All Bets Are On

Did you see the report that the NCAA released the other day on gambling by college athletes? Basically, they did a big, anonymous survey of athletes at all levels of the NCAA. They found some fairly interesting numbers, like that 35% of male athletes have gambled, and 10% of women. If you consider that NCAA tournament pools are technically gambling, those numbers really aren’t that high.
The eye popping numbers were the ones pertaining to men’s football. Check these three results:

  • 1.1% of football players admitted taking money to alter their performance in games
  • 2.3% of football players admitting being asked to alter their performance because of gambling debts
  • 1.4% of football players admitted altering their performance to change the outcome of a game.

At first glance, those numbers may not seem too huge, but think about it. 1.4% of all football players tried to throw games (or shave points, more likely). You have to figure that no one’s going to ask the backup punter or third string QB to blow a game, so we’re only talking about significant players. Let’s be generous and say that there are 50 players per team who qualify as contributers. That means that more one player on every other D1 football team has tried to alter the outcome of a game!
Worse, you have to figure that those numbers are actually low. Anyone who willingly threw a game (or tried to) is probably not going to be admitting doing so, even on an anonymous survey. Why take the risk that someone might see your answers? What’s in it for the guy taking the survey? Nothing good can come of admitting that. Yet, obviously quite a few did.
So, think about that next time you watch two teams play on a fall Saturday. There are about 100 young men involved in that game. On average, one or two of those guys throws the occasional game. Was that dropped pass legit? What about that missed tackle or block? Did that false start push them out of field goal range?
It boggles the mind.
You can bet the NCAA wishes it had done a more covert survey first.


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