NCAA president Charlie Baker is asking all states where sports wagering is legal to ban so-called “prop” bets on college athletic events.

Currently, sports betting is legal in 38 states, plus the District of Columbia. Of those, 25 allow some sort of prop betting, that is, wagering on individual team and player performances within a given game that may or may not directly affect the outcome (such as the number of points a particular player might score or the number of passing yards a quarterback might compile).

Of the states near Alabama with legalized sports gambling, Mississippi and Tennessee prohibit prop bets on college sporting events. Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky and Louisiana do allow college prop bets, according to Forbes.

In a statement posted on the NCAA’s various social media accounts, Baker wrote that he is seeking the ban in order to “protect student-athletes from harassment and … protect the integrity of the game.”

“Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes and professional athletes getting harassed,” Baker wrote. “The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.

“This week we will be contacting officials across the country in states that still allow these bets and ask them to join Ohio, Vermont, Maryland and many others and remove college prop bets from all betting markets. The NCAA is drawing the line on sports betting to protect student-athletes and to protect the integrity of the game — issues across the country these last several days show there is more work to be done.”

Sports wagering became legal in most of the country in 2021, and there have been a handful of scandals involving college and professional sports. Notably, Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon was fired last year after reports of irregular gambling on an April 28, 2023, game between the Crimson Tide and LSU.

In recent weeks, a gambling watchdog group flagged a UAB-Temple basketball game for “unusual betting activity” on the Owls. In the professional ranks, Johntay Porter of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors is reportedly under investigation by the league for what has been termed “multiple instances of betting irregularities” in recent months, while MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani accused his long-time interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, of stealing more than $4.5 million to pay off illegal gambling debts.