House Education Subcommittee to Examine Sports Gambling on College Campuses

A House panel that oversees higher education, not gambling, will spend Wednesday morning on student betting. Its four witnesses are three campus health and prevention specialists and one state regulator, with no operator, league or NCAA voice on the list.

• The House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, chaired by Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah, will hold a hearing titled "The Rise of Sports Gambling on College Campuses" at 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 November
• The witness list, posted on 9 November, names University of Michigan chief mental health officer Lindsey Mortenson, University of Mississippi associate professor Daniel Durkin, Ohio State prevention director Cindy Clouner and Massachusetts Gaming Commission chair Jordan Maynard
• Maynard is the only regulator on the panel, and his commission runs the Bet on Respect exclusion list for bettors who harass athletes
• As of 9 November no written testimony had been posted, so the notice, the witness biographies and the Owens announcement are the only official guide to the agenda
• The hearing follows the Senate's move on a college sports bill that names event contracts and the NCAA's entry into a shared ban list for abusive bettors

An Education Panel, Not a Gambling One, Takes Up Student Betting

The Committee on Education and Workforce published the hearing notice on 4 November. It says the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development will hold a hearing titled "The Rise of Sports Gambling on College Campuses" at 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 November, in 2175 Rayburn House Office Building, open to the public and live-streamed. A committee release on 5 November confirmed the subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican. The committee's subcommittee roster lists Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina as ranking member.

The House clerk's committee repository added four witnesses at 11:07 a.m. on 9 November. Neither the notice nor the release describes the hearing's purpose beyond its title, and no written testimony had been posted to the repository as of 9 November.

Three Campus Health Specialists and One Regulator

Lindsey Mortenson is Chief Mental Health Officer and Executive Director of University Health and Counseling at the University of Michigan, and a practising physician who cares for students in the campus psychiatry clinic, according to her biography. Cindy Clouner is Managing Director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drug Misuse Prevention and Recovery at The Ohio State University; her biography says she led development of the You Bet? gambling harm reduction programme.

Daniel Durkin, an associate professor of social work at the University of Mississippi who has chaired the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, helped start a statewide study of student gambling and the university's Center on Collegiate Gambling, his biography says. The university reported in September 2025 that the study, covering seven Mississippi universities, found 39% of students had gambled in the past year and 16% had bet on sports. Of the sports bettors, 6% met American Psychiatric Association criteria for problem gambling and 10% were at moderate risk.

Jordan Maynard has chaired the Massachusetts Gaming Commission since October 2024. His biography highlights the commission's work with the state Attorney General's Youth Sports Betting Safety Coalition on underage wagering.

The Panel Points to a Health Framing, Not a Market One

The line-up suggests the subcommittee will treat student betting as a campus health question: screening, counselling and prevention. That is a different conversation from the July hearing on sports prediction markets in a House Agriculture subcommittee, which centred on market integrity. No sportsbook, league or NCAA official is listed, so any criticism of operators will not be answered from the witness table. The likeliest asks are federal support for screening and prevention on campus, the kind of programmes Clouner and Durkin describe running.

The Mississippi Data Is a Warning About Prohibition

Durkin's study comes from a state where mobile sports betting is not legal. The university reported that 57% of student sports bettors still bet online through a sportsbook in the US or Canada, and 36% saw sports betting adverts daily. Put to the subcommittee, that figure cuts against the idea that keeping mobile betting illegal keeps students out. It also hands licensed operators an argument for regulated access, and a vulnerability over cross-border advertising reach.

Maynard Brings Enforcement Experience, But Little Federal Leverage

Maynard can describe tools a state regulator already has, from the Massachusetts exclusion list for bettors who harass athletes to youth education with the Attorney General's coalition. The subcommittee's remit is higher education, so a recommendation from this hearing would most naturally land on universities rather than sportsbooks, unless members carry it into the Senate's college sports bill if that reaches the House.

Congress is now looking at student betting through a health lens as well as an integrity one. Whether Wednesday produces more than a record will depend on what the four witnesses ask members to fund or change.