Gambling And College Sports

Fans had no clue why Alan Tisdale was suspended. Academics? Criminal misadventure? Making fun of the Allman Brothers? All we knew was that a much-needed linebacker was missing half of the 2022 season.

The culprit was eventually revealed to be an under-the-radar candidate: betting. Particularly, placing $400 in perfectly real world-legal NBA Finals bets on FanDuel, and earning $41 for his efforts. He wasn’t revealed by an undercover operation or the data surveillance that later put Iowa and Iowa State in hot water…Tisdale self-reported to Brent Pry the day after learning about the error through a preseason compliance presentation. For his honesty and speed, the NCAA awarded him with a nine-game suspension that, after appeal, went down to six games. One of several kickers is that no one would have ever known about the bet if Tisdale hadn’t come forward, or if Pry hadn’t passed along the admission to compliance.

Public reactions to the NCAA’s handling of the situation generally ranged from “confused” to “ticked off.” And not just in Blacksburg: The New York Times and other national outlets ran with the story, and the vibe of most of those pieces was confusion about what the NCAA was doing.

A lot has changed since then, both at the NCAA and schools. Tisdale called attention to a rule set that the general public viewed as more about the rigid imposition of questionable morality than it was about serving collegiate sports. And then the more traditional Iowa/Iowa State scandal, which by some counts ensnared over forty current and former Hawkeyes and Cyclones, reminded schools about the legal implications that existed. In addition to betting on games they participated in, the players also broke age laws and misrepresented themselves as other people to skirt restrictions. The universities and NCAA likely had no idea any of this was going on: the investigation only started when the Iowa Department of Public Safety reviewed a digital heat map of local betting activity and noticed a cluster of bets originating smack in the middle of Iowa’s athletic buildings. An Ocean’s 11 caper, this was not.

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