The Texas Longhorns football team is in hot water after the University of Texas’s Athletics Department self-reported five people for breaching NCAA rules about participating in daily fantasy competitions. The Austin American-Statesman first reported that the unnamed individuals spent almost $15,000 on the PrizePicks app.
NCAA athletes, coaches, and staff members are not allowed use these types of platforms
While the app is legal in Texas, NCAA athletes, coaches, and staff members are not allowed to use these types of platforms due to game integrity concerns.
Two of the culprits were football players and after discovering the issue, the school made one of the players donate his winnings to charity, while the other, who spent $9,600, left the program and is receiving help for a gambling addiction. Fans on social media speculated about who the latter might be after looking at the departures during the offseason.
The other three people, who were not athletes, included a student assistant who placed bets on games involving his own team. He has since been fired.
There has been a raft of similar violations from other colleges recently; the NCAA said that it received approximately 100 self-reported violations last year. The University of Texas learned about the breaches through the ProhiBet service, which compares online gambling site registrations with the personal data of people involved in sports programs.