Brendan Sorsby placed at least 40 bets involving Indiana University football as a quarterback for the Hoosiers, used sportsbook accounts registered to a family member and friends to wager approximately $90,000 over four years, and continued to gamble after transferring from Cincinnati to Texas Tech in December, according to court documents.
As reported by Mark Schlabach and David Purdumhe of ESPN, the documents were filed Friday by Sorsby's legal team in district court in Lubbock, Texas. They reveal new details about how the quarterback transferred large sums of money to friends to fund his betting.
Sorsby has been diagnosed with a gambling and anxiety disorder and recently completed a 35-day stint in an Arizona gambling rehabilitation center, according to his attorneys. He is asking for a temporary injunction against the NCAA to maintain his college eligibility. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in Lubbock.
Related: NCAA Denies Brendan Sorsby's Reinstatement Bid, Texas Tech to Appeal
At the Southeastern Conference spring meetings in Destin, Fla., on Wednesday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey declared a conference-wide mandate that every athlete must complete a sports gambling education program before the start of their 2026-27 regular season, according to Rowan Fisher Shotton, writing for Sports Illustrated's College Football HQ.
The initiative features a custom-designed educational video, supplementing the league's existing partnership with IC360 (formerly US Integrity), which monitors gambling activity in real time across SEC sports. The SEC's anti-gambling measures had already included an anonymous tip line, locker room posters, and athlete availability reports for football, basketball and baseball.
"The rise in sports gambling, including some recent well-documented incidents among college and professional athletics...makes this a high-priority initiative," Sankey said.
Four pages of stipulated facts in Friday's court filing stated that during his college career at Indiana (2022-23) and Cincinnati (2024-25), Sorsby used accounts registered in his name, a family member's name and friends' names to place at least $90,000 in impermissible wagers via Hard Rock Bet, FanDuel, Underdog and PrizePicks accounts.
According to ESPN:
- Sorsby transferred at least $60,000 to two friends to cover bets made on his behalf, per the documents.
- While Sorsby was enrolled at Indiana from June 2022 to December 2023, he acknowledged making at least 2,900 bets that totaled more than $30,000.
- Between Sept. 2 and Oct. 22, 2022, Sorsby made at least 40 wagers on Indiana football and/or individual members of the team. According to the documents, the bets ranged from $1 to $114 and totaled at least $850.
Sorsby, as an IU redshirt freshman, didn't compete in games during the period in which he placed bets on the Hoosiers. The wagers stopped two weeks before he made his playing debut against Penn State on Nov. 5, 2022, according to ESPN.
In a May 16 statement to NCAA reinstatement staff cited by ESPN, Sorsby wrote that the "bets made me feel like I was supporting the team when I was not playing in games, much like fans betting on their hometown teams to win. It was a way to make me feel more connected to my team when I wasn't playing. I always bet on Indiana to succeed."
The stipulated facts concluded that "Sorsby never bet on the Indiana team and/or individual members of the team in a game in which he participated. He did not engage in any activity designed to influence the outcome or integrity of an intercollegiate contest or in an effort to affect win-loss margins ('point shaving')."
