WEST LAFAYETTE – A ban on sports wagering on Purdue teams will be in place for students, staff, faculty and contractors in time for Purdue’s football game Oct. 19 against Iowa, after Purdue trustees agreed on a policy thought to be just the second of its kind in the nation.

At a time when sports betting is being legalized across the country – 13 states, so far – Purdue President Mitch Daniels said he didn’t think Purdue would be one of two schools with bans for very long, even with a policy he expected was bound to be tweaked after it rolled out.

“I think it’s inevitable that other places have to be in the asking-questions stage, at least starting to look at this,” Daniels said.

“There was a sense that we’d better move fast – this thing is on top of us,” Daniels said. “It’s as much an expression of principle and general sense of values as it is expected to be some sort of hard and fast rule, where we’re out to punish people. … This just may be the first stab, as we learn more and see what happens.”

Purdue signaled its intentions in mid-September that it planned to target otherwise legal sports betting on the university’s teams by staff and faculty. Before voting on Thursday, trustees included students and contractors doing business on campus.

Trustee Mike Berghoff said trustees weren’t comfortable with the idea that the campus community could now legally bet on student-athletes in their classrooms, in their residence halls and in their dining halls.

“I’ve been wondering what that might be like, that student-to-student interaction, sitting in a classroom next to someone doing some legal gambling on you,” Berghoff said. “To me, this approach seems better than not having a policy.”

The policy approved Thursday morning came with instructions to Purdue legal and compliance staff to hash out the final guidelines, including how the policy would be enforced, the penalties – trustees said the consequences could include termination for employees – and what it would mean for betting on March Madness pools and other more casual, social settings.

Steve Schultz, Purdue’s legal counsel, said that wouldn’t be ready in time for Saturday’s Homecoming football game against Maryland. But it should be ready, he said, by the football game the following week.

The ban covers more than 63,000 students, 19,000 faculty and staff members, plus contractors at the West Lafayette, Purdue Northwest and Purdue Fort Wayne campuses.

Purdue was compelled to move after, in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that banned commercial sports wagering in most states. The Indiana General Assembly legalized sports betting in 2019, and the Indiana Gaming Commission cleared the way for the first sports book bets at casinos on Sept. 1. The first mobile wagering began on Oct. 3. Social media feeds and commercial breaks in the past week have been filled with opportunities for in-game betting via smartphones.

Faculty members and Daniels had pushed for the move to protect student-athletes from pressures from people on campus for inside dope on upcoming games and to protect the integrity of the university.

Daniels said that other schools in Indiana spent time at the Statehouse in the spring, trying to persuade state lawmakers to keep legalized betting out of Division I college ranks.

“They didn’t go for that,” Daniels said. “Which left us where we are today.”

Purdue had little to work with, by way of templates for campus regulations on sports gambling on the home team. Purdue found no schools in Indiana have a sports gambling policy. No other Big Ten Conference schools have, either.

Saint Joseph’s University – a private school in Philadelphia that has 20 men’s and women’s teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference – put a policy on sports wagering in its student handbook in late September. If it wasn’t the first of its kind, it was the only one Purdue was able to find. And Purdue trustees said Thursday they were working off the assumption that Purdue would be the second school in the nation to go with sports wagering restrictions.

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The St. Joseph’s policy, like Purdue’s, doesn’t let anyone who has direct ties to the university off the hook. The policy there reads: “Students, faculty, staff, contractors and members of the Board of Trustees are not permitted to place an otherwise legal sports wager on any team, contest or event, or individual affiliated with the Saint Joseph’s University Department of Athletics.”

Jill Bodensteiner, St. Joseph’s athletic director, told the J&C that the school’s policy was driven by the idea that having St. Joe’s students, faculty, staff and anyone else on campus bet on players and teams from the school would run contrary to the sense of community critical to the university.

Alysa Rollock, Purdue’s president for ethics and compliance, said the university didn’t use Saint Joseph’s policy as a guide, though they didn’t land far from one another.

Rollock said the policy prohibits wagering by faculty, staff, students and contractors from placing, accepting or soliciting a sports wager on their own behalf or on behalf of anyone else on “any team, student-athlete, coach, statistical occurrence, contest or event,” for or against Purdue. The policy will cover bets made in Indiana, the U.S. or overseas, whether legal or illegal.

Among the reasons stated in the policy, Rollock said: “We’re interested in fair play, integrity of competition, well-being of our student-athletes and coaches and other connected with the program. … We believe that when we refrain, we reduce the potential for deceit and ill-gotten gain.”

Jodi Balsam, an associate professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in sports law, said Purdue and Saint Joseph’s – and other schools that follow – were left in an awkward position of trying to piece together protections for student-athletes as gambling becomes more normalized. Balsam said states and the NCAA should know that unpaid athletes will be targeted by those looking for information to use as a gambling edge.

“This is a huge concern,” Balsam said. “Private entities need to be foot forward, sure. But these schools can’t do this alone.”

Schultz said the guidelines, being crafted by Purdue’s Executive Policy Review Group, will address questions to NCAA Tournament pools – something Daniels said the university isn’t interested in trying to regulate.

Schultz said one option is a law in Colorado, where sports gambling hasn’t been legalized. There, the state’s attorney general has said there’s room in the law to allow office or dorm floor NCAA pools as “social gambling” if those involved have a “bona fide social relationship,” the total pot is paid out in prizes and organizers don’t profit or take a cut of the action for putting the pool together.

Cheryl Cooky, chair of the faculty-led University Senate, offered support for a policy that protected student-athletes and sent “that message across campus about the role of athletics at Purdue University.

Leaders with the Clerical and Service Staff Advisory Committee and the Administrative and Professional Staff Advisory Committee did not immediately respond to questions.

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Noah Scott, a Purdue student appointed to the board of trustees, said he’d spent recent weeks trying to get a feel from students about being barred from betting on the Boilers.

“I think most of the students I talked to shared that feeling, that this was the right thing to do,” Scott said.

The new policy would put no additional restrictions on Purdue’s student-athletes. Indiana’s law already prohibits those closest to the games and to the athletes from placing bets. That includes staff of sports governing bodies, such as the NCAA; student-athletes; athletics department staff; game officials and referees; student managers and trainers; and relatives who live in the same household as any of those people. The law also bars student-athletes from sharing information for betting purposes.

“Today’s action by the board of trustees sends a strong message of support to our student-athletes,” Mike Bobinski, Purdue's athletic director, said. “They can be confident in conducting their daily business on campus without fear of being compromised for information or in other ways that might be connected to sports gambling activities.”

A final version of the policy is expected to be posted and distributed on campus next week. The sports betting restrictions won’t go into full effect until then.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.