Missouri Rejects NCAA Prop Bet Request
David Genge Published 26/01/2026
- The Missouri Gaming Commission intends to continue offering prop wagers on college sports.
- A request from the NCAA to halt these types of bets was rejected.
- The Sports Betting Alliance backed the Missouri decision.
Legal and regulated sports betting sites in Missouri will continue to be permitted to offer prop wagering on college sports. The Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC) has turned down a written request from the NCAA to eliminate the offering of prop bets on its games.
“I just don’t feel that I have enough information to grant a request by the NCAA to prohibit this type of sports wagering, because I don’t know enough yet,” Missouri Gaming Commission chair Jan Zimmerman told The Associated Press.
Currently, Missouri does place some restrictions on college prop wagering. The MGC has in place a prohibition on all prop bets on athletes playing in games involving Missouri colleges and universities. However, it does allow prop wagering on all other college games.
Missouri only launched legal and regulated sports betting on December 1, 2025.
“We are, you can’t even call sports wagering in Missouri in its infancy,” Zimmerman said. “I mean we’re barely born here.”
Supporting the Missouri decision against a complete ban on prop betting was the Sports Betting Alliance. The SBA represents five of the major online sports betting sites in the US market - bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, Fanatics, and FanDuel. Representatives of Circa Sports, another prominent sportsbook in the Missouri market, also spoke against the ban.
Proponents of maintaining college sports prop betting in Missouri argued that a complete ban would drive bettors to the unregulated offshore sports betting sites.
NCAA President Charlie Baker requested the ban on prop betting
In mid-January, NCAA President Charlie Baker sent a letter to all states offering legal and regulated sports betting. In the letter, he requested that all prop wagering on college sports be prohibited.
“One issue that deeply troubles the NCAA is betting markets centering around many aspects of a student-athlete's individual athletic performance, otherwise known as player prop bets,” Baker’s letter read. “While these types of bets are prohibited in some states with legalized sports betting, they are still offered in a majority of jurisdictions.”
Baker pointed out that four states - Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Vermont - have recently moved to eliminate college player prop betting. He believes that these prop wagers lead to harassment of college student-athletes by bettors and create the potential for game-fixing and point-shaving scenarios.
“Player prop bets may entice student-athletes into engaging in sports betting by betting on themselves to outperform a player prop bet related to their own game performance,” Baker wrote. “The prop bets also increase the risk of ‘spot fixing,’ or would-be match fixers targeting student-athletes and other sporting participants to fix a portion of a contest.”
Baker also sought to have certain game prop wagers, such as first-half over/unders be eliminated. He pointed out that wagers like this one and certain player props were at the root of a recent FBI investigation into a widespread gambling scandal in college basketball that led to the arrests of more than 39 players on more than 17 NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams. They are accused of attempting to fix more than 29 games.
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