NCAA Joins the Bad Actor Program to Help Betting Platforms Ban Abusive Bettors

The NCAA will report people who abuse college athletes online to a shared programme that sportsbooks and prediction exchanges can use to close their accounts. It is the first sport governing body to say so publicly, and it moves the fight over bettor harassment from campaigns to account enforcement.

• The NCAA said on 29 October that it is taking part in the Bad Actor Program, run by Integrity Compliance 360 (IC360) and Signify Group, and is the first sport governing body to announce participation publicly
• The programme monitors social media for abuse of athletes, coaches and officials, investigates serious cases and shares verified offenders with participating betting platforms, which can suspend or ban them
• Fanatics Sportsbook was the first operator to join in June, and the prediction exchanges Kalshi and Novig announced their participation in October
• NCAA research found sports betting directly linked to 12% of verified abuse at its championships, rising to 19% in men's basketball
• The move sits alongside state action such as Massachusetts' exclusion list for bettors who harass athletes

The NCAA Will Feed Abuse Reports Into a Shared Ban List

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced on 29 October that it is "actively engaged" in the Bad Actor Program, according to its release. The association says it is working with Signify, IC360 and other stakeholders "to aggressively pursue and report identified abusers" as part of its monitoring of NCAA Championships. The release does not say when referrals begin, how many people have been reported, or whether any accounts have yet been closed.

The programme was launched on 25 June by IC360, Signify Group and Fanatics Sportsbook, according to Fanatics. Signify's Threat Matrix service scans platforms including X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, and athletes and officials can also forward abusive direct messages. Analysts rank incidents by severity and investigate the serious ones, and verified individuals are placed on IC360's ProhiBet Bad Actor platform, where participating sportsbooks can restrict their betting. Evidence packs go to law enforcement where conduct appears criminal, Fanatics says. Fanatics committed to suspend or permanently close the accounts of customers found to have engaged in abusive, threatening, defamatory or harassing conduct.

"Athlete harassment has no place in college sports," NCAA President Charlie Baker said in the release. "The NCAA is committed to working with stakeholders across the sports betting ecosystem to eradicate this horrific behavior that plagues sports far too often." Clint Hangebrauck, the NCAA's managing director of enterprise risk management, said the association looks forward to "leveraging the Bad Actor Program to strengthen accountability."

The Programme Now Spans Sportsbooks and Prediction Exchanges

Two federally regulated exchanges joined shortly before the NCAA. Kalshi said on 14 October that it would take part, close accounts of users found responsible for abuse or threats, and adopt a new exchange rule prohibiting them; IC360 technology checks whether identified individuals hold Kalshi accounts. On 19 October IC360 said Novig was adopting its Bad Actor technology, under which "confirmed offenders and fraudsters are added to a centralized, encrypted registry" shared across participating platforms.

The NCAA's figures come from its own work with Signify, which began in 2023. Its first online abuse study identified more than 5,000 verified abusive, discriminatory or threatening posts aimed at championship participants, the release says; 80% targeted March Madness participants, and one athlete received more than 1,400 abusive messages in under two weeks. Its 2025 GOALS study found 46% of Division I men's basketball players had received negative or threatening messages from someone who had bet on their game.

The NCAA Has Moved From Asking for Accountability to Supplying It

In January the NCAA asked state gambling commissions to eliminate college player prop bets and to impose stricter accountability on bettors who harass student-athletes, noting that only Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio and Vermont regulators had banned those props since 2024. With most states still offering the bets, a voluntary ban list is the lever the NCAA can pull without waiting for regulators. In New York, Senator Jeremy Zellner has proposed a task force on prop bets that would examine, among other things, bettor harassment of athletes.

Voluntary Enforcement Has Reach but Not Due Process

The programme's strength is that one finding can follow a bettor across operators and, now, across the state and federal divide between sportsbooks and event contract exchanges. Its weakness is that it rests on each platform's terms of service. In Massachusetts, by contrast, a bettor excluded by the regulator is notified and has 30 days to appeal. None of the releases describes how a listed person can contest a finding, what evidence threshold applies, or how long a listing lasts.

Coverage Depends on Who Signs Up

Matt King, chief executive of Fanatics Betting and Gaming, urged other operators to join in June, but the releases behind the programme name only one sportsbook, Fanatics, alongside two exchanges. Abuse of college athletes is spread across every platform that takes bets on college games, so a list honoured by a few operators leaves gaps. The NCAA's integrity problems run wider still, as the first sentence in the point-shaving case shows, but harassment is the area where platform data can act fastest.

The NCAA has given the programme its most credible referral source yet. Its value will be measured by how many operators honour the list, and whether anyone publishes how often it is used.