A digital platform where college athletes can alert their administrations anonymously to improper or illegal conduct by coaches, teammates or others is expanding to allow them to report suspected gambling activity.
RealResponse’s partnership with U.S. Integrity, which monitors sports wagering trends in real time to detect irregularities, will come at no additional cost to some 150 athletic departments that are clients.
The service builds on a tip hotline U.S. Integrity and RealResponse unveiled in May and will give college athletic administrators a direct line to investigators.
A state investigation into illegal sports wagering at Iowa and Iowa State has led to criminal charges being filed against about a dozen athletes. The Alabama baseball coach, Brian Bohannon, was fired in May after being linked to suspicious gambling activity on a Crimson Tide game.
Iowa State is a RealResponse client, spokesman Nick Joos said. Iowa is not a client but has a relationship with U.S. Integrity through the Big Ten Conference, spokesman Matthew Weitzel said.
Iowa State takes on Iowa in a sellout crowd of 61,500 people at Jack Trice Stadium during the first half of an NCAA college football game, on Sept. 11, 2021 (AP Photo/Matthew Putney, File)
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RealResponse founder David Chadwick said a college athlete will be able go to his or her existing RealResponse webpage and report suspected misuse of insider information, potential game manipulation and physical threats related to gambling, among other things.
When a report comes in, administrators can request U.S. Integrity investigators to assess, verify and route the report to appropriate authorities.
Though RealResponse also works with professional sports organizations and national sport governing bodies to provide athletes, coaches and staff a way to report bad actors anonymously, the gambling reporting tool linked with U.S. Integrity currently is offered only to colleges.
As part of the RealResponse partnership with U.S. Integrity, the public also can report gambling-related issues through school athletic websites.