NCAA can’t keep tournament games away from legal gambling

March 19, 2019 Updated Tue., March 19, 2019 at 9:39 p.m.

By Ben Nuckols Associated Press

WASHINGTON – As the NCAA prepares for its first basketball championships since the Supreme Court allowed legal sports betting to expand, the body governing college sports remains opposed to gambling on its events. But it’s not denying reality, either.

The NCAA had a longtime ban on bringing championships to places where sports wagers were legal. That was suspended last year in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to end an effective monopoly for Nevada. Three women’s tournament games will be played this weekend in Mississippi, where people have been betting on college sports since last summer, and men’s Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games will be played next week in Washington at Capital One Arena, which could have a full-service onsite sportsbook by this time next year.

Future NCAA Tournament games are scheduled in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Providence, Rhode Island, near casinos taking sports bets, while two-thirds of predetermined sites for the men’s tournament this year and next year are in states that have considered bills to legalize wagers.

The NCAA is still trying to figure how to acknowledge the spread of legal bets. It could ask for a ban on all gambling-related advertisements during its events, or even demand that any onsite sportsbooks developed be temporarily closed. But it won’t be moving future events out of states or arenas where gambling is legal, because gambling-free zones are likely to become fewer and fewer.

“We anticipate that probably by 2020 or 2021 there will be potentially 30 states that are allowing sports wagering,” said Joni Comstock, the NCAA’s senior vice president for championships. “We’re going to have to work in the environment that we have.”

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