The administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission reiterated Thursday that the sports betting scandal among athletes at Iowa State and the University of Iowa has not turned up any attempts to fix games. Brian Ohorilko talked about the issue at the Commission meeting in Sioux City.
“I can tell you unequivocally that there was no match fixing or point shaving involved in any of the local college markets that we’ve seen,” he says. “We’ve reviewed a lot of the information that has been presented from DCI and then through and independent sources that we look at when we’re reviewing markets and so we feel that the markets are safe.” The charges that were brought against the college athletes all involved underage sports betting or trying to hide underage betting.
While college sports betting put the industry in the spotlight, Ohorilko says overall the industry has matured. “We have certainly leveled off in terms of volume and demand and interest in fact we’re starting to maybe see a little bit of a decline,” he says. Ohorilko says it was expected after the big early push to get people signed up and all the promotions involved that things would settle in.
“We haven’t seen as many companies interested in the market or getting licensed. In fact, we’ve we’ve seen the opposite where we started to see some sports books, go out of business or have been sold,” Ohorilko says. “But the larger operators are still doing business in Iowa. The mid level up operators are still doing business in Iowa. It’s a healthy industry.”
Sports betting began in the state in August of 2019.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)