Daily Archives: March 29, 2024

What was (A)I made for? – by The Ink – The.Ink

Posted: March 29, 2024 at 2:48 am

The real A.I. threat? Not some future Matrix turning us all into rechargeable batteries, but todays A.I. industry demanding all of our data, labor, and energy right now.

The vast tech companies behind generative A.I. (the latest iteration of the tech, responsible for all the hyperrealistic puppy videos and uncanny automated articles) have been busy exploiting workers, building monopolies, finding ways to write off their massive environmental impacts, and disempowering consumers while sucking up every scrap of data they produce.

But generative A.I.s hunger for data far outstrips that of earlier digital tools, so firms are doing this on a vaster scale than weve seen in any previous technology effort. (OpenAIs Sam Altman is trying to talk world leaders into committing $7 trillion to his project, a sum exceeding GDP growth for the entire world in 2023.) And thats largely in pursuit of a goal A.G.I., or artificial general intelligence that is, so far as anyone can tell, more ideological than useful.

Karen Hao, whos covered the A.I. industry for MIT Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal, and most recently The Atlantic, is one of the few writers who has focused specifically on the human, environmental, and political costs of emerging A.I. technology. Below, she tells us about the very physical supply chain behind digital technologies, the mix of magical thinking and profit maximization that drives A.I.s most influential advocates, how A.I. advances might jeopardize climate goals, and about who stands to gain and lose the most from widespread adoption of generative A.I.

A lot has been promised about what A.I. will supposedly do for us, but youve been writing mostly about what A.I. might cost us. What are the important hidden costs people are missing in this A.I. transition that were going through?

I like to think about the fact that A.I. has a supply chain like any other technology; there are inputs that go into the creation of this technology, data being one, and then computational power or computer chips being another. And both of those have a lot of human costs associated with them.

First of all, when it comes to data, the data comes from people. And that means that if the companies are going to continue expanding their A.I. models and trying to, in their words, deliver more value to customers, that fuels a surveillance capitalism business model where theyre continuing to extract data from us. But the cleaning and annotation of that data requires a lot of labor, a lot of low-income labor. Because when you collect data from the real world, its very messy, and it needs to be curated and neatly packaged in order for a machine learning model to get the most out of it. And a lot of this work this is an entire industry now, the data annotation industry is exported to developing countries, to Global South countries, just like many other industries before it.

Have we just been trained to miss this by our experience with the outsourcing of manufacturing, or by what's happened to us as consumers of online commerce? And is this really just an evolution of what we've been seeing with big tech already?

Theres always been outsourcing of manufacturing. And in the same way, we now see a lot of outsourced work happening in the A.I. supply chain. But the difference is that these are digital products. And I dont think people have fully wrapped their heads around the fact that there is a very physical and human supply chain to digital products.

A lot of that is because of the way that the tech industry talks about these technologies. They talk about it like, It comes from the cloud, and it works like magic. And they dont really talk about the fact that the magic is actually just people, teaching these machines, very meticulously and under great stress and sometimes trauma, to do the right things. And the A.I. industry is built on surveillance capitalism, as internet platforms in general have been built on this ad-targeting business thats in turn been built on the extraction of our data.

But the A.I. industry is different in the sense that it has an even stronger imperative to extract that data from us, because the amount of data that goes into building something like ChatGPT completely dwarfs the amount of data that was going into building lucrative ad businesses. Weve seen these stories showing that OpenAI and other companies are running out of data. And that means that they face an existential business crisis and if there is no more data they have to generate it from us, in order to continue advancing their technology.

Connecting these issues seems like the way people really need to be framing this stuff, but its a frame that most people are still missing. These are all serious anti-democratic threats.

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What was (A)I made for? - by The Ink - The.Ink

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The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) spending by the U.S. government | Brookings – Brookings Institution

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In April 2023, a Stanford study found rapid acceleration in the U.S. federal government spending in 2022. In parallel, the House Appropriations Committee was reported in June 2023 to be focusing on advancing legislation to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in an increasing number of programs and third-party reports tracking the progress of this legislation corroborates those findings. In November 2023, both the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of State (DoS) released AI strategies, illustrating that policy is starting to catch up to, and potentially shape, expenditures. Recognizing this criticality of this domain on government, The Brookings Institutions Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative (AIET) has been established to advance good governance of transformative new technologies to promote effective solutions to the most pressing challenges posed by AI and emerging technologies.

In this second in a series of articles on AI spending in the U.S. federal government, we continue to follow the trail of money to understand the federal market for AI work. In our last article, we analyzed five years of federal contracts. Key findings included that over 95% of AI-labeled expenditures were in NAICS 54 (professional, scientific, and technical services); that within this category over half of the contracts and nearly 90% of contract value sit within the Department of Defense; and that the vast majority of vendors had a single contract, reflecting a very fragmented vendor community operating in very narrow niches.

All of the data for this series has been taken directly from federal contracts and was consolidated and provided to us by Leadership Connect. Leadership Connect has an extensive repository of federal contracts and their data forms the basis for this series of papers.

In this analysis, we analyzed all new federal contracts since our original report that had the term artificial intelligence (or AI) in the contract description. As such, our dataset included 489 new contracts to compare with 472 existing contracts. Existing values are based on our previous study, tracking the five years up to August 2022; new values are based on the year following to August 2023.

Out of the 15 NAICS code categories we identified in the first paper, there were only 13 NAICS codes still in use from previous contract and only five used in new contracts, demonstrating a refinement and focusing of categorization of AI work. In the current analysis, we differentiate between funding obligated and potential value of award as the former is indicative of current investment and the latter is representative of future appetite. During the period of the study, the value of funding obligated increased over 150% from $261 million to $675 million while the value of potential value of award increased almost 1200% from $355 million to $4.561 billion. For funding obligated, NAICS 54 (Professional, Scientific and Technical Services) was the most common code used followed by NAICS 51 (Information and Cultural Industries), where NAICS 54 increased from $219 million for existing contracts to $366 million for new contracts, while NAICS 51 grew from $5 million of existing to $17 million of new contracts. For potential value of award, NAICS 54 increased from $311 million of existing to $1.932 billion of new contracts, while NAICS 51 grew from $5 million of existing to $2.195 billion of new contracts, eclipsing all other NAICS codes.

The number of federal agencies with contracts rose from 17 to 23 in the last year, with notable additions including the Department of the Treasury, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the National Science Foundation. With an astounding growth from 254 contracts to 657 in the last year, the Department of Defense continues to dominate in AI contracts, with NASA and Health and Human Services being distant a second and third with 115 and 49 contracts respectively. From a potential value perspective, defense rose from $269 million with 76% of all federal funding to $4.323 billion with 95%. In comparison, NASA and HHS increased their AI contract values by between 25% and 30% each, but still fell to 1% each from 11% and 6% respectively of the overall federal government AI contract potential value due to the 1500% increase in the DoD AI contract values. In essence, DoD grew their AI investment to such a degree that all other agencies become a rounding error.

For existing contracts, there were four vendors with over $10 million in contract value, of which one was over $50 million. For new contracts, there were 205 vendors with over $10 million in contract value, of which six were over $50 million and a seventh was over $100 million. The driver for the change in potential value of contracts appears to be the proliferation of $15 million and $30 million maximum potential value contracts, of which 226 and 25 were awarded respectively in the last year, but none of which have funds obligated yet to them. We posit that these are contract vehicles established at the maximum signing authority value for future funding allocation and expenditure. It is notable that only one of the firms in the top 10 potential contract value in the previous study were in the top 10 of new contract awards (MORSE Corp), that the top firm in previous years did not receive any new contract (AI Signal Research) and that the new top firm did not receive any contracts in previous study years (Palantir USG).

In our previous analysis, we reported 62 firms with multiple awards, while over the past year there were 72 firms receiving multiple awards. However, the maximum number of awards has changed significantly, where the highest number of existing contracts was 69 (AI Solutions) while for new contracts the maximum is four. In fact, there were 10 vendors with four or more existing contracts but only three vendors with four or more new ones (Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, and EpiSys Science). This reflects a continued fragmented vendor community that is operating in very narrow niches with a single agency.

Growth in private sector R&D has been at above 10% per year for a decade while the federal government has shown more modest growth over the last five years after a period of stagnation, however the 1200% one-year increase in AI potential value of awards of over $4.2 billion is indicative of a new imperative in government AI R&D leading to deployment.

In our previous analysis, we noted that the vendor side of the market was highly fragmented with many small players whose main source of revenues were likely a single contract with a nearby federal client. The market remains fragmented with smaller vendors, but larger players such as Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Atomics, and Lockheed Martin, are moving quickly into the market, following, or perhaps resulting in, the significant increase of the value of contracts. In our previous analysis, we identified that these larger firms would be establishing beachheads for entry into AI and we expect this trend to continue with other large defense players such as RAND, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon amongst others as vendors integrate AI in their offerings.

From the client side, we had previously discussed the large number of relatively small contracts demonstrating an experimental phase of purchasing AI. The explosion of large, maximum potential value contracts appears to be a shift from experimentation to implementation, which would be bolstered by the shift from almost uniquely NAICS 54 to a balance between NAICS 54 and 51. While research and experimentation are still ongoing, there are definite signs of vendors bringing to the federal market concrete technologies and systems. The thousand flowers are starting to bloom and agenciesparticularly DoDare tending to them carefully.

We had identified that the focus on federal AI spending was DoD and over the last year, this focus has proportionally become almost total. Defense AI applications have long been touted as a potential long term growth area and it appears that 2022/23 has been a turning point in the realization of those aspirations. While other agencies are continuing to invest in AI, either adding to existing investment or just starting, DoD is massively investing in AI as a new technology across a range of applications. In January 2024, Michael C. Horowitz (deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and emerging capabilities) confirmed a wide swath of investments in research, development, test and evaluation, and new initiatives to speed up experimentation with AI within the department.

We have noted in other analyses that there are different national approaches to AI development, where the U.S. and its allies have been focusing on the traditional guardrails of technology management (e.g., data governance, data management, education, public service reform) and so spreading their expenditures between governance and capacity development, while potential adversaries are almost exclusively focused on building up their R&D capacity and are largely ignoring the guardrails. While we had identified risks with a broad-based approach leading to a winnowing of projects for a focused ramp-up of investment, we rather see a more muscular approach where a wide range of projects are receiving considerable funding. The vast increase in overall spendingparticularly in defense applicationsappears to indicate that the U.S. is substantially ramping up its investment in this area to address the threat of potential competitors. At the same time, public statements by federal agency leaders often strike a balance between the potential benefits and the risks of AI while outlining potential legislative and policy avenues while agencies seek means of controlling the potential negative impacts of AI. The recent advancement of U.S. Congress legislation and agency strategies coupled with the significant investment increase identified in the current study demonstrate that well-resourced countries such as the U.S. can have both security and capacity when it comes to AI.

The current framework for solving this coordination issue is the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office (NAIIO), which was established by the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020. Under this Act, the NAIIO is directed to sustain consistent support for AI R&D, support AI educationsupport interdisciplinary AI researchplan and coordinate Federal interagency AI activitiesand support opportunities for international cooperation with strategic AIfor trustworthy AI systems. While the intent of this Act and its formal structure are admirable, the current federal spending does not seem to reflect these lofty goals. Rather, we are seeing a federal market that appears to be much more chaotic than desirable, especially given the lead that China already has on the U.S. in AI activities. This fragmented federal market may resolve itself as the impact of recent Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence directs agency engagement on the issue of monitoring and regulation of AI.

In conclusion, the analysis of the U.S. federal governments AI spending over the past year reveals a remarkable surge in investment, particularly within the DoD. The shift from experimental contracts to large, maximum potential value contracts indicates a transition from testing to implementation, with a significant increase in both funding obligated and potential value of awards. The federal governments focus on AI, as evidenced by the substantial investments and legislative initiatives, reflects a strategic response to global competition and security challenges. While the market remains fragmented with smaller vendors, the concentration of investments in defense applications signals a turning point in the realization of AIs potential across various government agencies. The current trajectory, led by the DoD, aligns with the broader national approach that combines governance and capacity development to ensure both security and innovation in AI technologies.

As we noted in our first article in this series, if one wants to know what the real strategy is, one must follow the money. In the case of the U.S. federal government, the strategy is clearly focused on defense applications of AI. The spillover of this focus is a likelihood of defense and security priorities, needs and values being the dominant ones in government applications. This is a double-edged sword as while it may lead to more secure national systems or more effective defenses against hostile uses of AI against the U.S. and its allies, it may also involve trade-offs in individual privacy or decision-making transparency. However, the appropriate deployment of AI by government has the potential to increase both security and freedom, as noted in other contexts such as surveillance.

The AI industry is in a rapid growth phase as demonstrated by the potential revenues from the sector growing exponentially. As virtually all new markets go through the same industry growth cycle, the increasing value of the AI market will likely continue to draw in new firms in the short-term, including the previously absent large players to whom the degree of actual and potential market capitalization has now drawn their attention and capacity. While an industry consolidation phase of start-up and smaller player acquisitions will likely happen in the future, if the scale of AI market increase continues at a similar rate this winnowing process is likely still several years away. That being said, the government may start to look more towards their established partner firmsparticularly in the defense and security sectorwho have the track record and industrial capacity to meet the high value contracting vehicles being put in place.

Despite the commendable intentions outlined in the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020, the current state of federal spending on AI raises concerns about coordination and coherence. NAIIO is tasked with coordinating interagency AI activities and promoting international cooperation, but the observed chaotic nature of the federal market calls into question the effectiveness of the existing framework. The fragmented market may see resolution as the recent executive order on AI guides agencies towards more a more cohesive and coordinated approach to AI. As the U.S. strives to maintain its technological leadership and address security challenges posed by potential adversaries, the coordination of AI initiatives will be crucial. The findings emphasize the need for continued policy development, strategic planning, and collaborative efforts to ensure the responsible and effective integration of AI technologies across the U.S. federal government.

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The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) spending by the U.S. government | Brookings - Brookings Institution

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Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET to Partner on Decentralized AI – PYMNTS.com

Posted: at 2:48 am

Three entities in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) plan to combine to create the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance.

Fetch.ai,Ocean ProtocolandSingularityNETaim to create a decentralized alternative to existing AI projects controlled by Big Tech, the companies said in a Wednesday (March 27)press release.

The proposed alliance is subject to approval from the three entities respective communities, per the release.

As part of this alliance, the tokens that fuel the members networks $FET, $OCEAN and $AGIX will be merged into a single $ASI token that will function across the combined decentralized network created by this partnership, according to the release.

The combined value of the three tokens is $7.6 billion as of Tuesday (March 26), per the release.

The creation of the largest open-sourced, decentralized network through a multi-billion token merger is a major step that accelerates the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI), the release said.

The Artificial Superintelligence Alliance also brings together SingularityNETs decentralized AI network, Fetch.ais Web3 platform and Ocean Protocols decentralized data exchange platform, according to the release.

The deal provides an unparalleled opportunity for these three influential leaders to create a powerful compelling alternative to Big Techs control over AI development, use and monetization, the release said.

Leveraging blockchain technology, it will turn AI systems into open networks for coordinating machine intelligence, rather than hiding their inner workings from the public, according to the release.

The alliance will also facilitate the commercialization of the technology and enable greater access to AI platforms and large databases, advancing the path to AGI on the blockchain, the release said.

In another recent development in this space,Stability AIannounced Friday (March 22) that its founder and CEO Emad Mostaque has resigned as CEO and stepped down from the companys board to pursuedecentralized AI.

We should have more transparent & distributed governance in AI as it becomes more and more important, Mostaque said when announcing his move. Its a hard problem, but I think we can fix it The concentration of power in AI is bad for us all. I decided to step down to fix this at Stability & elsewhere.

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Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET to Partner on Decentralized AI - PYMNTS.com

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Scientists create AI models that can talk to each other and pass on skills with limited human input – Livescience.com

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The next evolution in artificial intelligence (AI) could lie in agents that can communicate directly and teach each other to perform tasks, research shows.

Scientists have modeled an AI network capable of learning and carrying out tasks solely on the basis of written instructions. This AI then described what it learned to a sister AI, which performed the same task despite having no prior training or experience in doing it.

The first AI communicated to its sister using natural language processing (NLP), the scientists said in their paper published March 18 in the journal Nature.

NLP is a subfield of AI that seeks to recreate human language in computers so machines can understand and reproduce written text or speech naturally. These are built on neural networks, which are collections of machine learning algorithms modeled to replicate the arrangement of neurons in the brain.

Once these tasks had been learned, the network was able to describe them to a second network a copy of the first so that it could reproduce them. To our knowledge, this is the first time that two AIs have been able to talk to each other in a purely linguistic way, said lead author of the paper Alexandre Pouget, leader of the Geneva University Neurocenter, in a statement.

The scientists achieved this transfer of knowledge by starting with an NLP model called "S-Bert," which was pre-trained to understand human language. They connected S-Bert to a smaller neural network centered around interpreting sensory inputs and simulating motor actions in response.

Related: AI-powered humanoid robot can serve you food, stack the dishes and have a conversation with you

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This composite AI a "sensorimotor-recurrent neural network (RNN)" was then trained on a set of 50 psychophysical tasks. These centered on responding to a stimulus like reacting to a light through instructions fed via the S-Bert language model.

Through the embedded language model, the RNN understood full written sentences. This let it perform tasks from natural language instructions, getting them 83% correct on average, despite having never seen any training footage or performed the tasks before.

That understanding was then inverted so the RNN could communicate the results of its sensorimotor learning using linguistic instructions to an identical sibling AI, which carried out the tasks in turn also having never performed them before.

The inspiration for this research came from the way humans learn by following verbal or written instructions to perform tasks even if weve never performed such actions before. This cognitive function separates humans from animals; for example, you need to show a dog something before you can train it to respond to verbal instructions.

While AI-powered chatbots can interpret linguistic instructions to generate an image or text, they cant translate written or verbal instructions into physical actions, let alone explain the instructions to another AI.

However, by simulating the areas of the human brain responsible for language perception, interpretation and instructions-based actions, the researchers created an AI with human-like learning and communication skills.

This won't alone lead to the rise of artificial general intelligence (AGI) where an AI agent can reason just as well as a human and perform tasks in multiple areas. But the researchers noted that AI models like the one they created can help our understanding of how human brains work.

Theres also scope for robots with embedded AI to communicate with each other to learn and carry out tasks. If only one robot received initial instructions, it could be really effective in manufacturing and training other automated industries.

The network we have developed is very small, the researchers explained in the statement. Nothing now stands in the way of developing, on this basis, much more complex networks that would be integrated into humanoid robots capable of understanding us but also of understanding each other.

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Scientists create AI models that can talk to each other and pass on skills with limited human input - Livescience.com

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38 states rake in millions in sports betting while Oklahoma still waits for legalization – KOKI FOX 23 TULSA

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TULSA, Okla.Thirty-eight states and Washington D.C. are raking in millions of dollars this month from legalized sports betting combined with heavy action linked to March Madness, but in Oklahoma, the bill to legalize sports wagering remains stalled at the State Capitol.

Last spring, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize sports betting in Oklahoma. The bill is still alive in the State Senate, but it has yet to receive a hearing.

"We cannot act on sports betting until the state legislature legalizes it first. We cannot do this on our own like people see it across the country. It's got to be part of the compact," Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told FOX23.

Hoskin said the Cherokee Nation, which operates multiple casinos on its tribal lands in eastern Oklahoma including the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Catoosa, wants to set up and is ready to have sports wagering on its properties.

In the nearby Muscogee (Creek) Nation, who also operates multiple casinos including the River Spirit Casino in south Tulsa, work is underway to convert an old buffet area into the largest sports viewing venue and bar in the state. FOX23 was told when we asked about it earlier this year, the space could easily be converted into a sports book and sports wagering center should state lawmakers legalize sports betting in Oklahoma in the future.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in a 7-2 vote that the federal government's prohibition on sports wagering except in four states was unconstitutional when the federal government stepped in to an issue reserved for the states under the 10th Amendment. Since then, 38 states and Washington D.C. have all legalized sports betting.

The most recent state to legalize sports betting is North Carolina. Sports wagering operations across the state began this month, and they were bolstered by bets being placed on the NCAA March Madness tournament.

The North Carolina Lottery Commission reported just under $200 Million was wagered in just the first week of legalized sports betting, which coincided with the start of March Madness. A chunk of the money that is won can be taxable revenue, and the state expects a few million dollars in new money for public services just from March Madness wagering alone.

Sports betting in Oklahoma has slowly been catching on at the State Capitol in Oklahoma City. In 2022, the Oklahoma House did not pass a sports wagering legalization bill. Then in 2023, it did. Now in 2024, that bill passed out of the House in 2023 is still pending in the State Senate. According to State Senator Bill Coleman's Office (R-Ponca City) it's not clear if that bill will get a committee hearing that if approved, would bring it to the floor of the State Senate for one final vote before it goes to the governor.

Both House and Senate lawmakers have openly said they want there to be fruitful and positive discussions about the future of sports betting in Oklahoma between Governor Kevin Stitt and the tribes who hold the rights to administer such a program on their lands. Right now, the Oklahoma Tribal Gaming Compact does not allow for legalized sports wagering despite allowing many other forms of gambling.

"It should come to this state, and we have exclusivity," Hoskin told FOX23 News. "The tribes are interested in this. The Cherokee Nation is interest in this. I won't say it makes or breaks our gaming operations, but if it is legalized in the state, it will be in the wheelhouse of all the tribes, and we will be, as we always are, at the top of the market."

Stitt also wants to bring sports wagering into the state. He's told FOX23 many times he sees it as an alternative way to bring in money for education and also to fund economic development packages that could lure in large companies looking to leave higher-tax states.

"As long as it is transparent and fair, I'm all for rolling that out," Stitt has told FOX23 multiple times in the last year and a half.

Last November, Stitt released a plan on how he would like to see legalized sports betting. That plan calls for lower taxes for in-person bets made in a brick and mortar casino, and it would tax at a slightly higher amount bets made on mobile apps where people can wager without ever having to step foot in a casino. Stitt said by taxing in-person bets differently than ones made in mobile apps, it would protect and slightly incentivize traditional casino operations.

However, despite releasing a plan, both sides say they cannot move on the subject until sports wagering is legalized in Oklahoma. But lawmakers insist there must be a framework in place between the governor and the tribes before they act. Those talks are somewhat complicated after years of fighting between the governor and the tribes on a variety of compacts the state has with tribes on everything from tobacco sales, tribal license plates, to even hunting and fishing.

"My colleagues saw the advantage, the economic advantage to this, the restoration of tribal-legislative relations," said State Representative Ken Luttrell (R-Ponca City) after the bill was put on hold in the middle of the 2023 legislative session.

Luttrell and Coleman, both from Ponca City, have been the primary authors of the bills attempting to legalize sports wagering in Oklahoma, and FOX23 is told if it fails this session, they will re-file a new bill next session and try again.

Currently, if an Oklahoman wants to wager on a game, they must travel to Kansas, download an app from an approved partner, and as long as their phone pings off of a Kansas tower they can place and collect their bets. The State of Kansas said money raised by Oklahomans travelling to their state to wager on sports would be re-invested into Kansas education and economic development programs.

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38 states rake in millions in sports betting while Oklahoma still waits for legalization - KOKI FOX 23 TULSA

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Sports betting won’t be legal in Georgia after lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to spend taxes – goskagit.com

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Sports betting won’t be legal in Georgia after lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to spend taxes – Bowling Green Daily News

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Sports betting won't be legal in Georgia after lawmakers couldn't agree on how to spend taxes - Bowling Green Daily News

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Sports betting bill will help MN veterans, charities – ECM Publishers

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Sports betting bill will help MN veterans, charities - ECM Publishers

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NCAA set to push states with legalized sports betting to ban prop bets for all college sporting events – Yahoo Sports

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The NCAA is pushing states to ban prop bets involving college players.

NCAA president Charlie Baker issued a statement Wednesday asking all states that have legalized sports gambling to pass laws prohibiting the availability of individual prop bets for college athletic events. Bakers statement comes as the NBA is in the midst of an investigation into prop betting activity earlier this year.

Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes and professional athletes getting harassed, Baker said in a statement. The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.

This week we will be contacting officials across the country in states that still allow these bets and ask them to join Ohio, Vermont, Maryland and many others and remove college prop bets from all betting markets. The NCAA is drawing the line on sports betting to protect student-athletes and to protect the integrity of the game issues across the country these last several days show there is more work to be done.

With sports betting on the rise, the NCAA is acting to protect student-athletes from harassment and working to protect the integrity of the game this week shows why its so important to act. pic.twitter.com/krATwpS4hZ

NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) March 27, 2024

The NBA confirmed Monday that it was looking into betting irregularities involving prop bets for Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter. According to ESPN, two games are being investigated. Ahead of both of those games, unders on specific prop bets for Porter were bet heavily. He left each of those games early due to injury or illness and the unders cashed.

The NCAAs stance against prop betting comes as it navigates a world where sports betting is legal in many states. The NCAA has staunchly been against betting for decades as the NCAA tournaments betting-friendly model is a major reason why March Madness has become so popular. You dont have to be a college basketball fan to fill out a bracket and enter a bracket pool in the hope of winning prizes or money.

According to the Action Network, only four states Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan and Wyoming along with Washington D.C., have no restrictions on college prop bets. The other 18 states either limit the type of prop bets you can make (in New Jersey you cant bet props for New Jersey teams) or have banned prop bets on college games altogether.

In the states where prop bets are fully legal, you can bet on many aspects of the game. At BetMGM in Kansas, you can bet on who will score the first basket of the game in any of the eight Sweet 16 games as well as a players assist or 3-point totals. For example, Clemsons P.J. Hall is the favorite at +333 to score the first field goal in the first Sweet 16 game Thursday night against Arizona.

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NCAA set to push states with legalized sports betting to ban prop bets for all college sporting events - Yahoo Sports

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All Eyes on Georgia Sports Betting During Final Legislative Day – Sports Betting Dime

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Georgia quarterback Carson Beck (15) looks to throw a pass during the second half of a NCAA college football game against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023.Georgia won 31-23.

Georgias sports betting hopes are still alive in the states final legislative day, but they may be dwindling by the minute.

Two pieces of legislation to legalize and regulate sports betting in the state were approved this morning by the Georgia House Committee on Higher Education, but stalled out shortly thereafter in the House Rules Committee.

The Georgia sports betting package will have to be approved today by the House and sent to the Senate for concurrence or sports betting will fail once again in the Peach State.

Members of the Georgia House Committee on Higher Education approved both SB 386, a bill to legalize online sports betting, and SR 579, a resolution legalizing sports betting through a constitutional amendment, and moved the legislation ahead to the House Committee on Rules.

However, the House Committee on Rules did not take up the bills during its 9 a.m. session. Committee Chairman Rep. Butch Parrish (R-158) did note upon adjournment that the committee may meet again later in the day, which would give the bills another chance to move ahead to the House. The legislation first needs to be approved by the Rules Committee to be sent to the House for consideration.

No time has been set for the next Rules Committee meeting.

While the sports betting package isnt dead, its chances dwindle every hour it is not heard by the House floor. To be passed, SR 579 will have to be approved by a two-thirds majority and SB 386 by a simple majority. Then the legislation will have to be sent back to the Senate for concurrence, as the bills were amended in House committee.

If everything is approved by both the House and Senate today, Georgia voters would have the final say on sports betting during the November general election. If approved by voters, sports betting would likely launch sometime in 2025.

While not impossible, time is running out as today is the final day of the states legislative session. Action is expected to be taken until midnight, but with lawmakers jockeying for position to have their bills heard the competition will be high.

Both SB 386 and SR 579 were amended in committee this morning.

Sen. Clint Dixons (R-45) bill, SB 386, saw its sports betting tax rate amended from 20% to 25%, and language cleared up to ensure that operators cannot reduce free and promotional bets from its taxable revenue. The bill seeks to legalize online sports betting for 16 license holders in the state. Licenses would cost $1 million annually to renew and applicants would have to pay a $100,000 application fee. It would allow for bets on college sports.

Sen. Bill Cowserts (R-16) SR 579, which requires Georgia voters to approve a constitutional amendment in the November general election to legalize sports betting, was also amended to set specific sports betting tax revenue disbursements in the state. The changes require that 85% of sports betting tax revenue will be earmarked for HOPE Scholarship funding, pre-kindergarten funding, educational training, and capital improvements, while the remaining 15% of revenue will be dedicated to a problem gaming fund and capped at $150 million.

Cowsert touted the resolution as including the most robust responsible gaming provisions of any sports betting legislation in the country. To put things in perspective, to reach its cap of $150 million for problem gaming, the state would have to achieve $1 billion in sports betting tax revenue.

If approved, SB 386 will legalize online sports betting for a total of 16 online sports betting licenses, with the numbers breaking down as follows:

The remaining seven licenses will be awarded by a newly formed gaming commission that will regulate sports betting in the state.

Gambling Regulatory Writer and Editor

Rob covers all regulatory developments in online gambling. He specializes in US sports betting news along with casino regulation news as one of the most trusted sources in the country.

Gambling

Rob covers all regulatory developments in online gambling. He specializes in US sports betting news along with casino regulation news as one of the most trusted sources in the country.

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All Eyes on Georgia Sports Betting During Final Legislative Day - Sports Betting Dime

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Sports betting won’t be legal in Georgia after lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to spend taxes – goskagit.com

Sports betting won’t be legal in Georgia after lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to spend taxes – Bowling Green Daily News

Sports betting bill will help MN veterans, charities – ECM Publishers

NCAA set to push states with legalized sports betting to ban prop bets for all college sporting events – Yahoo Sports

All Eyes on Georgia Sports Betting During Final Legislative Day – Sports Betting Dime

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