Purdue students are soon going to be banned from betting on their school’s athletic teams.
Sports betting was legalized in Indiana on Sept. 1. And in response to that legalization, Purdue is instituting a prohibition on Boilermaker betting. The school’s board of trustees unanimously passed a measure on Thursday that would prohibit any employee or student of the school from betting on Purdue games.
The ban could be in effect as soon as next week ahead of Purdue’s game at Iowa, though there are still some things that need to be worked out. From the Lafayette Courier Journal:
The policy approved [Thursday] morning came with instructions to Purdue legal and compliance staff to hash out the final guidelines, including how the policy would be enforced, the penalties and what it would mean for betting on March Madness pools and other more casual, social settings.
Steve Schultz, Purdue’s legal counsel, said that wouldn’t be ready in time for Saturday’s Homecoming football game against Maryland. But it should be ready, he said, by the football game the following week.
Per WLFI, staff who are caught betting on games could face termination while sanctions for students are still being developed. But how is Purdue going to catch people in the first place? What’s going to stop a Purdue student or faculty member from going to a sports book or logging on from a computer that’s not on Purdue’s network and placing a bet? It’s not like sports books ask for school IDs of those legally placing bets.
Rutgers faculty and students are banned from betting on their school in New Jersey. But that’s because New Jersey sports books are barred from setting odds on the Scarlet Knights and any college event taking place in New Jersey. A similar statewide rule is pretty draconian but makes a lot more sense than a university-level ban if university-affiliated people placing bets on their school’s sports teams is such a big deal.
In case you were wondering, Purdue’s football team is 2-3 against the spread in 2019.
Rule based on St. Joseph’s University ban
The Purdue ban is the first in the Big Ten and perhaps a first among the schools that compete at the top level of college football. It was based on a rule in place at St. Joseph’s University that bans all of those affiliated with the school from betting on the school’s games.
But St. Joseph’s is a private school. It’s more incongruent to see a public university like Purdue take such swift action to ban something that was recently legalized in the state. Indiana’s law that went into effect this spring already banned those on sports teams or associated with sports teams in the state from betting on their athletic contests.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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