Officials regulating Ohio sports betting say they are undertaking new initiatives designed to address situations in which college athletes feel pressured or are subjected to abuse by bettors.

The issue of how legal sports betting has impacted student athletes was discussed at Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the Ohio Casino Control Commission. Commission Chairman Thomas Stickrath and Executive Director Matt Schuler said they met recently with Gov. Mike DeWine, whom they referred to as having strong interest in such problems.

The commission officials said DeWine was pleased to hear about plans by the OCCC to make use of an app designed to help college athletes who are facing pressure and to mount a public awareness campaign discouraging harassment of athletes.

While Ohio is still relatively new to the world of legal sports betting, with betting apps having only launched at the start of the year, the state has quickly played a key role in the harassment topic.

In January, just weeks after the new sports betting sites became available to the public, University of Dayton basketball coach Anthony Grant used a post-game press conference to lament how his players were being castigated on social media by those who had lost bets. Subsequently, the legislature created a law backed by DeWine that calls for banning betting in Ohio by anyone found to have harassed athletes, coaches, or game officials.

Amanda Blackford, the OCCC’s director of operations, outlined the two new initiatives that are in their early stages of development.

One involves future use of an app through which college athletes could report — anonymously if they choose — any type of harassment they are receiving.

While she noted professional athletes are largely in a protective “bubble” distancing them from direct interaction with bettors, Blackford said, “There’s this added pressure on college athletes, in particular, because of them living and going to classes with the people who are betting on them. … They’re hearing things like ‘You cost me my rent money’ or ‘You made me lose the spread.’”

The app being planned, she said, would also provide education about mental health issues and include various tools such as access to telehealth services for counseling. College athletes may not want others to see them walking into a counseling office on campus, and making telehealth services available will make it more comfortable for them to seek help for their stress, Blackford said.

Additionally, she described plans for a public awareness campaign covering the issue of abuse of athletes. The commission wants to work with colleges in the state on publicizing the issue in order to create a stigma around such behavior and discourage further incidents.

While people have become accustomed to poor behavior by fans at stadiums or even “my kid’s soccer games,” Blackford said, “when there’s the added pressure of money behind it, it gets even worse. This campaign will show this behavior is not OK.”

The hope is to involve student athletes from local colleges in the campaign so as to “humanize” them and have the public think twice before offering negative comments. Currently, she said, there’s too much of a “suck it up, buttercup” attitude about how athletes should brush off insults that might arise from their performance.

“We would like to show the state supports our student athletes,” Blackford said.

No timeline was offered for just when the new initiatives will be in place.