On Monday, Iowa announced that the school is aware of an investigation into sports betting and is fully cooperating as 26 current student-athletes are involved in multiple sports — baseball, soccer, men’s basketball, men’s track and men’s wrestling — along with a full-time employee of the UI department for athletics.
Iowa notified the NCAA of possible violations, adding that it “has hired outside counsel to assist in the investigative process.”
The school’s announcement came on the same day that the state of Iowa announced it was conducting a similar investigation. Gambling is legal in the state of Iowa, but NCAA rules prohibit athletes from participating.
The Iowa investigation comes after several UI baseball players were suspended for a three-game series against Ohio State held in Iowa over the weekend, allegedly because the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission opened an investigation.
“Due to a possible NCAA violation, we have disqualified a number of student athletes from competing. We will not be making any further comments as this is an ongoing investigation,” read one email from school mailed on May 5th.
However, the school did not identify specific potential student-athletes involved On3Sports’ Kyle Huesmann pointed this out that four baseball players were absent during the series against Ohio State: Keaton Anthony, Jacob Henderson, Ben Tallman and Gehrig Christensen.
“The commission takes the integrity of gaming in the state seriously and continues to monitor the situation and will provide additional information where possible,” Brian Ohorilko, the state commission’s director of gambling, told Action Network.
The Hawkeyes baseball team holds an overall record of 34-12 and is 10-7 in the Big Ten. Anthony – a 2022 Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American – is the current team leader for batting average, OBP, slugging percentage and OPS. Prior to the current series, he hadn’t missed a game this season.
This potential scandal in Iowa comes about shortly after Alabama fired its coach because of gambling problems.
Alabama fired baseball head coach Brian Bohanon last week over “suspicious betting activity” related to Crimson Tide games. Following Bahanon’s dismissal, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey released a statement saying the conference had “no tolerance for activity that challenges the integrity of competition.”
The Hawkeyes won their first two games against the Buckeyes with a 16-9 score on Friday and a 15-3 final score on Saturday. On Sunday they lost 2:5. Iowa will return to the field next Friday when the team hosts Michigan State for a three-game series.