A group of North Carolina lawmakers have introduced legislation in the state House to ban prop bets on college and Olympic sports in the state, a year after online legal sports betting began.

Democratic Reps. Pricey Harrison and Marcia Morey and Republican Reps. Neal Jackson and Mitchell Setzer filed House Bill 828 on Tuesday. Morey, a former U.S. Olympic swimmer and NCAA enforcement official, and Harrison have been longtime opponents of sports gambling.

Legal online sports betting launched in North Carolina on March 11, 2024. Bettors in the state have wagered more than $7.2 billion in paid and promotional bets through the end of March 2025. Last month, North Carolina set monthly records for highest total bet and most paid out as winnings. The state has collected more than $135 million in taxes from the eight legal operators.

A prop bet is a bet that isn’t directly tied to the outcome of the game, such as the number of points scored by an individual player or whether a player will score a touchdown.

College athletes, including former UNC men’s basketball star Armando Bacot, said they have received negative messages on social media from bettors angry over their losses.

The NCAA aired commercials during the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments urging fans to leave athletes alone. The ad said that one in three college athletes have experienced betting-related harassment.

“Only a loser would harass college athletes after losing a bet,” the ad says.

NCAA President Charlie Baker has called for bans against prop bets on college games.

“We know some bettors are harassing student-athletes and officials, so that’s why we are advocating for policy changes at the state level and launching monitoring tools around championships to refer serious threats to law enforcement,” Baker said last month.

The bill would also limit betting at in-person sports books when college games are taking place at the facility. North Carolina doesn’t have any in-person sports book at this time, though one is expected to be part of the development around Lenovo Center in Raleigh. Lenovo Center is home to the NC State men’s basketball team and adjacent to Carter-Finley Stadium, where NC State plays football.

Source: wral.com