From the HERE City National Desk
INDIANAPOLIS — College athletes who get threatened online by angry bettors have a new line of defense after the NCAA said Thursday it has signed on to the Bad Actor Program, an effort to track down abusers and cut off their access to sportsbooks.
According to the association, no other sports governing body had publicly joined before it. The program was built by the integrity firm Integrity Compliance 360, known as IC360, and the data company Signify Group, with Fanatics Sportsbook signed up as the first betting operator partner.
Here is how it works. Analysts watch social media for abusive, harassing or threatening posts aimed at athletes, coaches and officials, then investigate to identify the people behind the accounts. Verified cases and the individuals tied to them go into a shared database, and participating sportsbooks can use that information to take action against those customers, up to banning them.
NCAA President Charlie Baker said harassment of athletes has no place in college sports and that the association wants to work across the betting industry to stamp it out.
The move grows out of championship monitoring the NCAA started with Signify three years ago. Its first review of that work, published in 2024, flagged upward of 5,000 confirmed hateful or threatening posts directed at people competing in title events. Wagering was the direct trigger in 12% of those cases, rising to 19% in men’s basketball.
The burden fell unevenly. Eight in 10 confirmed cases hit March Madness competitors, women’s basketball players faced roughly triple the threats seen by their male counterparts, and a single athlete was sent over 1,400 hostile messages inside of two weeks.
In a separate 2025 survey, just over half of Division I men’s basketball players, 51%, reported online abuse over how they played, and 46% said a bettor had sent them hostile or threatening messages about a game.
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