The NCAA News - News and Features

January 27, 1997

High stakes: Officials outline steps to discourage sports-event wagering

BY LAURIE BOLLIG
STAFF WRITER

Any college basketball fan knows the University of Kentucky has one of the sport's richest traditions. Six national championships -- the most recent being last season's title. More wins than any other program. A legendary coach and a legendary following.

What many fans may not know, however, is that the Wildcats didn't field a team during the 1952-53 season. No wins, no titles. No cheers. Nothing.

As a result of a scandal that stretched from New York City to the bluegrass, the Southeastern Conference and the NCAA banned Kentucky basketball from intercollegiate competition for one year.

Several Wildcat players were paid to make sure Kentucky went over the point spread established by bookmakers in Las Vegas. The players complied, and just one year removed from winning its third national championship, the university's basketball program was at its lowest point.

C. M. Newton, currently Kentucky's director of athletics, played for the Wildcats from 1948 to 1952. The scandal, he says, left a lasting impression.

"It shaped my thinking rather dramatically," Newton said. "All the years I coached, I was very concerned. These were quality people involved (at Kentucky). It wasn't the way Hollywood would portray a gambling situation -- someone coming out of the dark shadows. This was a fellow student who gave these guys money to go over the point spread.

"This cost these guys professional careers. It also showed me the quality of people they were because of the lives they went on to lead."

Other problems

Kentucky, of course, is far from being the only school to have been involved in illegal sports wagering. A Boston College player was convicted of point shaving in the late 1970s. Recently, more than a dozen Eagle football players were suspended for placing bets on games involving other teams.

Tulane University suspended its basketball program for four years in the 1980s after three players were implicated in a point-shaving scheme. The school reinstated its team in 1989.

Who is susceptible to taking money to shave points? Are athletes "fixing" games? Is the climate conducive to another scandal?

These and many other questions prompted the NCAA to create a position on its eligibility staff with the express purpose of educating college administrators and athletes about gambling. The same questions have put the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee on alert.

William S. Saum, the NCAA's new gambling and agent representative, says the message from the NCAA to its membership is clear:

"The NCAA is adamantly opposed to any kind of sports wagering because it demeans the very essence of competition. There are two fundamental issues here -- the integrity of the contest and the welfare of student-athletes."

Saum calls it sports wagering. Most of us would say gambling. But there is a difference between the two.

Gambling's broad brush includes everything from betting on professional and collegiate basketball games to playing the slot machines at a riverboat casino to throwing a buck in the hat at the office for the chance to pick the Final Four winner.

Sports wagering narrows the focus to betting money on the outcome of a sporting event, and for the NCAA's purposes, any sport in which the NCAA sponsors a championship.

For student-athletes, sports wagering involves three scenarios: (1) betting on a game between two schools, neither of which the student-athlete attends; (2) betting on a game involving the student-athlete's own team; and (3) accepting money to control the outcome of a contest in which the student-athlete is involved.

All of the scenarios violate NCAA rules, and unless you are placing bets in Nevada, all three are against the law. Nevada is the only state in which money can be legally wagered on the outcome of sporting events.

"We say to schools, coaches, athletes and the press that any kind of sports wagering is opposed," Saum said. "Our position does not go in steps. All of it is bad."

Recently, Saum prepared a report for the Division I Men's Basketball Committee, outlining several steps the committee could take to educate coaches, student-athletes and officials involved with the NCAA tournament about sports wagering.

The initiatives include emphasizing gambling-related issues at several pretournament meetings with coaches and officials in addition to adding information to the affidavit student-athletes sign before the tournament.

Also, the Division I Men's Basketball Committee has notified the editors of several major newspapers that their publications will not receive credentials for the 1997 Final Four unless they discontinue advertising "tout sheets" or "tip sheets"-- a policy the NCAA has had in place since the late 1970s.

This situation differs from 1995, when the NCAA considered denying credentials to media that printed or discussed betting lines for football and basketball.

Gambling coast to coast

Forty-eight states sponsor some form of legalized gambling (for example, riverboat casinos or horse tracks). Of the more than 100 cities that submitted bids in recent years to host sessions of the men's basketball championship, only 16 have no form of gambling.

The almost-nationwide acceptance of gambling as a form of recreation has hindered educating athletes about the consequences of sports wagering.

"The committee knew that the public perception and acceptance of gambling had changed, but we did not realize how drastic that change has been in recent years," said Terry Holland, chair of the Division I Men's Basketball Committee and director of athletics at the University of Virginia.

"The lines between illegal and legal activities have blurred as a result of this change of perception by the general public, which obviously includes college students and student-athletes."

Athletes susceptible

Characteristics that are positives in the athletics arena, put athletes at risk in the arena of gambling. In particular, self-confident athletes believe they, by themselves, can control the outcome of a game.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati recently conducted an infractions study of which three questions pertained specifically to gambling. Of the 648 student-athletes surveyed, slightly more than one-quarter of the respondents said they bet money on college sporting events in which they were not involved. A little more than three percent admitted to betting money on a contest in which they played. Three respondents said they accepted money to play poorly in a game.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says those figures are conservative. According to the Nevada Gaming Commission, the illegal sports book nationwide is worth $80 to $100 billion a year.

"It is reasonable to believe that sports wagering occurs on many of our college campuses," Saum said. "There's a phenomenon of students who are student bookies. Our college administrators are naive. Our athletes are living with these student bookies."

Newton, for one, knows all athletes are susceptible.

"It can happen to anybody, anytime, anywhere," Newton said. "As a coach, I was always concerned with the players understanding the issues. Understanding the greed of it, first of all. As much money as is wagered on sports, the greed factor is there. Somebody's going to want an edge, and then they are going to ask you to do something in a game."

University of Tulsa men's basketball player Shea Seals said although he has never been approached by anyone he thought may want him to fix a game, he can see that some athletes would think it is an easy way to acquire money.

"Fortunately, I haven't been asked or felt anyone was approaching me to do that," Seals said. "I'm sure a lot of athletes do get approached though."

Are conditions ripe for another major basketball scandal?

"It would be hard to imagine that games are actually being fixed," Holland said, "but the data indicates we would be naive if we do not recognize the fact that college students, including student-athletes, do bet on college basketball games and the logical next step is to 'fix' games."