NCAA launches partnership to crack down on gambling-related abuse

The NCAA has secured a new partnership with Signify Group, and the latter’s Threat Matrix, an AI service that is designed to help analyze online behavior and ultimately protect stakeholders from gambling-related abuse.

The partnership comes at a time of heightened interest in college sports, as more states are allowing residents to wager on the outcome of college games, and as more people are taking to social media to vent that they have lost wagers on a certain game.

Now, the NCAA wants to ensure that student-athletes, coaches, officials, and committee members are all shielded from the increasing torrent of hatred that spills over social media channels and is often motivated by gambling losses, resulting in abuse.

Thanks to Threat Matrix, the NCAA will be able to run trials during the 2023-24 NCAAChampions and establish a good baseline as to how common the issue is and what can be done to further guarantee the well-being and mental health of student-athletes first.

The organization similarly worked with EPIC Risk Management, now EPIC Global Solutions, to educate students on the dangers of gambling.

The solution will offer monitoring, detection, and analysis of the levels of abuse and threat. This tracking is carried out in more than 35 languages and images as well as emojis can also be factored as part of this abuse.

Threat Matrix will empower the NCAA to have a very targeted approach in dealing with the matter and be able to quickly and reliably contact social media platforms to request the takedown of abusive content for one. It will also make it easier for the NCAA to understand how online abuse and threats work in college sports and what can be done to best curtail this behavior, but importantly, shield student-athletes.

Charlie Baker, NCAA President, has already spoken about the importance of ensuring that student-athletes are indeed protected from this type of behavior in the first place. He said that the organization’s commitment will always remain on athlete safety and well-being.

"This pilot is just the start of much broader online protection measures the NCAA will put in place to guide our longer-term strategy in this crucial space," Baker confirmed. The NCAA has also been looking to tackle issues related to gambling in its midst, with the organization addressing student betting for one.

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