The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- July 5, 1999

NACDA panelists discuss wide spectrum of gambling issues

BY KAY HAWES
STAFF WRITER

RENO, Nevada -- Athletics directors at the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) gambling-education session during the NACDA convention heard a message they may not have been expecting.

Some members of the panel, which included a former chief operating officer of Harrah's Casino, told athletics directors that they could best halt point shaving and other problems in sports gambling by supporting legalized sports gaming.

And, although the gambling-education discussion immediately followed the opening session featuring management specialist Stephen Covey, only about half of the athletics directors who had come for the opening session remained for the gambling panel. Many more left after the second panelist, William S. Saum -- the NCAA's director of agent and gambling activities -- finished his presentation, leaving the room about a third full.

Even before the convention, there was considerable discussion about the appropriateness of holding the convention in a city with a legal sports book.

"I will not be in attendance at the NACDA meetings because of my opposition to conducting such a meeting in a town with an open sports book," said Robert Frederick, athletics director at the University of Kansas, in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Frederick is a member of the NCAA's Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct, which last summer proposed a rule that would have banned NCAA staff members from attending meetings in cities that permit sports gambling. "I think it would be hypocritical for me to attend the meeting under those circumstances," Frederick said.

NACDA officials said the site of the convention was chosen before the recent gambling scandals emerged in collegiate sports.

Former NCAA President Joseph N. Crowley, president of the University of Nevada, introduced the session with an acknowledgement that there had been controversy surrounding the convention's location.

"There was a bit of stirring about the propriety of having a NACDA convention in this community, or in the state of Nevada more generally, in the wake of some college sport betting scandals, and it occurred to me that this would be an opportunity to present some information from people who are scholars or practitioners in the area of gaming and specifically with respect to sports gaming," Crowley said, noting that he had enlisted the assistance of Bill Eadington, director of the Center for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at University of Nevada, in composing the panel as well as in moderating it.

Before his introduction of the panelists, Eadington offered his own perspective on the issue.

"The last 30 years have been marked by an unprecedented spread of legal gaming throughout the United States and indeed throughout the world," he said.

"Of all the popular forms of gambling, the only one that has not shared in the push toward legalization and public acceptance has been wagering on sporting events.

"However, we need to explore more deeply the underlying characteristics of sports gambling to determine if it is indeed so different, perhaps more pernicious, and so much more damaging than the other forms of popular gambling so as to warrant such special attention. In other words, why should it be, among all the forms of popular gambling, the only one that is held to the standard of prohibition?

"There is a fundamental reality that we as Americans have had enough experience with now that we need to come to grips with, and that is that prohibition, whether it's for alcohol, illicit drugs or sports wagering, does not make the demand for an activity go away. Rather, it drives it underground and it pushes transactions outside of the protection of contract."

Eadington offered several policy choices, the first of which would legalize the activity and strictly regulate it so all actors are well aware of the consequences of violating the law and regulations that are put forward. A second alternative would prohibit the activity, and strictly and vigorously enforce the laws.

"The third alternative," Eadington said, "is that we can, by law, prohibit the activity but then not attempt to enforce the law in any significant measure. This last approach is basically what we are doing in 49 of the 50 states now."

Panelists urge support for gambling

The first panelist to speak was Richard O. Davies, professor of history at Nevada, and author of "America's Obsession: Sports and Society since 1945." Davies, who is currently writing another book, this one on the history of sports gambling, gave the audience a historical perspective.

"As an American historian, I am struck by how deeply gambling runs in our culture. We have essentially been making the same arguments -- pro and con -- for the last 400 years," he said.

Davies also contrasted the views of early colonial Virginians to those in New England regarding gambling. "In Virginia and neighboring states, not only did men of substance gamble with gusto, but they were expected to do so. Such leading figures as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have left many a document attesting to their having put a wager down on a horse race," he said.

"It's also instructive to recall that Jamestown, the first permanent white settlement in North America, was funded by a London lottery. So it's not too much of a stretch of the historical record to say that America was born on a bet."

Davies then stated that gambling had been a part of sports ever since sports began in this country. "Baseball became our most popular national game for several reasons, one of those being that it readily lent itself to gambling," he said.

"College sports, likewise attracted gamblers, some of whom were well-known star players. George Gipp, this fabled star of yesteryear, routinely bet large sums upon games in which he himself played for the Fighting Irish.

"In one memorable 1920 contest, he received favorable comment from sportswriters because he played heroically for the entire second half against Indiana with a badly separated shoulder. Gipp was merely playing with pain to protect his investment."

Davies went on to say that legal sports books prevent point-shaving scandals. "Nevada sports books are actually college athletics directors' good friends because they operate upon the essential assumption that a game must not be fixed. If the game is fixed, if there is an image of that, the Nevada sports books will not make money," he said.

"Finally, as you go back to your states, I would say the most productive strategy for each of you to deal with this problem -- to contain, control and regulate sports gambling -- is to advocate its legalization in each of your states. Not only would you almost overnight get rid of the campus bookies who plague many of your institutions, but it would also introduce a new source of tax revenue. It would also help reduce the influence of the Internet that I see becoming very powerful in this field."

Another panelist who encouraged the legalization of sports gambling was Lou Phillips, the Mead distinguished professor of Gaming Management at Nevada and a former chief operating officer of Harrah's Casinos.

Phillips said that gaming is a big business in the United States and that legal sports gambling is a relatively small piece of the pie.

Around $640 billion was wagered in the United States in 1997, Phillips said. "Of that, the legal sports books in Nevada accepted $2.5 billion in wagers, and on that made less than five percent, about $85 to $90 million," he said.

Phillips maintained that the economic impact of illegal gambling remained largely unknown, and thus unregulated and untaxed.

"I believe that if we legalize it, if we regulate it, if we tax it, --which we do in Nevada -- then we can get a handle on it," Phillips concluded.

In defense of legal sports books

Robert Faiss, chairman of the Gaming Law Department at the law firm of Lionel, Sawyer and Collins in Las Vegas, defended the integrity of legal book making in Nevada.

"Nevada's sports book managers are strongly committed to the goal of integrity in sports contests," Faiss said. "If there is a contest where someone is attempting to tamper with the results, they are the targets. Today's legal bookies in Nevada have been educated at the nation's leading schools, and they look, act and think like the corporate executives they are."

Faiss also praised Nevada's regulatory efforts. "I once worked as an assistant to the President of the United States, and I can assure you that the depth of a background review to work in the White House pales in comparison to a routine Nevada gaming license investigation," he said.

NCAA's perspective on gambling

William S. Saum, NCAA director of agent and gambling activities, detailed the activities of the Association as it works to educate student-athletes, coaches and athletics administrators about the dangers of gambling.

Saum also cautioned that problem gambling often begins for young people long before they enroll at college.

"I think it's important to understand, as we learn more and more about this issue of sports wagering on our college campuses, that it does not begin on our college campuses. It begins in our junior highs and high schools.

"There are over 14 million youth that have gambled, between the ages of 12 and 17. Of those 14 million youth, there are 2 million problem gamblers.

"When you get to the college level, six to eight percent of college students are poten-tial pathological gamblers. College students' pathological rate is four to eight times greater than an adult," he said.

"The entry point of all gambling for youth is through sports wagering," Saum said, noting that easy access to the Internet and credit cards puts student-athletes and the general college student population at risk for problems with gambling.

During the question-and-answer period, Saum also offered the Association's perspective on sports gambling.

"I think it's important to share one other thought in this continual conversation of, 'let's legalize it, since everyone's doing it.' Let's remember the NCAA position on gambling that you folks, at least through your governance structure, OKed some three years ago," Saum said.

"From the most fundamental standpoint, certainly the Association supports that recommendation that sports wagering not be legal on college athletics.

"We're in this position for many reasons, but the reason you go to a game is to watch the spontaneous action and reaction on the field, to watch the coaches' decisions, the officials' decisions and the athletes' decisions. And certainly we're not there to hope that an athlete runs up the score just for the point spread."