The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, together with their players associations, have urged gambling regulators in New Jersey and 34 other states, as well as Washington, D.C., to impose permanent betting bans on people who threaten or abusively harass athletes and team personnel.
The joint letter calls for licensed sportsbooks and mobile operators to permanently revoke wagering privileges from people verified to have made violent threats or engaged in abusive harassment against professional or amateur athletes, coaches, officials, staff or their families. It also seeks a standardised reporting system through which leagues, teams, players and unions could submit verified evidence to regulators and law enforcement, potentially for statewide exclusion lists.
The leagues said bettors who lose wagers too often direct threatening messages at players, coaches and relatives through social media and in person. “The safety and well-being of players, coaches, officials and their families must always come before a wager,” the letter said.
The proposal would make sportsbooks responsible for identifying, flagging and banning accounts linked to abusive conduct as a condition of holding state licences. It also argues that exclusions imposed in one state should be recognised elsewhere. Ohio, West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming already exclude so-called bad actors from licensed sportsbooks and mobile betting applications.
New Jersey already has a proposal addressing gambling-related harassment, although it has not become law. Senate Bill 3375, introduced Feb. 5, would make it a fourth-degree crime to harass an athlete at, or near, a sanctioned sports event when the conduct stems from the athlete’s performance and the harasser’s gambling loss or adverse outcome. The offence would be elevated to a third-degree crime when the athlete is a school or college student.
The bill would impose a lifetime wagering exclusion after a second or subsequent harassment conviction, or following an assault conviction arising from the same conduct. Pennsylvania lawmakers have not put forward comparable legislation.
The appeal comes amid evidence of betting-related abuse reaching college athletes. An NCAA study found that 36% of Division I men’s basketball student-athletes reported social-media abuse related to sports betting in the preceding year. Among Football Bowl Subdivision football players, 16% reported negative or threatening messages.
The survey drew nearly 6,800 voluntary and confidential responses from 153 Division I schools. It also found that 29% of men’s basketball players and 26% of FBS football players had interacted with a student who had bet on their team. The NCAA has urged states and operators since 2023 to remove college player-proposition bets.
As covered in June, Fanatics has already launched a programme using social-media monitoring and IC360’s ProhiBet platform to help participating sportsbooks restrict or suspend accounts linked to threats and harassment.
The letter was not joined by major women’s leagues or unions. The WNBA’s executive director, Terri Carmichael Jackson, said it was “deeply disappointing” that WNBA players were not included despite public incidents involving betting-related harassment, while the NWSL Players Association backed protections for athletes in both men’s and women’s sports.
