NCAA: Brendan Sorsby wagered at least $90k in college, gambling flagged by law enforcement

Brendan Sorsby admitted to wagering at least $90,000 on more than 9,000 bets over the course of his college career, according to an opposition response to the quarterback’s lawsuit against the NCAA.

An online sportsbook initially tipped off the NCAA to Sorsby’s extensive gambling after the book had been approached by law enforcement, according to the opposition response, which was filed Friday by the NCAA and obtained by The Athletic ahead of Monday’s temporary injunction hearing in Lubbock County (Texas) district court. It was previously unknown how and why the NCAA began its investigation into Sorsby’s gambling history earlier this year.

According to the NCAA’s latest filing, Sorsby made at least 40 bets on Indiana football in some capacity from Sept. 2, 2022, to Oct. 22, 2022, when he was a member of the Hoosiers, totaling at least $850. During his two seasons at Indiana, he also placed at least 40 bets totaling more than $1,400 on Indiana men’s basketball and roughly 300 bets totaling at least $6,500 on college football unrelated to Indiana.

Sorsby gambled on accounts registered under his own name and those of friends and family members, using platforms such as Hard Rock Bet, FanDuel, Underdog and PrizePicks.

While at Indiana, Sorsby placed more than 8,600 impermissible bets totaling more than $30,000. At Cincinnati, it was more than 500 impermissible bets totalling at least $38,000, including at least one wager on Cincinnati men’s basketball for a total of $3,500. This included directing others to place bets on his behalf, the NCAA filing stated, transferring at least $60,000 to two friends to fund wagers.

After transferring to Texas Tech in January, the NCAA opposition response states, Sorsby transferred roughly $5,000 to a friend who placed bets for him on professional sports via prediction market apps — information that was not disclosed to the NCAA until last week after Sorsby’s lawsuit was filed. Traditional online sports gambling is not currently legal in the state of Texas.

The court documents do not specify which law enforcement entity informed the sportsbook about Sorsby’s gambling, nor does it mention whether law enforcement is pursuing criminal charges against Sorsby. The Athletic previously reported that Sorsby is under investigation by Ohio state gambling officials, according to the Ohio Casino Control Commission. The Indiana Gaming Commission previously told The Athletic it was withholding a document request related to Sorsby because of a state law that shields the investigatory records of a law enforcement agency.

The NCAA and Sorsby’s legal team both submitted filings on Friday. Those filings included a list of stipulated facts submitted by the quarterback’s attorneys, which reiterated that Sorsby never bet on an Indiana game in which he played and never manipulated or jeopardized the integrity of a game he wagered on.

Sorsby claims he was unaware of bets made by accounts he was associated with on the under for Indiana passing yards in October 2022 and under for Indiana’s first-half points in September 2023. Sorsby did miss two games in September 2023, his redshirt freshman season with the Hoosiers.

“Once I became part of the active roster with an opportunity to play, I immediately stopped betting on Indiana,” Sorsby wrote in a statement to the NCAA. “However, my gambling on other sports did not stop; it escalated and became compulsive.”

Sorsby, 22, transferred to Texas Tech in January after two seasons each at Indiana and Cincinnati, and he was one of the most highly coveted players in the transfer portal this offseason.

The fifth-year senior quarterback filed the lawsuit last week and is seeking an injunction that would restore his eligibility for the 2026 college football season. He was recently deemed permanently ineligible by the NCAA for gambling violations, including bets on his own team in 2022.

Sorsby’s lawsuit seeks an expedited and definitive answer on his eligibility status for the 2026 college season, so that he can either remain in college or apply for the NFL Supplemental Draft by its June 22 deadline.

The NCAA’s opposition response argues that Texas Tech contributed to the length of Sorsby’s reinstatement process, stating that the university was notified in April about the NCAA’s findings and investigation but that Tech did not file for reinstatement until last week, a day after Sorsby filed the lawsuit.

The NCAA denied Texas Tech’s request for reinstatement on Sorsby’s behalf late last week, a decision the school plans to appeal, according to a letter from university president Lawrence Schovanec. Sorsby filed the lawsuit in addition to the reinstatement process. Prominent sports labor lawyer Jeffrey Kessler is representing Sorsby, and Texas Tech is not involved in the lawsuit.

The quarterback recently completed a residential treatment program for a gambling and anxiety disorder. He is expected to return to Texas Tech’s campus in the coming days and rejoin the football program.

He admitted to placing “thousands” of bets as a college athlete and appealed for leniency based on his cooperation with the NCAA investigation, his clinically diagnosed gambling addiction, and his vow to use his experience and platform to raise awareness for sports gambling among college athletes. The lawsuit revealed that Sorsby offered to serve a two-game suspension, among other conditions, but the NCAA declined to discuss a settlement.

Sorsby’s attorney Scott Tompsett, who is handling his NCAA reinstatement process, wrote a letter to the NCAA that was filed with the court Friday and argued that “denying Brendan eligibility to play football in a structured environment is very likely to threaten his progress and recovery.”

“Rather than consider Brendan’s mental health condition as a mitigating factor, the (NCAA) used it against him to deny the reinstatement request,” Tompsett wrote.

The NCAA’s Friday filing pushed back against the lawsuit’s accusations that the association profits from the sports gambling ecosystem, reiterating that the NCAA has no commercial partnership with any betting companies, restricts advertising and sponsorships associated with betting during NCAA championships, and offers various gambling education materials to college athletes and member schools.

“The NCAA does not pursue gambling revenue,” the opposition response reads. “It does not partner with sportsbooks for commercial purposes, does not share in wagering revenue, and does not align its economic interests with wagering activity.”

This is completely false – the NCAA has no commercial partnership with any sportsbook and the NCAA prohibits betting ads during all broadcasts. https://t.co/nlkkCfD0hG

— Tim Buckley (@Tim_BuckleyMA) May 27, 2026

Sorsby has received public support for reinstatement from Texas Tech, including the school president, athletic director Kirby Hocutt and head coach Joey McGuire. But the NCAA’s sports betting guidelines, updated in 2023, stipulate penalties of permanent ineligibility for an athlete betting on their own team and a lost season of eligibility for betting on other sports at an athlete’s school, both of which Sorsby has admitted to.

The NCAA has given no indication it intends to deviate from those punishments for Sorsby.

“Granting relief here would have broad-ranging and destabilizing ramifications. The relief (Sorsby) seeks would make the NCAA the first and only major American sports league to allow an athlete to compete after betting on his own games,” the NCAA’s opposition response reads. “And it would undermine the integrity of college athletics by rewarding conduct that is universally prohibited in American sports.”

Last October, all three NCAA divisions passed a rule change allowing players and staff to bet on pro sports, but the rule was rescinded a month later when more than two-thirds of Division I schools voted to reverse the change, including Texas Tech, according to the NCAA’s latest lawsuit filing.

The June 1 hearing is critical for college sports. Sorsby’s situation has put the broader issue of sports gambling among college athletes under the microscope, exposing the challenges and shortcomings that come with policing this issue. If Sorsby receives an injunction and can play college football this fall, it would be another high-profile defeat for the NCAA in court and represent another set of rules the NCAA struggles to enforce.

“The stakes are much greater here,” the NCAA argues. “College sports played by teenagers and young adults are, respectfully, the last place to create the first-ever exception allowing an individual to continue to compete after betting on his own sport.”

The hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. local time on Monday. Judge Ken Curry will preside after the initial judge, Phillip Hays, recused himself. Hays is a Lubbock native and double graduate of Texas Tech; Curry holds no degrees from Tech. The judge might deliver a ruling on Monday but is not required to do so immediately, and either party can appeal the decision.