Article on the Gambling in the NCAA
- Thread starter IntenseOperator
- Start date
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Opinions of betting changing
Las Vegas sports book directors have said for years that, because of the gambling industry's strict regulation, legalized sports betting is good for athletics.
Those words seemed to make little noise outside Nevada, but the message finally appears to have spread.
Of 400 high-level sports executives at the professional and college ranks, 67.48 percent said eliminating legal sports wagering would be negative for athletics, according to a Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal poll released Tuesday. The survey was conducted with Turnkey Sports.
"We've always believed that having legalized sports betting in Nevada plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of sports," said Robert Stewart, Caesars Entertainment's senior vice president of corporate communications. "Frankly, we believe it's a lot easier to detect any trend that might indicate something improper in legalized sports betting. Obviously, it's a very small percentage of wagering on sports in the United States. The vast majority is illegal.
"It looks like people are catching on."
According to the poll, 25.77 percent said eliminating legal sports wagering would have no impact, and 6.13 percent said it would have a positive effect.
Alan Feldman, MGM-Mirage's senior vice president of public affairs, said more sports wagering takes place illegally inside the arena during an NBA playoff game than legally in a sports book.
Illegal wagering obviously lacks controls to detect improprieties like point shaving, but Nevada sports books have alerted authorities to possible point shaving when betting irregularities have occurred.
"I think people who are in sports are beginning to know the truth. And the truth is, wagering on professional and college sports is an unbelievably large business in this country," Feldman said. "The college basketball tournament was basically designed as a betting (game)."
On the topic of pro franchises, 79.14 percent of those polled think Las Vegas will land a major sports team within the next 10 years. Of those respondents, 34.11 percent said the NBA will be the first league in town, 27.91 percent said major league baseball and 20.16 said the NHL.
A potential ownership group has been trying to convince baseball to move the Montreal Expos to Las Vegas. Baseball's relocation committee will meet today in New York, but The Associated Press reported no significant developments were expected.
Nevertheless, the poll's findings are good news for those backing the baseball movement.
"To me, it says this isn't the dominant issue (sports betting) of whether baseball should move to Las Vegas or not," said Mike Shapiro, a consultant for Centerfield Management Group, which represents the Las Vegas group. "We have told baseball that many times, and I believe it has resonated."
Las Vegas 51s president Don Logan said leagues are more open to legalized sports wagering than they might appear.
"What's the significance of every paper in the country running the NFL injury report?" Logan asked. "The NFL is the poster child.
"I think the proliferation of gambling around the country has calmed the fears a little bit."
But is a major league prepared to put a team in Las Vegas without that league's games being removed from the betting boards?
The major sports leagues have said the issue isn't negotiable, but maybe this poll is a sign of change.
"The leagues themselves have, in my opinion, had a completely untenable position on this," Feldman said. "The success or failure of a sports team in Las Vegas should have nothing to do with whether there's wagering on a team.
"The public knows it's ridiculous. I don't even think it's the owners. It's mostly the commissioners who are afraid or unwilling to speak candidly."
Perhaps. But the SportsBusiness Journal article quoted Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo saying it is still an issue.
"Presently, the ownership of the (NBA) is not prepared to overlook that," Colangelo said. "But it will be very interesting, as the whole gambling industry evolves, how this all plays out in the end. If we were looking into a crystal ball, somewhere down the line there will be a team in Las Vegas, and they'll be very successful."
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Opinions of betting changing
Las Vegas sports book directors have said for years that, because of the gambling industry's strict regulation, legalized sports betting is good for athletics.
Those words seemed to make little noise outside Nevada, but the message finally appears to have spread.
Of 400 high-level sports executives at the professional and college ranks, 67.48 percent said eliminating legal sports wagering would be negative for athletics, according to a Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal poll released Tuesday. The survey was conducted with Turnkey Sports.
"We've always believed that having legalized sports betting in Nevada plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of sports," said Robert Stewart, Caesars Entertainment's senior vice president of corporate communications. "Frankly, we believe it's a lot easier to detect any trend that might indicate something improper in legalized sports betting. Obviously, it's a very small percentage of wagering on sports in the United States. The vast majority is illegal.
"It looks like people are catching on."
According to the poll, 25.77 percent said eliminating legal sports wagering would have no impact, and 6.13 percent said it would have a positive effect.
Alan Feldman, MGM-Mirage's senior vice president of public affairs, said more sports wagering takes place illegally inside the arena during an NBA playoff game than legally in a sports book.
Illegal wagering obviously lacks controls to detect improprieties like point shaving, but Nevada sports books have alerted authorities to possible point shaving when betting irregularities have occurred.
"I think people who are in sports are beginning to know the truth. And the truth is, wagering on professional and college sports is an unbelievably large business in this country," Feldman said. "The college basketball tournament was basically designed as a betting (game)."
On the topic of pro franchises, 79.14 percent of those polled think Las Vegas will land a major sports team within the next 10 years. Of those respondents, 34.11 percent said the NBA will be the first league in town, 27.91 percent said major league baseball and 20.16 said the NHL.
A potential ownership group has been trying to convince baseball to move the Montreal Expos to Las Vegas. Baseball's relocation committee will meet today in New York, but The Associated Press reported no significant developments were expected.
Nevertheless, the poll's findings are good news for those backing the baseball movement.
"To me, it says this isn't the dominant issue (sports betting) of whether baseball should move to Las Vegas or not," said Mike Shapiro, a consultant for Centerfield Management Group, which represents the Las Vegas group. "We have told baseball that many times, and I believe it has resonated."
Las Vegas 51s president Don Logan said leagues are more open to legalized sports wagering than they might appear.
"What's the significance of every paper in the country running the NFL injury report?" Logan asked. "The NFL is the poster child.
"I think the proliferation of gambling around the country has calmed the fears a little bit."
But is a major league prepared to put a team in Las Vegas without that league's games being removed from the betting boards?
The major sports leagues have said the issue isn't negotiable, but maybe this poll is a sign of change.
"The leagues themselves have, in my opinion, had a completely untenable position on this," Feldman said. "The success or failure of a sports team in Las Vegas should have nothing to do with whether there's wagering on a team.
"The public knows it's ridiculous. I don't even think it's the owners. It's mostly the commissioners who are afraid or unwilling to speak candidly."
Perhaps. But the SportsBusiness Journal article quoted Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo saying it is still an issue.
"Presently, the ownership of the (NBA) is not prepared to overlook that," Colangelo said. "But it will be very interesting, as the whole gambling industry evolves, how this all plays out in the end. If we were looking into a crystal ball, somewhere down the line there will be a team in Las Vegas, and they'll be very successful."
From "blankets" daily emailing....
Study reveals threat to gambling integrity
Jon Campbell
On November 12, 1994, Northwestern running back Dennis Lundy produced one of the most infamous fumbles in NCAA history when his team took on the Iowa Hawkeyes at home.
Landry, then the Wildcats all-time leading rusher, bobbled a ball on Iowa's goal line with about six minutes left in the third quarter with his team down 35-13. Northwestern lost possession and ultimately went on to get plastered 49-13.
Why the big deal? Lundy later admitted he fumbled on purpose in an attempt to cash in on a $400 bet wagered against his team. The seven points the Wildcats would have inevitably collected from Lundy's touchdown would have put underdog Northwestern a little too close to the 6-point spread and the backdoor cover for his liking.
Lundy was suspended for the season finale at Penn State and eventually pleaded guilty on perjury charges for lying to a grand jury about his relationship with a campus bookie. Northwestern hoops starter Dion Lee was also suspended for six games by the university in a similar point-shaving scandal on the court that year.
"They made it look like it was two kids with a problem," Lee said at the time of his suspension. "It's bigger than us. I'd say there's an athlete in every sport who's involved. It's a schoolwide problem. The school was so quick to act on Dennis and me, but they know others are involved."
Ten years after the incident, it seems the NCAA finally is listening to Lee. And it turns out he was right. In a study on wagering released last Wednesday, the NCAA found that nearly 35 percent of male student athletes from all sports in Divisions I, II and III bet on sports in some way last year.
About 17 percent of Division I athletes and about 25 percent of Division III jocks bet on collegiate sports according to the survey performed by over 21,000 NCAA student athletes. NCAA president Myles Brand called the numbers "startling and disturbing" and in a sentiment that sounded a lot like Lee's a decade earlier, Brand also said "no college or university can safely say it doesn't have a gambling problem."
With millionaire coaches and stadiums that can hold the population of the city which they're located in, like the Big House in Ann Arbor, I would hardly call the 35 percent figure startling or disturbing. Of all the student athletes who admitted to betting, an overwhelming number of more than 90 percent in all divisions said the main reason they gambled was for fun.
And what did they expect? In 1999, the NCAA inked an 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS to broadcast their games. Everyone and their bookie knows widespread viewership is often synonymous with betting, yet Brand wants to prohibit betting on college sports. The contradiction is laughable.
To the NCAA and Brand's credit, there were some numbers that came out of the recent study that even most sports bettors would have to admit are rather troubling. Close to five percent of both the basketball and football players surveyed admitted they'd taken money for playing poorly in a game, knew of a teammate who'd taken money for playing poorly, had been threatened or harmed because of sports wagering, had been contacted by an outside source for inside information, or had provided inside information to an outside source.
Five percent is a big number any way you cut it - especially when you consider it might be shaved more than the points in a Northwestern basketball game. Even though the survey guaranteed anonymity, it's only logical to assume some guilty parties would have to be a little weary of admitting to their infractions. The NCAA itself admits that "absolute levels of behavior might be underestimated? because players might be worried about getting caught.
But whether the numbers are exact to me is irrelevant. More important are numbers like this one: At least one percent (four) of the Division I basketball players polled and 1.4 percent (30) of the Division I football players polled actually admitted to doing something in a game that affected the outcome, solely because those players had incurred a gambling debt.
It kind of makes you stop and wonder if your time is better spent counting ceiling tiles rather than box score figures when doing your handicapping.
Shaving points in basketball with one or two players in your back pocket can be done. It's been proven more than once. But in pigskin, there is only a small percentage of players that can actually have a noticeable impact on the final outcome of a game, like a quarterback or running back. In other words, there are only a few players worth buying.
So when only a small percentage of players are crooked in Division I football, it has a bigger impact compared to other sports. The integrity of the game is threatened significantly. Which makes it a threat to the integrity of sports betting.
"There is a need for this study in order to find the extent of the problem," Tim Lockinger, CFO for American Wagering Inc., told the Las Vegas Business Press. "But if they try to whitewash the issue and say prohibition [of college sports betting] is required, it just glosses over the problem. It will make them look good and politicians look good, but it doesn't address the underlying issue."
A task force has been created to analyze the data gathered by this study and their findings will be put in a report to the NCAA. If prohibition is their ultimate recommendation, chances are, NCAA athletes and sports bettors alike are in trouble.
"There are problems and they need to be resolved but a prohibition on wagering will not work," Lockinger says. "People will continue to bet. If they do not have a legal outlet, they will seek it through unscrupulous characters. It is those unscrupulous characters that will do whatever it takes to make money, including approaching players to fix games."
Study reveals threat to gambling integrity
Jon Campbell
On November 12, 1994, Northwestern running back Dennis Lundy produced one of the most infamous fumbles in NCAA history when his team took on the Iowa Hawkeyes at home.
Landry, then the Wildcats all-time leading rusher, bobbled a ball on Iowa's goal line with about six minutes left in the third quarter with his team down 35-13. Northwestern lost possession and ultimately went on to get plastered 49-13.
Why the big deal? Lundy later admitted he fumbled on purpose in an attempt to cash in on a $400 bet wagered against his team. The seven points the Wildcats would have inevitably collected from Lundy's touchdown would have put underdog Northwestern a little too close to the 6-point spread and the backdoor cover for his liking.
Lundy was suspended for the season finale at Penn State and eventually pleaded guilty on perjury charges for lying to a grand jury about his relationship with a campus bookie. Northwestern hoops starter Dion Lee was also suspended for six games by the university in a similar point-shaving scandal on the court that year.
"They made it look like it was two kids with a problem," Lee said at the time of his suspension. "It's bigger than us. I'd say there's an athlete in every sport who's involved. It's a schoolwide problem. The school was so quick to act on Dennis and me, but they know others are involved."
Ten years after the incident, it seems the NCAA finally is listening to Lee. And it turns out he was right. In a study on wagering released last Wednesday, the NCAA found that nearly 35 percent of male student athletes from all sports in Divisions I, II and III bet on sports in some way last year.
About 17 percent of Division I athletes and about 25 percent of Division III jocks bet on collegiate sports according to the survey performed by over 21,000 NCAA student athletes. NCAA president Myles Brand called the numbers "startling and disturbing" and in a sentiment that sounded a lot like Lee's a decade earlier, Brand also said "no college or university can safely say it doesn't have a gambling problem."
With millionaire coaches and stadiums that can hold the population of the city which they're located in, like the Big House in Ann Arbor, I would hardly call the 35 percent figure startling or disturbing. Of all the student athletes who admitted to betting, an overwhelming number of more than 90 percent in all divisions said the main reason they gambled was for fun.
And what did they expect? In 1999, the NCAA inked an 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS to broadcast their games. Everyone and their bookie knows widespread viewership is often synonymous with betting, yet Brand wants to prohibit betting on college sports. The contradiction is laughable.
To the NCAA and Brand's credit, there were some numbers that came out of the recent study that even most sports bettors would have to admit are rather troubling. Close to five percent of both the basketball and football players surveyed admitted they'd taken money for playing poorly in a game, knew of a teammate who'd taken money for playing poorly, had been threatened or harmed because of sports wagering, had been contacted by an outside source for inside information, or had provided inside information to an outside source.
Five percent is a big number any way you cut it - especially when you consider it might be shaved more than the points in a Northwestern basketball game. Even though the survey guaranteed anonymity, it's only logical to assume some guilty parties would have to be a little weary of admitting to their infractions. The NCAA itself admits that "absolute levels of behavior might be underestimated? because players might be worried about getting caught.
But whether the numbers are exact to me is irrelevant. More important are numbers like this one: At least one percent (four) of the Division I basketball players polled and 1.4 percent (30) of the Division I football players polled actually admitted to doing something in a game that affected the outcome, solely because those players had incurred a gambling debt.
It kind of makes you stop and wonder if your time is better spent counting ceiling tiles rather than box score figures when doing your handicapping.
Shaving points in basketball with one or two players in your back pocket can be done. It's been proven more than once. But in pigskin, there is only a small percentage of players that can actually have a noticeable impact on the final outcome of a game, like a quarterback or running back. In other words, there are only a few players worth buying.
So when only a small percentage of players are crooked in Division I football, it has a bigger impact compared to other sports. The integrity of the game is threatened significantly. Which makes it a threat to the integrity of sports betting.
"There is a need for this study in order to find the extent of the problem," Tim Lockinger, CFO for American Wagering Inc., told the Las Vegas Business Press. "But if they try to whitewash the issue and say prohibition [of college sports betting] is required, it just glosses over the problem. It will make them look good and politicians look good, but it doesn't address the underlying issue."
A task force has been created to analyze the data gathered by this study and their findings will be put in a report to the NCAA. If prohibition is their ultimate recommendation, chances are, NCAA athletes and sports bettors alike are in trouble.
"There are problems and they need to be resolved but a prohibition on wagering will not work," Lockinger says. "People will continue to bet. If they do not have a legal outlet, they will seek it through unscrupulous characters. It is those unscrupulous characters that will do whatever it takes to make money, including approaching players to fix games."
