Prop bets: gamblers can lay money on if a basketball player will score more or less points, if the first touchdown in a football game will come on a pass or a run, almost anything you can think of. But it also opens up the possibility that an athlete can try to influence the betting outcome.
Starting August 1, licensed Louisiana sports books will no longer offer prop bets involving a college athletes.
"We want to protect the integrity of sports betting, but, even more important than that, we want to protect the integrity of the student-athlete and college athletics as a whole," said Louisiana Gaming Control Board Chairman Ronnie Johns.
Johns said that in addition to worries about student athletes taking deliberate action to influence prop bets, there are also worries about the athletes' safety from angry losing bettors.
"Some of these bettors get very angry," Johns said. "They lash out at these athletes. They threaten them. ANd no student-athlete should be subjected to that just because they didn't perform to the expectation of a bettor."
Prop bets can still be made on college teams, and prop bets in professional sports are unaffected.
Johns said they were working on this even before the NCAA asked states to restrict prop bets on individual athletes, and states such as Vermont, Ohio, and Maryland are also moving to restrict prop bets on college athletes.
"This is a conversation that's going on all over the country, so I think you're going to see roll-outs in the next few weeks of orders from a lot of states that have sports betting," Johns said.
