How Sports Betting Corrupts College Athletics and Exploits Student-Athletes

Gambling,

Sports betting is corrupting college athletics and putting student-athletes at risk of harassment, bribery, and exploitation.

Federal prosecutors recently announced major indictments in college sports betting corruption. On January 15, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI unsealed indictments against 26 people in connection with an alleged bribery and point-shaving scheme to fix NCAA basketball games.

The scheme involved “fixers” who recruited NCAA players to help ensure their teams failed to cover the spread. Players were offered bribe payments ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game to participate in the scheme.

The NCAA has opened investigations into dozens of student-athletes across 20 schools for sports betting violations over the past year. Twelve have already been permanently banned from competition. Many cases involve wagering on individual prop bets and first half under spread markets.

It’s now almost routine for the NCAA to announce player suspensions for student-athletes who colluded to bet on one another. Basketball players may scheme to help each other win bets by, for example, missing free throws or scoring fewer points than expected in some games.

Student-athletes face constant harassment from bettors. A recent NCAA study found that 36% of Division I men’s basketball players reported harassment from bettors on social media. When gamblers miss their bets, they often blame the athletes.

The NCAA is calling for immediate action to protect players. NCAA President Charlie Baker recently urged state gambling commissions to eliminate player prop bets and other high-risk bets that target student-athletes. “Player prop bets attach an individual student-athlete’s name to a bet and therefore increase the likelihood of betting harassment being targeted toward that student-athlete,” Baker wrote in a letter to state gambling commissions.

Besides the NCAA, recent news stories show that Major League Baseball, the NFL, and the NBA have all dealt with serious corruption in the wake of sports betting’s legalization.

Sports betting destroys what makes sports special. People play and watch sports for entertainment, athletic competition, and team spirit. When gambling is introduced, fans have a financial stake in the game, and athletes have an incentive to change how they play. Officials may be tempted to cheat, and fans forget why they enjoyed sports in the first place. All of that is a problem.

Sports betting is not a harmless pastime. As powerful corporations try to make gambling part of everyday life, it’s important for Arkansas to protect citizens and families from predatory gambling. Otherwise, problem gambling will simply hurt more and more people in our state.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Oklahoma Authorities Seize Illicit Marijuana in Raid

Marijuana
Above: Marijuana seized during a February 10 operation in Oklahoma. Photo Credit: Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

Last week the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics’ Marijuana Enforcement Teams seized 10,656 illicit marijuana plants and 296 pounds of processed marijuana at an illegal grow site.

News outlets report that the operation involved joint efforts from several local, state, and federal agencies — including the DEA and ICE.

There is evidence that Oklahoma’s lax marijuana laws have actually emboldened drug cartels and contributed to the spread of illegal marijuana on the black market.

Authorities have raided illicit grow sites in Oklahoma in the past, and Arkansas State Police routinely confiscate illegal marijuana from Oklahoma.

There is also evidence that legal marijuana in Oklahoma is often diverted to the black market. Law enforcement around the country alleges 40% of America’s black market marijuana has come from legal grow sites in Oklahoma. Over a twelve-month period, authorities say more than 85 million pounds of marijuana in Oklahoma went unaccounted for—meaning tens of millions of pounds of marijuana grown legally may have been sold illegally on the black market in just one year.

Oklahoma isn’t the only state dealing with unintended consequences from legalization. California has seized more than $1.2 billion in illegal cannabis since 2022. In Maine, authorities have said there are hundreds of illegal growing operations connected to Chinese organized crime groups. These operations often involve serious crimes like labor trafficking and wage theft.

All of this underscores what we have said for years: Marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Fortune 500 Companies Abandon Pro-LGBT Pandering

LGBT, ,

The tide continues to turn against corporate pro-LGBT activism.

Evidence shows that Fortune 500 companies are fleeing the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index in record numbers. The pro-LGBT organization’s 2026 index lost a whopping 65% of its Fortune 500 participants, dropping from 377 companies in 2025 to just 131 this year.

The Washington Stand traces this shift back to the 2023, when Anheuser-Busch sent transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney a novelty can of Bud Light with Mulvaney’s picture on it. Mulvaney posted a video of himself dressed like Audrey Hepburn showcasing the Bud Light can — which led to backlash and boycotts from Bud Light drinkers nationwide. The company’s subsequent P.R. backpedaling simply managed to offend customers and LGBT activists alike.

That novelty can of Bud Light ended up costing the company more than $1 billion in lost sales, and the brand has never fully recovered.

Seeing a brand like Bud Light singlehandedly overthrow itself as America’s bestselling beer caught the corporate world’s attention. Since then, many major corporations have reduced their LGBT themed marketing, rolled back pro-LGBT policies, and stopped participating in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

It’s worth pointing out that HRC’s Corporate Equality Index puts some heavy requirements on businesses that participate. To get a perfect score on the index, companies must agree to demands like covering the cost of gender-transition procedures for employees and their families, forcing workers to undergo ideological training, opening restrooms to both sexes, and so forth.

Many companies established Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies to create an equal playing field for racial and ethnic minorities, but it did not take long for pro-LGBT groups like HRC to hijack those policies. We have written repeatedly about how DEI initiatives have been used to promote critical race theory and other leftwing ideologies

It’s obvious that corporate DEI initiatives and pro-LGBT pandering are deeply out-of-step with everyday Americans. These are flawed ideologies that do not ensure individuals are valued, heard, or included. Employees who hold biblical views of marriage or gender risk losing their jobs in workplaces that have adopted DEI policies. None of that is good for our economy or our country.

It’s good to see Corporate America retreating from the kind of pro-LGBT activism that groups like the Human Rights Campaign promote.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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