New NCAA survey reveals troubling trends, but has flaws

The NCAA recently released its latest survey findings regarding student-athlete gambling and sports betting trends for 2024. This “anonymous” survey has been given to more than 100,000 total student-athletes by the NCAA every four years since 2004, with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the landscape of college sports and culture has changed significantly since the early 2000s, gambling and sports betting behavior remains a prevalent issue with collegiate athletes. 

The NCAA published a brief write up of the 2024 results, with comparisons to the previous surveys, but it provides only a small glimpse into the full raw data that an in-depth review reveals. The NCAA survey proves to have flaws and limitations in its data, which the authors acknowledge. Notably, it’s mostly self-reporting behaviors that are prohibited, so are all respondents being truthful? The authors claim that “​​As a result of our anonymity protocols, we do not know the identities of the student-athlete participants nor which NCAA schools took part in the study,” but do the student-athletes trust that enough to be fully transparent? 

While this survey and its continued use are important to understanding how sports betting and gambling behaviors are changing in college athletes, more work needs to be done to educate, protect and prevent student athletes from engaging in problematic gambling. 

Key takeaways from new NCAA student-athlete survey

More male student-athletes are betting regularly on sports than ever before

In this survey, 10.7% of males reported betting on sports at least monthly, which was the highest figure in the history of this survey. Male student-athletes also had increased rates (from 2016) of playing cards for money, “playing the stock market” and using online casinos. 

Looking at overall behaviors in the previous year, 21.5% of male student-athletes reported betting on sports, which was a reduction from 24.3% reporting in 2016. This decrease was despite increased access to sports betting via the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to decide on legalizing sportsbooks. It’s also worth noting, however, that NCAA policies and educational programs have strengthened during this period, so student-athletes on the whole could be much more wary of it (and reporting their own behaviors around it) than they were in 2016 before the repeal of PASPA.

Student-athletes don’t know where to turn if gambling problems arise

One of the most concerning outcomes from the NCAA survey was that – despite additional educational efforts in recent years around gambling policies and procedure – the large majority of student-athletes said “no” when asked if they know where to go on campus if somebody wants help for a gambling problem. Just 10% of males and 12% of females responded “yes” to the question overall, and in Division I, it was just 7% of men and 8% of women. 

As sports betting becomes more pervasive across college campuses, building awareness of specialized support resources available is critically important. Gambling addiction treatment from Birches Health is available nationwide, with specially trained clinicians able to provide confidential care virtually for college students who may be struggling with their betting behaviors.

To connect with Birches Health, you can click here to make an appointment, call 833-483-3838 or email help@bircheshealth.com.

Male student-athletes start gambling younger than female counterparts

Male student-athletes across all divisions reported being exposed to and engaging in gambling and betting, younger than their female counterparts. This statistic was also true regardless of sport. The overall number of male student-athletes who gambled for money before high school reduced from 31% to 20% between 2016 to 2024, but was much higher than the 12% of female student-athletes who reported gambling before high school. 

In both gender groups, the majority of student-athletes reported gambling for the first time in high school. Female student-athletes reported higher rates of first gambling experience in college at 37% compared to male student-athletes at only 23%.

More male student-athletes bet alone vs. females

In regards to the likelihood of someone developing a gambling or sports betting addiction, one of the main indicators may be the environment or circumstances surrounding one's gambling habits. The 2024 survey results revealed a 2.5 times increase from 2016 in male student-athletes that gamble alone versus with teammates, friends or family. 

This is an alarming statistic that education material provided by the NCAA should be highlighting to coaches, players and support staff alike to help better identify student-athletes that may be at risk of developing a gambling or sports betting addiction. Mobile wagering disproportionately made up the largest percent of how student-athletes placed bets, regardless of gender as well. Female student-athletes reported gambling the most in the presence of their partner or families, with no change in their rates of solo gambling between 2016 and 2024 staying at 5%. 

Wide variance in gambling statistics in DI, DII and DIII student-athletes

Throughout the survey, it became apparent in the overall data that there are notable trend discrepancies found between DI, DII and DIII student athletes. In regard to sports betting behavior, DIII athletes reported higher rates of occasional, frequent and heavy sports betting. Division I athletes reported the lowest instances of all three measurements of sports betting. 

This was true for both male and female student-athletes surveyed, regardless of sports teams for DIII schools. DIII athletes made up the majority of the percent of students who lost less than $300 compared to DII and DI student-athletes. DI athletes made up the highest percentage of those who lost amounts $300 to over $1000 in one day. 

Female student-athletes experience more overt threats around betting outcomes

While the survey summary addressed rates of virtually based threats based on outcome for male tennis and basketball athletes, it did not call out that female student athletes, specifically female basketball team members, received more in-person threats on campus by other students. 

In DII and DIII athletes surveyed, those who played women's basketball ranked first over other sports in face-to-face gambling related comments on campus. This data sheds light on how peers and others view their right of accessibility to and blame of overall game outcome on male versus female student athletes. 

More male student-athletes reporting large one-day losses

While most student-athletes’ betting behaviors involve relatively low stakes, this 2024 survey showed more reported instances of large one-day losses. In 2016, only 2% of men reported single-day losses of $500+ gambling, while this year’s survey saw 5% of men report losses at that level in one day.

In the age of NIL and the transfer portal, one could argue that many college athletes have more disposable income nowadays for potential gambling than in 2016, but a jump from 2% to 5% is certainly worrying. 

Flaws of the new NCAA survey

Gambling in 2024 versus 2016, and its impact on self-reporting

The gambling landscape in the United States has changed drastically over the eight years between the latest 2024 survey and the previous version in 2016. There will soon be 39 states and Washington, D.C. offering some form of legalized sports betting, whereas in 2016 it was essentially just Nevada’s in-person casinos that had it. 

In the time since, online sports betting and casinos have exploded in popularity, while the NCAA’s rules and education efforts around it have also evolved. There have been multiple notable betting-related scandals in the sports world, including at the collegiate level. With that in mind, are survey respondents as willing to self-report breaking clear NCAA rules? Do they fully trust that their answers will remain anonymous and not get them in trouble?

Additionally, this survey includes athletes from 22 different sports – 11 each, men and women – but in 2016, betting lines were not widely (or at all) available for the majority of those sports. Outside of football and men’s basketball, odds were very rarely offered for most college sports nine years ago. 

Definition and types of gambling 

The NCAA report includes “playing the stock market” as one of their types of gambling in the survey. Although day trading can be dangerous and lead to a form of addiction, there is also an argument that, for many, investing in the stock market can be a prudent financial decision. If you make well-researched and informed trades of stocks, is that “playing” the stock market and a form of gambling? Or a smart mode of managing money? 

And in terms of fantasy sports, where is the line between fantasy and gambling? If there is a monetary entry fee for the fantasy league, does that make it gambling? But if there’s no entry fee, it’s not? Is all DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) gambling but season-long depends? 

Missing data from important 2020 time period

The NCAA survey is notably missing 2020 data due to COVID-19 and in-person testing limitations. This data would have been interesting to analyze from a student athletes perspective, based on a variety of other studies that found gambling and sports betting behavior increased during the pandemic and after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to legally operate sportsbooks.

There was also a major increase in online gambling and sports betting during this timeframe, which would not prohibit students who were learning from home to participate in betting and gambling activities at unprecedented rates. 

Survey limitations 

In fairness to the authors of this study, they admitted openly in the full report that there were notable limitations, including: 

• “Since survey sampling strategies were somewhat different in 2004 versus the other four administrations, several steps were taken to equate results as best possible in this report.”

• Regarding integrity questions, they admit:

  • “The study authors stress that the items described in this section, which ask student-athletes directly about contest fairness, be judged within a rigorous statistical context due to the difficulty in obtaining statistically reliable results from questions of this nature.”

  • “In our judgment, there are two main factors that lead to difficulties precisely estimating national percentages on these types of contest fairness items with low base rates. One factor may push the sample percentages higher, and the other could push them lower:

    • We see some item endorsement that we can determine statistically to be a likely insincere response. 

    • Despite lengths taken to ensure participant anonymity, people engaging in illegal or eligibility-jeopardizing activity may still perceive an extreme risk in honestly answering certain questions.”

  • “Any population estimate for a question with an extremely low base rate (e.g., only 1% to 2% of student-athletes endorsing) can easily be incorrect by a large relative margin due to the factors described above or to other research/statistical confounds.”

  • “It is difficult, if not impossible, to get a true point estimate of the percentage of Division I men’s basketball and football players involved in behaviors such as providing inside information, betting on their team’s own games or altering play for wagering purposes.”

• “More NCAA Division III schools are located in states with legal sports betting and mobile access to state sportsbooks.  

  • The mobile aspect is key as that appears to be how most NCAA athletes who gamble on sports (whether they meet the legal age minimum in the state) place their bets.”