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The NCAA sent a letter Wednesday asking federal regulators to suspend prediction markets, which are trading sites that allow users to essentially bet on outcomes of games, for college sports.
NCAA President Charlie Baker sent the letter to the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, urging him to put a halt to the offerings “until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place.”
During his speech to the NCAA’s annual convention, Baker referenced one site that had been planning to start taking bets on where players might transfer “until we called them out and they backed down.”
The platforms are legal because they’re classified as financial trading platforms, not gambling websites.
The NCAA has been wrestling with gambling since a Supreme Court ruling lifted the nationwide ban on sports betting in 2018. In November, the NCAA passed, then quickly rescinded, a rule that would have allowed staff and athletes to bet on professional games.
