“Yes.” Charlie Baker said during an appearance on The Triple Option with Rob Stone. “Not on the kids side, but I think the gambling thing generally has become incredibly abusive for kids. If you pick the number one thing student athletes talk to me about, it’s the way they get harassed, not just by people they’ve never met, but by people on their own campus who are looking for them to help them ‘make money.’” 

You can already picture 19- and 20-year-old athletes walking around campus with other students financially invested in their stat lines. That means, if they miss a throw or play badly, someone’s money just disappears. And that makes the innocent athlete become many people’s enemy that could cause safety concerns. So Charlie Baker made a strong proposition. 

“I think we should get rid of all prop bets for college sports,” he said. “And at a minimum, get rid of all the negative prop bets because those put tremendous pressure on kids and it really sucks.”

You could hear the frustration in his words. And this isn’t even the first time he’s calling for a gambling ban. Back in January, Charlie Baker released a lengthy statement revealing NCAA enforcement staff had opened sports betting investigations involving 40 student-athletes across 20 schools over the past year. Investigators found eleven athletes from seven schools had bet on their own performances, shared insider information with bettors, or manipulated games tied to wagers. 

“This behavior resulted in a permanent loss of NCAA eligibility for all of them,” the NCAA statement read. “Additionally, 13 student-athletes from eight schools (including some of those identified above) were found to have failed to cooperate in the sports betting integrity investigation by providing false or misleading information, failing to provide relevant documentation and/or refusing to be interviewed by the enforcement staff.  None of them are competing today.”

The NCAA also made it clear that collegiate prop bets remain one of its biggest targets. And the Big Ten is fully behind that push. Back on February 10, the conference’s Student-Athlete Issues Commission (SAIC) sent a letter directly to Charlie Baker urging the NCAA to continue fighting for the ban of individual prop betting in college athletics. The concerns are straightforward. 

• Increased harassment of student-athletes
• Mental health strain
• Constant accusations from angry bettors
• Threats to competitive integrity

Now the NCAA is trying to slam the brakes before the situation gets uglier. And while Charlie Baker is speaking against prop bets publicly, one former QB is already living through the fallout.

The consequences of Brendan Sorsby’s gambling 

Brendan Sorsby is finding out the hard way that the NCAA still draws one very hard line. And that’s to never bet involving your own school. According to reports first detailed by ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the QB admitted he placed bets on Indiana games during the 2022 season while he was on the roster.

“I rationalized placing those bets as a way to feel more connected to the team,” he wrote in his affidavit. “To root for my friends, and to feel like I had a real ‘stake’ in the games that I otherwise was not involved in.”

That explanation didn’t change the NCAA stance because their rule is that betting tied to your own school is still viewed as the ultimate violation. So, what was supposed to be a redemption story back home at Texas Tech has turned into a major eligibility disaster. On Monday, the Red Raiders officially declared their $6 million transfer QB ineligible.

“After finalizing an agreed-upon stipulation of facts between Texas Tech University, the NCAA and Brendan Sorsby, the University has declared Sorsby ineligible for competition,” the school said in a statement. “Texas Tech intends to quickly initiate the reinstatement process. Texas Tech’s primary focus remains supporting Sorsby’s health and well-being.”

This latest saga makes Charlie Baker’s concern feel even more urgent. Sports gambling has now fully clashed with the reality of college athletics. And now conferences, schools, coaches, players, and the NCAA are all trying to figure out how to control the problem before more athletes lose their careers.