On Jan. 14, 2023, the Dayton Flyers held a comfortable halftime lead over the VCU Rams. ESPN gave the Flyers a 95.8% probability of winning the game. The Flyers came out of the locker room and proceeded to implode. With 16 seconds left, VCU completed the comeback and took the lead, eventually winning 63-62 in a performance that left the stadium shocked.
A stunning upset for sure, but not impossible. The Rams were a good team. They would finish first in the Atlantic 10 Conference that year and defeat Dayton again in the A-10 Championship to win an automatic spot in March Madness. Upsets happen. Comebacks happen. And as far as those go, this one doesn’t remotely make the list of the most spectacular or important.
Except something had changed in Dayton just a few days earlier. On Jan. 1, sports betting had become legal in the state of Ohio. Dayton vs. VCU was one of the first sporting events on which Ohioans could legally wager. The stakes of a random January mid-major conference game between two teams without any strong NBA prospects was suddenly higher. Now, there was money involved. While it is not known how much was wagered on the VCU vs. Dayton game specifically, in total Ohio recorded more than $1.1 billion in sports betting wagers that month.
Online backlash was immediate. On a Dayton social media post about the loss, one fan complained, “This is corruption. I doubt this game is not rigged,” then shared a screenshot of his gambling losses saying, “You cost me a lot of money.”
Other fans, however, took their grievances directly to the players.
Speaking after their next game, Dayton Coach Anthony Grant responded to the hate-filled messages players had received, telling media: “There’s some laws that have recently been enacted, that really to me — it could really change the landscape of what college sports is all about. And when we have people that make it about themselves and attack kids because of their own agenda, it sickens me.”
When the bets become personal
The 2023 Flyers are not alone. Ever since sports betting was legalized nationally in 2018, athletes have been speaking out about the increase in harassment and abuse. During the 2024 March Madness tournament, Armando Bacot led his UNC team to a win in the round of 32. It was a decisive win that saw Bacot score 18 points, grab seven rebounds, and add three assists. Unfortunately for bettors, DraftKings had set the over for Bacot’s rebounds at 9.5. Sports Betting Dime called this a “solid bet” because “Bacot has been a dominant force on the glass all season.”
Folks who listened to Sports Betting Dime lost money — but the blame went to Bacot. He told media, “I got over probably 100 DMs from people just telling me like, ‘You suck, you didn’t hit the over!’”
Armando Bacot #5 of the North Carolina Tar Heels battles Kyle Filipowski #30 and Tyrese Proctor #5 of the Duke Blue Devils for a rebound during the first half of the game at the Dean E. Smith Center on February 03, 2024 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
He went on to say he’s used to it because “going to a school like North Carolina, you never catch a break. I order DoorDash and the driver is like ‘Man, ya’ll messed up my parlay!’”
Sometimes those messages go from frustrated to violent. Earlier this year, Duke basketball player Isaiah Evans just casually told media about “the threats that a lot of our players get” for failing to meet sportsbook bets on their individual performances. “I just got a text right now, some dude told me, ‘I hope you blow your knee out.’ It gets out of pocket for sure.”
In this year’s March Madness tournament, University of Connecticut freshman Braylon Mullins hit a stunning three-pointer to beat No. 1 seed Duke. In the aftermath, he received violent threats. Howard Center for Investigative Journalism reports one Instagram user told Mullins, “If I ever see you, Braylon, I’m literally going to f—ing hurt you. I will seriously f— you up and make your life a living hell.”
And while three years ago, collegiate coaches were getting emotional, protecting their players from online harassment, the continued prevalence of sports betting has normalized the experience. A 2026 survey of NCAA student-athletes found nearly half of men’s basketball players report being targeted by fans over betting losses with 33% receiving direct blame for bettors’ losses.
“Nearly half of men’s basketball players report being targeted by fans over betting losses with 33% receiving direct blame for bettors’ losses.”
Harassment wasn’t limited to social media, either, with 26% saying they had received verbal or physical abuse in person. NCAA President Charlie Baker has warned students and fans, “This time of year can be magical for so many players, but it also can quickly become a nightmare due to abuse from fans engaging in sports betting.”
A new kind of fan relationship
The NCAA has focused on two main aspects of sports betting driving harassment: Social media and prop bets.
Social media creates parasocial relationships where fans have the ability to directly connect with athletes and other public figures. In the past, athletes were only reachable through their athletic departments, public relations personnel or in person. Today, fans can tag athletes’ social media accounts or privately message accounts the athletes themselves control — particularly non-professional student-athletes.
One in five collegiate athletes reported communicating with fans via social media regularly. NCAA president Charlie Baker has actually said that they have had to strike a deal with Venmo to engage their aid in blocking bettors from requesting money from players for failed prop bets.
Speaking of prop bets, they are the second primary driver of sports betting harassment. These bets are wagers on an outcome other than the final score of a game, often related to an individual player or specific event. Players can follow the game plan and win the game for their team but still draw the ire of fans for failing to perform individually in a way the prop bet required. Prop bets and other wagers also can be strung together to create a parlay — a series of wagers that will only pay out if the bettor wins each one.
These types of bets can positively affect sports and sports media in a viewership sense. Fans have a vested interest in more players and more games for more reasons than simple fandom. Games that might otherwise garner no significant attention might receive a ratings bump from fans following not for the game, but to see how their prop bets or parlay plays out. Sportsbooks love these types of bets as well. While the typical hold on a traditional single game wager is 4.5%, player prop bets average an 8% to 15% profit while parlays rake in an average 15% to 30%.
Betting lines for college basketball games are displayed during a viewing party for the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament inside the 25,000-square-foot Race & Sports SuperBook at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino which features 4,488-square-feet of HD video screens on March 15, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The house always wins, and with sports betting, they are winning more than ever with 96% of sports bettors losing money on average. In plain language, while sports betting harms both the bettors and the people they are betting on or against, it’s lucrative for sports providers and gambling facilitators.
Pushing back the bet
After almost a decade of widespread legalized sports gambling, institutions are beginning to push back. The NCAA, in particular, has called for the ban of all prop bets within collegiate athletics. They also have taken the unique tactic of partnering with sportsbooks to provide official data and NCAA branding in exchange for the sportsbooks removing prop betting and complying with NCAA sports betting investigations.
“We have created a system in which a college student’s individual performance can become financially consequential to thousands of strangers.”
As for Ohio, three years after legalized sports gambling went into effect, lawmakers are attempting to turn back the clock. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine now calls signing that law into effect his biggest mistake as governor. He has since called on lawmakers and sports leagues to at least ban prop bets. In response, three state representatives have introduced the Save Ohio Sports Act, which would, among other things, ban mobile/online sports betting and all betting on college sports.
However, these efforts have done little to stem the tide. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a federal ban on sports gambling was unconstitutional, states moved in droves to legalize sports gambling and capitalize on the resultant tax revenues. Sports betting is currently legal in 39 states, with four more states (Minnesota, Hawaii, South Carolina and Georgia) making active pushes toward legalization.
We now have the data to see how — particularly within collegiate sports — sports betting has harmed athletes and created potential for abuse. A bettor who has money riding on whether that player grabs one more rebound can begin to see the player differently — not as a student, an athlete or even a person — but as an obstacle between them and a payout. The problem is not simply that a bettor might lose money. (They will.) It is that we have created a system in which a college student’s individual performance can become financially consequential to thousands of strangers.
Sports betting encourages fans to view sports figures not as athletes to admire but commodities to be monetized. Where sports figures of the past were considered superhuman, sports figures today are dehumanized — treated as props not people.
Josh Olds
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.