Sports Betting Harassment Declines During NCAA 2025 March Madness Tournaments
The NCAA announced Tuesday that online abuse related to sports betting fell 23% during the men’s and women’s 2025 March Madness tournaments.
Signify Group provided the study’s data from its AI-powered monitoring service, Threat Matrix, which tracked activity across X, Instagram and TikTok.
The women’s tournament fueled much of the drop, as total abuse declined 83%, and abuse related to sports betting dropped 66%.
Total abuse increased 140% in the men’s tournament, though betting-related abuse fell 36%. Coaches, officials and selection committee members accounted for the increase.
NCAA President calls the issue a ‘priority’
Student-athletes have routinely found themselves on the receiving end of abuse as sports betting has risen to prominence throughout the decade. The NCAA began working with Signify in December 2023 to study the issue, respond to threats and provide support for student-athletes.
Signify’s 2025 report showed that 15% of all social media abuse directly targeted student-athletes. That number was down from 42% last year, a significant improvement.
“One of the first things student-athletes told me when I became NCAA president was that they were being harassed online by people who are following or betting on their games,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said. “From day one, it’s been a priority to study this issue, monitor the public interactions, protect student-athletes and allow them to focus on being students and competing at the highest level on the court with their teammates.”
Threat Matrix monitors over 1 million posts for abuse
Threat Matrix analyzed more than 1 million posts and comments mentioning players, teams, officials and stakeholders during March Madness. The coverage included accounts of:
- 2,032 players
- 346 coaches
- 136 teams
- 269 game officials and selection committee members
The monitoring flagged 54,096 posts throughout the tournament for further review. Signify human analysts found just 3,161 worthy of confirming as abusive or threatening.
Signify took further action, too. It reported these messages to their relevant social media platforms, conducted 103 investigations into threatening content and escalated 10 incidents to involve law enforcement.
“By supporting the NCAA in demonstrating that abusers can be identified and will be reported to law enforcement — where criminal thresholds are broken — it is possible to see a deterrent effect in play,” said Signify Group CEO Jonathan Hirshler.
Efforts and partnerships continue to progress
The NCAA has forged numerous partnerships to advance its efforts to combat sports betting abuse. It also upped the ante with multiple initiatives leading up to the 2025 tournament.
It launched the “Draw the Line” campaign, which called for fans to stop abusing players as a reaction to sports betting losses. The campaign included the “Don’t Be a Loser” initiative, an anti-harassment video launched during the tournament’s first round aimed at spreading awareness that one in three student-athletes received abusive messages in 2024.
The association also recently renewed long-term partnerships with EPIC Global Solutions and Genius Sports.
The EPIC partnership dates back to 2022 and focuses on providing betting harm education to all NCAA schools. It has helped educate over 100,000 student-athletes, coaches and administrators.
Following an April announcement, Genius will continue its collaboration with the NCAA through 2032. The entities are working to ban high-risk prop bets, some of the most prominent catalysts for players receiving threatening messages.
Sports betting abuse still prominent for student-athletes
More work remains to protect student-athletes from harassment and to prevent the activity from occurring. Even with numbers down overall, total abuse grew this year for the men’s tournament, something it must address moving forward.
In addition to providing the data above, Threat Matrix can protect players with an automated Direct Message system. One player, Mississippi State’s Chandler Prater, used the service to help manage the harassment she received after her team lost a one-sided regional final matchup to Southern California.
These resources are only the beginning, too. Hirshler added that Signify “will continue to expand the layers of protection available to its athletes and wider community, such as DM support, in the months ahead.”
“Online abuse isn’t an issue the NCAA can solve on its own, so it’s been critical to form strong relationships with a variety of stakeholders to make progress,” said Clint Hangebrauck, NCAA managing director of enterprise risk management. “While the data shows some progress has been made in areas of focus, there is clearly still a lot of collaborative work to be done to create a better environment for our student-athletes and other NCAA stakeholders.”
