COLUMBIA, Mo.- Downtown bars and nightclubs were already starting to fill during the second half of a recent Thursday Night Football game between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. College-age patrons of Columbia’s dozen or so bars along East Broadway mingled and meandered between $2 domestic beers and $5 well liquor “buckets.”
In each bar, pockets of 20-somethings, all male, huddled together, eyes glued to the TVs. The Bills were up 31-10 at the start of the fourth quarter. There was no obvious connection between the two teams that play their home games in stadiums located roughly 1,000 miles away and the local college, as neither the Bills nor Dolphins roster a single player from the University of Missouri.
But the pre-game betting total Over had not been reached. Countless player props were still to be determined.
“Everyone I know bets,” a University of Missouri student who wished to remain anonymous told Covers while waiting for drinks at Harpo’s Bar & Grill, a rowdy, multi-story student watering hole in the heart of downtown. He said he's the only exception, and that only started this fall when he took a position on the football team support staff.
Sports Betting in College
“Everyone” is not placing bets at the University of Missouri (colloquially known as “Mizzou”). But along certain parts of campus, that may not be the case.
On the Friday afternoon following the Bills’ win, between plans for Homecoming socials with Chi Omega and the evening’s return to the bars, brothers at the Delta Chi fraternity house were still razzing each other about their bets on the previous night.
“Nine out of ten guys at Mizzou bet,” said Hanks, a Delta Chi brother who asked to be identified by his first name.
A loose survey of the house made it seem closer to 10 out of 10. Brothers indicated that of the more than 120 active members, only a few handouts didn’t place multiple wagers a week. Those who didn’t mostly did so because they had lost too much betting recently… but would probably start betting again at some point.
The Mizzou Delta Chi House reflects a larger trend in Missouri and nationwide. Recent polling for a ballot measure that would allow Missouri voters to legalize sports betting sees its strongest support among young men. Nationwide, publicly released sportsbook data and surveys indicate sports bettors are predominantly male as well as younger, more educated, and higher earners than the national average.
In environments that reflect these demographics such as college campuses – and especially fraternity houses – sports betting is seemingly unavoidable.
No shortage of gambling options
In Missouri’s major metro areas of Kansas City of St. Louis, legal betting options across state lines are more a minor inconvenience than an insurmountable impediment. There are no neighboring states within a two-hour drive of Columbia. Seven of the eight states bordering Missouri have legal betting but none are practical commutes, especially to place bets, for Mid-Missouri residents.
Betting on the other side of Missouri; I placed this bet in Kansas maybe 20-30 yards from the Missouri line pic.twitter.com/N03P7NjcAJ
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) September 17, 2024
Like other eligible voters, Mizzou students 18 and older registered to vote in Missouri will be able to legalize statewide mobile sports betting on their ballots this fall. Even if approved, they still won’t be able to legally bet until they’re 21.
In any scenario, Mizzou students won’t lack gambling options.
The classic image of the underground bookie handling stacks of cash has largely faded, especially from the younger generations (“The only person I know who uses a bookie is my ‘uncle’ who isn’t really my uncle,” Hanks said.) Instead, Millennial and Gen Z bettors without legal wagering options are turning to one or more of the hundreds of readily available unregulated offshore sites.
Though some major offshore operators are leaving certain states after legal threats from regulators, there are still ample opportunities to place wagers through a sportsbook located halfway around the world. Many bettors don’t even realize they’re breaking the law with each wager.
The offshore market has been the main adversary targeted by the American Gaming Association (AGA) and other regulated gambling industry advocacy groups since the Supreme Court struck down the federal wagering ban six years ago. They stress these operators don’t pay taxes, nor offer customer or problem gambling protections required by legal books.
In the absence of a federal crackdown, there is limited action states can take beyond the cease and desist letters regulators have sent (with varying degrees of success). More than a hundred billion dollars will be wagered in the U.S. legally this year but tens of billions more will be wagered with offshore sites.
At Mizzou, daily fantasy prop sites such as Underdog and Fliff are also popular, students say. Like DraftKings and FanDuel’s original daily fantasy sports offerings more than a decade ago, these games have been allowed to operate in most states but questions remain about their legality. Industry stakeholders believe these games could become increasingly scrutinized like the original DFS platforms before them.
As regulators begin to tackle these pick ’em-style games that focus on professional sports, there are still concerns about regulated sportsbook prop bets for college competitions.
College bets still controversial
American college sports hold a unique place in the global wagering landscape as the only “amateur” competitions that drive hundreds of thousands of fans (and billions of dollars in revenue) to and from their competitions every weekend. Even with the expanded opportunities for college athletes to earn income through sponsorships, college betting remains a controversial subject.
Almost all 38 states with legal sportsbooks restrict some college wagering, mostly around individual player props; bettors can wager on a university team to win their game but not how many yards the quarterback will throw for. These prop prohibitions stem from fears that ostensibly amateur, “unpaid” college athletes would be more willing to compromise the integrity of the game than a legally compensated professional.
A handful of states including Virginia, New Jersey, and Illinois have banned all wagers on in-state college teams. In Missouri neighbor Nebraska, bets can't be placed on in-state college teams when they play home games.
Missouri’s sports betting ballot measure would allow bets on Mizzou athletics and other in-state teams but prohibit individual prop wagers.
State and now federal lawmakers have increased pushes for a nationwide college prop betting ban. In September, Congress introduced a sweeping federal sports betting regulatory framework that, among other restrictions, bans college prop bets.
The AGA on the federal sports betting bill: "... introducing heavy-handed federal prohibitions is a slap in the face to state legislatures and gaming regulators who have dedicated countless time and resources to developing thoughtful frameworks unique to their jurisdictions..."
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) September 12, 2024
Opponents, including the AGA, argue these restrictions lead players back to the offshore markets and that the protections offered by the legal market are the only way to monitor illicit gambling activity on college games.
Industry stakeholders have noted it was a regulated book that caught nefarious betting activity on a 2023 University of Alabama baseball game that led to coach Brad Bohannon’s termination. Legal sportsbook regulations also identified bets placed by former NBA player Jontay Porter (the brother of former Mizzou basketball star Michael Porter) on himself to fall short of his posted prop totals.
Still, illicit – or simply immoral – gambling activity has been around college sports since well before the legalization of sports betting outside Nevada – and will remain so.
A group of University of Iowa and Iowa State University athletes were investigated for illegal gambling last year. Notre Dame suspended its men’s swimming program in August after athletes bet on the performances of their teammates. Earlier this month, Auburn Quarterback Payton Thorne said he received payment requests through social media from gamblers asking him to pay them back for their losses.
For college students such as Hanks, these behaviors are unacceptable and isolated. Though these instances take place at Mizzou athletics, the vast majority of these athletes’ fellow students resent those who try to harass them or complain about bets.
“There's a strong feeling that there's just that one group and everybody else hates that one group of people that talk s---,” Hanks said. “There’s a stigma against those people.”
Betting here to stay
Scandals continue to threaten the proliferation of legal sports betting, or at the very least its growing relationship with American athletics. It appears no action can stop its spread on college campuses and nationwide.
There are countless sports fans in college towns like Columbia enrolled in prestigious top-level college programs. They largely agree conversations have shifted from wins and losses to covers and underdogs.
This didn’t stop a sell-out crowd from a recent Top 25 football matchup between the Tigers and Boston College. It won’t keep fans from attending Mizzou’s men’s basketball opener, even coming off its worst season in program history.
But the legalization of sports betting across most of the country, and the accompanying acceptance of gambling, has imprinted onto the culture. Betting, legal or otherwise, is now part of the experience for fans and especially college students, said Adam Feiner, assistant sports editor at the Columbia Missourian.
“When you go to Harpo’s, all you hear is talk about parlays coming from the other tables.”
