Columnist Dean Juipe: NCAA errs in blocking Las Vegas bid

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 16, 1998 | 10:47 a.m.

THE DECK is stacked against Las Vegas and the NCAA isn't going to budge.

It's unfair and perhaps indefensible, yet college sports' governing body has an ironclad policy in effect that prohibits the tourism capital of the country from hosting so much as a basketball tournament sub-regional.

It's as if gambling and sports are so intertwined here that a game can't be played without impropriety.

That's ridiculous, of course, and Las Vegas deserves better. The city wants to host a bracket of a future NCAA Tournament and has expressed that interest more than once, only to be continually rebuffed.

Blinders in place, the NCAA fails to notice that 21 states now go so far as to advertise their gambling options on the Internet. But only one of the 21, Nevada, is banned from hosting NCAA Tournament games.

If anything, the NCAA should take a good look at a television program tonight on HBO. The show "Real Sports" has a segment on Arizona State's 1994 point-shaving scandal and, while it has a heavy Las Vegas flavor, it accurately portrays the city and its sports books as ever-alert for indiscretions.

"This game stood out like a sore thumb," said Roxy Roxborough of Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which sets the betting line at many sports books in town. He was referring to an ASU vs. Washington game that was taking too much action, and, as it turns out, was a game two ASU players attempted to fix.

But because of the red flags that went up in Las Vegas, suspicions led to inquiries that led to two ASU players -- Stevin Smith and Isaac Burton -- eventually pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit sports bribery. They were nabbed because of the diligence of those in the back rooms of Las Vegas' sports books.

The point is, no city in America is more attuned to the possible manipulation of point spreads and outcomes than Las Vegas.

Yet the NCAA prefers to see it as just the opposite, as if a game here would attract an undesirable element or that by placing a sub-regional here the NCAA would be acquiescing to gambling's seamier side.

It fails to see the obvious: Las Vegas, more so than any city, is the last place a fixer would attempt to ply his trade. Even Richie Perry, the guy known as "The Fixer" who led to Jerry Tarkanian's downfall at UNLV just because he was caught hanging around, was smart enough to realize there was no way he could doctor a game in his own backyard.

Because of the ASU scandal, the NCAA is more conscious of gambling than ever and has even taken to running "Don't Bet On It" ads -- directed toward collegiate athletes -- during its current men's basketball tournament. That's fine, but don't penalize Nevada for its legalized gambling when you can make a wager in at least 20 other states and there are 140 gambling sites now on the Internet.

Besides, Nevada law prevents wagering on any amateur sporting event held in the state.

"Sports betting is the No. 1 source of income for organized crime," says an FBI agent during the ASU segment of Real Sports. And, while there may be no escaping organized crime, these days it's working overtime somewhere else now that Las Vegas has gone corporate.