NCAA Expands Integrity Monitoring with IC360 for March Madness

The NCAA will begin monitoring officials working its basketball, baseball, and softball championship events through ProhiBet, a betting compliance platform developed by IC360. The system crosschecks anonymized identification data against sportsbook customer records to detect prohibited betting activity.  

More than 220 referees, including alternates assigned to the men's and women's basketball tournaments, will be included in the monitoring process. The move expands the NCAA's integrity oversight as betting markets at the best sports betting sites surrounding college sports continue to grow rapidly. 

“We’re thrilled to welcome the NCAA to the ProhiBet network and are honored to help protect the integrity of these iconic Division I championships. This collaboration sets a new industry benchmark and reinforces the importance of proactive deterrence and detection in keeping collegiate athletics fair,” Scott Sadin, Co-CEO of IC360, said. 

The NCAA prohibits championship officials from betting on sports, placing them under rules similar to those governing student athletes, coaches, and institutions. If ProhiBet flags suspicious activity tied to an official, the organization said it will review the information and determine whether the individual should be removed from officiating assignments during championship play. 

The increased efforts to protect sporting integrity come as Mark Hicks, the Managing Director of the NCAA, told SBR at the NEXT Gaming Summit in New York that the organization was committed to maintaining integrity in sports, unlike prediction markets.  

Hicks explained that the NCAA currently had an “ecosystem” in which they worked, including partnerships with integrity-monitoring agencies like IC360, which check for “animalities” related to wagering.  

He added that prediction market apps and their regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), lacked this ecosystem, but alluded to the possibility that the NCAA and other organizations needed to help the CFTC to bring them “into the fold” so they can adopt the same integrity tools as other betting agencies.  

Hicks remained positive about prediction markets in general, saying, “as long as it will be fair, as long as athletes are going to be protected, and as long as the CFTC and prediction markets will still protect the integrity of the sport.” 

Prediction markets draw NCAA scrutiny ahead of March Madness 

The NCAA's increased focus on integrity monitoring comes as prediction markets tied to men's college basketball continue to expand. Trading activity on the prediction market platform Kalshi has surged ahead of the postseason. 

Kalshi said $2.27 billion in contracts tied to men's college basketball games were traded in February. This was greater than the trading on NFL games, which generated $1.8 billion in the same month. NBA-related contracts also recorded strong activity, reaching $1.74 billion in February. 

The growth of prediction markets tied to college basketball has created tension between the NCAA and several trading platforms. As of early March, Kalshi maintained event contracts referencing “March Madness” despite the NCAA's request to remove the term.  

The organization said the use of the phrase suggested an official relationship that does not exist and asked for the immediate removal of the trademark.