As part of a continued crackdown on wagering by athletes in college sports, the NCAA announced on Thursday that it is pursuing enforcement action against more than a dozen basketball players for potential sports betting violations.
In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, the NCAA announced that its enforcement staff is processing alleged violations of sports betting rules and/or related failure-to-cooperate violations for 13 former men’s basketball players. While the NCAA did not release the players’ names, it said they competed at six different schools: Eastern Michigan, Temple, Arizona State, New Orleans, North Carolina A&T and Mississippi Valley State. None of the players are currently enrolled at their previous schools, the NCAA noted.
The announcement comes one day after the NCAA permanently banned three former Fresno State and San Jose State basketball players for a litany of sports betting violations. The college sports betting investigation is progressing during a summer in which multiple professional sports leagues have dealt with gambling scandals.
On Wednesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that the NBA is conducting an internal investigation involving former Pistons guard Malik Beasley. Over the summer, multiple reports surfaced that federal prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York sought information on Beasley in a gambling probe. Beasley has not been charged criminally in the matter.
Sordid gambling history at Arizona State
Of the six schools publicly identified on Thursday, Arizona State is the only school whose inclusion is unexpected, according to an industry source who has monitored the investigation closely. In January, New Orleans suspended four players for potential NCAA violations associated with sports betting. Days later, ESPN reported that a sports betting ring under federal investigation placed wagers against North Carolina A&T, Eastern Michigan and Mississippi Valley State.
Arizona State has past history with such probes, in that in 1997, guard Stevin “Hedake” Smith was arrested in connection with a point-shaving scandal. Smith pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to fix four basketball games during the 1993-94 season.
Smith joined EPIC Global Solutions, a gambling harm reduction firm in 2024. In a July 2024 press release, Smith said that he is “passionate” about telling his story, adding that he wanted to inform others to prevent it from “happening again”.
Addressing Thursday’s announcement, Arizona State issued the following statement: “Arizona State is aware of the NCAA investigation and outcome related to a former student-athlete who is no longer enrolled at ASU. The university cooperated fully with all inquiries and was not implicated in any way.”
Next steps
In March the NCAA announced an extension to its longstanding relationship with EPIC Global Solutions. To date, more than 100,000 student-athletes, coaches and administrators have been reached by the EPIC collaboration, making it the largest programme of its kind globally, the NCAA wrote in Thursday’s release.
Last December, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s federal hearing on sports betting. Baker, former governor of Massachusetts, has lobbied states with legal sports gambling to prohibit prop bets involving college athletes. Baker reiterated his push for restrictions on props earlier this week.
“The NCAA monitors over 22,000 contests every year and will continue to aggressively pursue competition integrity risks such as these,” Baker wrote.
As with previously resolved cases, the schools in the ongoing investigation are not alleged to have been involved in the violations by student-athletes, the NCAA stated. Moreover, the NCAA’s enforcement staff is not seeking penalties for the schools themselves for the student-athletes’ conduct.
The announcement spanning six schools is the second this week of potential gambling-related violations by former college basketball players.