The National Collegiate Athletic Association (or NCAA) has asked for assistance from senators in Washington to help push for federal sports betting legislation. Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Senator Chuck Schumer have both committed to helping the NCAA and have said that they will be drafting a federal sports betting bill together.
This is not the first time that efforts have been made to introduce federal sports betting legislation. In December last year, the Sports Wagering Market Integrity Act was introduced by Chuck Schumer and Orrin Hatch, but failed to move very far.
The NCAA has said more than once, that it wants to push for federal sports betting legislation that would ban betting on collegiate sports.
In a report by ESPN, the vice president of hearing operations for NCAA, Naima Stevenson Starks, was quoted as saying: “We are absolutely supportive of federal regulation It’s fairly daunting to think that every state would have a different set of regulations. Having some minimum standards, we are very supportive of and have been an active proponent of.”
Starks said that the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court last year to allow each state to decide on its own industry, made it challenging to create a carve-out of college athletics.
“Whether or not that would be something that the federal legislation that’s being proposed would do, given that states are already doing it, I think that might be a challenge for the bill potentially get passed, which is the ultimate goal,” she added.