The first time John Henson got any grief from a bettor during his stellar collegiate and NBA career, he was naïve enough that he didn’t really understand what was happening.
“I remember I got one message about gambling, I didn’t even know what he was talking about, until years later I realized and went ‘Oh!,’” Henson said. “We were playing Washington, I want to say we’re going to win by three or four and I was being a jerk, so someone shot a three at the end and I knew it wasn’t going to matter and I tried to goaltend it. Obviously now I know about gambling, but the dude messaged me like ‘What the F are you doing? I’m gonna whoop your ass.’ He was so upset.”
Henson starred for the powerhouse UNC Tar Heels, then spent eight years in the league with Milwaukee, Cleveland and Detroit. He is now an analyst and commentator for Odds Shark, and of course much more in tune with wagering.
Wyoming Bans Athlete Harassment
The recent move by the Wyoming Gaming Commission to put anyone found guilty of athlete harassment on the state's involuntary exclusion list sparked a chat with Henson about athletes and gambling.
“I came up when social media was starting to take shape, and I got some crazy messages, I literally had to have the Cavs call the police on someone who was just talking crazy, I can’t even imagine how it is now. It’s just part of the game, it’s how it goes, unfortunately,” said Henson, who, although he is often still in arenas, doesn’t hear a lot of chat about harassment. “It’s not discussed a lot, it’s more so it just comes with the territory.”
The Wyoming decision aligns the state with Ohio and West Virginia, which have regulations in place to penalize harassers, and followed NCAA lobbying for prop bets involving college athletics to be banned.
Other entities feel a ban on prop bets wouldn’t eliminate them, just send them offshore. And Wyoming sport commissioners say the crux of the problem isn’t betting itself, but gamblers who harass athletes, coaches and officials involved in sporting events.
“When I was in school, we were good, obviously, so we never got harassed, it was always love. We’re students, right, so we never got harassed on campus. I was a Tar Heel, they’re Tar Heels, we win together, we lose together. We were number one in the country two years in a row, there wasn’t much to be mad about. For the most part, being on campus was fun, I never got harassed at school,” said Henson, who recognizes times have changed and that NIL and pay for play have opened a Pandora’s box. “In Division 1 basketball, there could be 60, 70 games on a day, so there’s no way to really regulate it. So, Timmy from North Dakota State, his under is three and a half and he hammers his own under, who’s going to be able to put a stop to it?”
What classifies as athlete harassment?
The Wyoming involuntary exclusion list has on it people the state has banned from betting for a variety of reasons, and is available to all operators, who can use it to deny bets. The Wyoming Gaming Commission defines harassment as “verbal threats, written threats, electronic threats, lewd or obscene statements or images.”
Prop bets on college sports are worth $200 million annually. There are 13 U.S. states with bans on prop bet in place, with Maryland, Vermont, and Ohio putting them in place following NCAA lobbying, and joining Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Asked if college athletes feel the NCAA can protect them from harassment, Henson openly scoffed.
“The NCAA is definitely less relevant nowadays. When I was in school, it was starting to become a little bit – we called it a scam when I was in school,” he said, adding that athletes at big schools are less at risk from harassment, both because they have more NIL money to spend and because they’re part of more sophisticated athletic departments. “One hundred per cent. If you’re at Kentucky, or another blue blood school, or a Power Five school, it’s a lot easier to turn down that kind of inquiry. First of all, obviously there’s money being made that’s pretty significant, and also, you do not want to be the guy that got caught betting on Kentucky or UNC or Duke or UCLA, you don’t want to be the guy, it’ll be a wrap for you in all basketball circles.”
On the other hand, make money while you can, Henson says, questioning whether the current model of college athletics can sustain itself, or is like a gold rush that is soon over.
“I just don’t think there’s enough money to go around,” he said. “With respect to, say, a Towson state versus Sam Houston basketball game, if a kid needs money and is tipping off someone, it can happen, that’s the nature of the beast. We’ve seen a couple of college programs getting investigated, inquiries opened up on their games. There’s no way to stop it, you just try to contain it, educate people on it, but like the black market, any illicit trade, it’s going to happen.”