Ohio University To Offer Sports Betting Integrity Certifications

• Ohio University is going to offer a sports betting education course and certification program next month.
• The program will help prevent sports betting fraud and is aimed towards protecting coaches, athletes, and everyone involved in sports.
• Colleges in the state of Ohio are seeking to ban wagering on in-state collegiate teams if sports betting in Ohio is legalized.

ATHENS, Ohio — Ohio University is looking to educate students, athletes and its professors on sports betting. They are going to offer courses starting in May that would educate them not only on the legality of sports betting but also on how they can prevent betting fraud.

Ohio University Partnership

Ohio University has partnered with U.S. Integrity and Cyanna Education Services to build and launch a new curriculum that will focus on preventing sports betting fraud.

“We’re proud to be on the right side of history when it comes to sports-related betting— This program is going to help educate coaches, students, and administrators on how to prevent, identify, and react to instances of sports-betting fraud. The curriculum has been developed by a talented group of leaders in the industry, and we are excited to bring that knowledge and experience to the field,” said Jim Kahler, Executive Director of the AECOM Center for Sports Administration.

The curriculum would include three courses and cover a wide margin of sports betting topics such as game integrity, risk management, fraud prevention, game manipulation and more.

“At U.S. Integrity, our goal is to help ensure that every sporting competition is fair and transparent— This partnership with Ohio University and Cyanna allows us to begin training the next generation of coaches, athletes, administrators and regulators who will inform and influence the future of sports – and help create an environment free from sports-betting corruption,” said Matt Holt, President and Founder of U.S. Integrity.

Ohio Sports Betting

Legal sports betting in Ohio is not yet regulated. There are currently two sports betting bills that are sitting in the Ohio legislature, OH SB 111 and OH HB 194. These bills have been sitting in their respective committees since the spring of 2019.

The legislature could pass these bills in 2020, but with COVID-19 being the top priority for legislators across the U.S. there is a chance these bills could remain on the back burner.

There is also a growing theme of big universities banning sports betting to help prevent betting fraud from tampering with their sporting events. Purdue was famously the first public university to implement its own university-wide ban on betting on the Boilermakers.

Universities in Ohio have also voiced their concern to legislators in October of 2019 about betting on in-state collegiate teams and players. Ohio State University was among the primary contenders of such a measure should lawmakers continue moving a sports betting bill through the legislature.

The sports betting fraud curriculum that Ohio University plans to launch will be available no matter what lawmakers in Ohio decide to do and should aid those in Ohio collegiate athletics regardless.

News tags: Cyanna Education Services | Jim Kahler | OH HB 194 | OH SB 111 | Ohio State University | Ohio University | U.S. Integrity