Mark Pope Says He's Met With His Team Multiple Times About the Dangers of Gambling

by: Jacob Polacheck12 hours agoPolacheckKSR

Nov 4, 2025; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Pope calls out a play during the first half against the Nicholls Colonels at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

With the NCAA currently grappling with how to manage the advent of gambling, it’s given many college coaches a new roadblock that they have to address with players. While the change to allow student-athletes and school athletics department staff members to permissibly bet on pro sports was delayed, it’s still something that’s on everyone’s mind.

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope was asked about gambling during his press conference on Thursday. Specifically, he was asked about a recent study from the NCAA that found that 36 percent of D1 men’s basketball student-athletes have reported experiencing social media abuse related to sports betting within the last year.

“We spend a lot of time talking about gambling because it’s dangerous. It’s so accessible now,” Pope said. “It’s accessible to where you don’t even know it; It’s really important to us. We met with the team multiple, multiple times, talking about this. And that’s also a part of it. That’s part of it that the guys can’t control, just like all of us. If we win by too much or win by too little, there’s going to be somebody that’s just paying a massive price for it. Their emotional outburst might feel like my emotional outburst for 45 minutes in the locker room after the game at Madison Square Garden. It’s just a real thing.”

‘The Emotional Outburst Can Sometimes Be Really Violent’

That “emotional outburst” isn’t something to ignore. Teams, like Kentucky, are having to deal with it in their athletic departments.

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“That emotional outburst can sometimes be really violent, really scary, so our guys know that if they get something that’s over the line, they need to bring it to us and talk to us about it,” Pope said. “We need to push it up the chain. In a larger sense, we’re going to be good as long as we keep our noise in the locker room and not spending too much time on the noise outside the locker room.”

This isn’t something that teams are dealing with only when they lose or only when they win. It’s constant.

“It’s really important, both ways, when you’re winning big and when you’re struggling a little bit,” Pope said. “It all falls into the same category of our guys being disciplined, disciplined as they can possibly be about what they let in.”