MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
Out of bounds: the spread of sports betting
By TERESA BLACK and SHWETA GOVINDARAJAN
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Dave, a 31-year-old Connecticut accountant, knows gambling on sports is illegal, but he thinks nothing of making a few $50 bets during college basketball season.

While the National Collegiate Athletics Association tackles the widespread problem of sports gambling, Dave, who asked that his full name not be used, said in an interview that sports betting has never been so easy and convenient.

"It's gotten very automated, almost like an electronic withdrawal from your bank account," he said.

Using offshore Internet sports books located in exotic locales, including the Cayman Islands, Antigua and Costa Rica, he usually wagers on four or five games, setting a budget for himself and stopping once he's hit his limit.

"It's just a recreational form of entertainment, it adds a little spice for me," he said. "Obviously there's a bad element [to gambling], but it's so ingrained in our society."

Indeed, wagering on athletic games is the most widespread form of gambling in the United States, according to a 1999 report by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Bettors illegally wager an estimated $80 billion to $380 billion on sports each year. About 118 million Americans bet on sports, a recent ESPN survey found.

"We're talking about a society that has been desensitized to the issue of gambling," said Bill Saum, director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. "We think people should be watching the game for the action, rather than the point spread."

Point spreads, or the margins by which a team is expected to win, are published in newspapers across the country, perhaps legitimizing sports betting in the eyes of the public.

The NCAA maintains a hard-line stance on sports gambling, which officials say damages the integrity of the game. But it has made little progress curbing the practice. Nearly 30 percent of college athletes wager on sports, and four percent wager on their own games, Saum said.

"We believe there are student bookies on every campus in America," he said. "What we have to do is educate our kids - to the ills of sports wagering."

In line with recommendations issued by the study commission to promote awareness of the problems of gambling, the NCAA has conducted educational programs and created an anti-gambling platform promoted through posters and brochures as well as public service announcements shown during televised sporting events.

Beginning in the fall, the NCAA will survey 30,000 college students nationwide on their gambling habits to identify the amount of wagering that goes on and develop prevention strategies.

Still, scandals persist. Point shaving, a way for athletes to manipulate their performance to meet bookies' expectations, is a common form of game-fixing in college sports. Northwestern University in Illinois and Arizona State University are among colleges that recently experienced gambling scandals involving point shaving. And the study commission reported that gambling rings had been uncovered at Michigan State, Rhode Island, Bryant, Northwestern, and Boston College, among many others.

According to the NCAA, athletes betting on their own games can be permanently expelled from the. Betting with a bookie can make an athlete ineligible for a year.

The federal government has been trying to curb sports gambling for decades, and the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act made sports betting illegal except in Nevada, Delaware and Oregon, where state law explicitly allows it.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced another bill this spring that would prohibit college sports gambling in Nevada, the only state where it is legal. (Oregon has a game called "Sports Action" associated with its Oregon Lottery that allows wagering on the outcome of professional football games.)

Testifying before Congress, McCain said college sports betting invites public doubt about the honesty of the game and tempts college athletes into point shaving and other game-fixing tactics.

"By allowing betting in any state, we send a confusing message to our youth as to whether gambling on amateur athletics is, in fact, legal or illegal," McCain said. "This bill is essential to ensuring the integrity and legitimacy of amateur athletics - an important institution in the social fabric of this country."

The ban on collegiate betting could reduce the amount of illegal gambling, he said, citing the commission's findings that legal sports betting and public point spread information fuels "a large amount" of illegal sports gambling.

The American Gaming Association, the gambling industry's leading advocate and casinos' lobbying organization, opposes a ban on sports betting.

"The NCAA is advocating a constitutionally questionable federal ban on legal college sports wagering in Nevada," the association's chief executive, Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., told Congress last year. "Its proposal would do nothing to eliminate the widespread illegal gambling occurring on college campuses and elsewhere in this country."

Nevada sports books represent less than 1 percent of all sports betting, Fahrenkopf told the Medill News Service. In the interest of preserving their own profits, legal bookies also serve as point shaving watchdogs, he said.

"It was, in fact, the Nevada bookmakers who noticed irregular bets on the Arizona State basketball team [and] who contacted the FBI and the NCAA," Fahrenkopf said. "That's what broke the case."

He said illegal sports bookies were implicated in point shaving scandals during the 1990s.

"Nevada's sports books cannot prevent every point-shaving incident from occurring, because they originate outside of the state," he said. "It is the responsibility of the educational institutions, in conjunction with law enforcement, to address an issue that starts on their campuses, among their students."

Working with the NCAA, schools like the University of Michigan have stepped up efforts to educate student athletes.

The university meets with teams twice a year to stress the consequences of point shaving and betting on games. FBI agents and notorious gamblers such as Benny Silman, who spent time in jail for rigging Arizona State basketball games in the mid-1990s, are among those who have spoken to students of the dangers of sports gambling.

"[Student athletes] really listen to what these people have to say," said Ann Vollano, the University of Michigan's assistant athletic director for compliance. "If you listen to these stories, it's pretty scary."

Edward Looney, executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey and a certified gambling counselor, speaks about gambling at high schools and colleges.

"When I use the word epidemic, that's what it is on college campuses," Looney said.

Sports account for the most common kind of betting among young gamblers, of whom 90 to 95 percent are men. "The male gambler is much more the action gambler," he said. "They love competitiveness."

Gambling enthusiasts say the thrill of betting will never lose its appeal. "Whether they make it illegal or not, someone's going to make lines on it," said Dave, the Connecticut accountant. "And someone's going to bet on it."

Return to America: Taking a Chance on Gambling