By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Sports wagering will soon be legal in the Bluegrass, and Kentucky colleges and universities are taking extra steps to remind student-athletes the NCAA prohibits them betting in any form during their college eligibility.
The Kentucky General Assembly passed a sports gambling bill last spring despite opposition from the Kentucky Baptist Convention and other groups. In-person sports betting at locations such as the Red Mile, Turfway Park, Ellis Park and Churchill Downs will begin on Sept. 7. Online sports wagering is expected to become live on Sept. 28. Kentucky is now one of 37 states to offer legalized sports betting.
Tony Neely, the University of Kentucky’s assistant athletics director for athletics communications and public relations, said the university’s athletics department has “always provided education on gambling issues to its student-athletes” but is taking it a step further as sports betting becomes more widespread in the Commonwealth.
“With the upcoming advent of legalized gambling in Kentucky, UK Athletics has enhanced its educational program,” he said.
The university has partnered with U.S. Integrity, a company that, according to its website, offers “sports integrity solutions for NCAA conferences, universities. professional leagues and individual teams.” U.S. Integrity says it “works closely with regulators from numerous gaming control boards and offer a variety of fraud protection tools for sportsbooks.” The company says it services are focused strictly on intelligence, monitoring, investigation, and education.
Neely said U.S. Integrity has been the primary sports wagering monitor for the Southeastern Conference since 2018. On Monday, the company announced a partnership with RealResponse, a service that builds on a tip hotline that will give college administrators a direct line to investigators.
“At the beginning of the fall semester, U.S. Integrity came to campus and had an educational session for the entire UK Athletics department — coaches, staff and student-athletes,” Neely said. “Each team also has educational sessions and reminders.”
Eastern Kentucky University Athletics Director Matt Roan said educating student-athletes about sports betting “certainly requires a lot more attention, more education and monitoring” moving forward.
“I think the accessibility of it is something where our coaches are going to be (so concerned) that we’re all going to be sharing the responsibility of monitoring and making sure that we’re protecting the eligibility of our student athletes.
“Our current compliance staff consists of more individuals that monitor and educate our department on NCAA rules and bylaws, but I think that that responsibility really rests on everybody, including our student athletes, to do what is right for everybody to reinforce,” said Roan.
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops said universities educating players about gambling and its consequences within college athletics dates back to his time as a player at the University of Iowa. He added that technology has made it easier for potential problems to arise.
“I think it’s just getting so common with the people — with the phones and the apps and maybe people doing some things innocently, throughout the country and stories you’ve seen,” he said. “We have to really educate them and always have. Going back to when I was a player and (former Iowa head coach) Hayden Fry would bring people in and talk to us and educate us on that.
“We always have done that, but I think just with technology and the phone, kids are just so used to doing so many things and it being legal to place bets and prop bets and all those things. Let’s hope we don’t have any issues with it.”