NCAA supports report’s call for ban on betting on college sports

Friday, June 18, 1999 | 6:02 a.m.

"We believe the game should be watched for the spontaneous action and reaction on the field, not for the point spread," Bill Saum, the organization's director of agent and gambling activities, said in a conference call.

Saum also renewed the NCAA's call for media outlets to stop publishing point spreads on college games.

"When the media publishes point spreads in any state other than Nevada, it encourages illegal sports betting," he said. "We at the national office are not going to give in on this."

Nevada gambling officials have said that a ban on college sports betting would be a severe financial blow to the state's 142 licensed sports books.

"Not only that, it would have a tremendous impact - on the positive side - for the illegal bookmaking industry," Joe Lupo, sports book director at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, said on Friday.

The NCAA's statements came in response to a report issued by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, following a two-year study.

The report includes the proposed ban on betting on college games and also calls on the NCAA to organize research on the effects of gambling on young people.

That proposal will be presented to the NCAA Research Committee in July, Saum said.

The NCAA also supports three other recommendations in the gambling report, Saum said. They include a national minimum gambling age of 21, a continued ban on Internet gambling and harsh penalties for underage gambling.

NCAA athletes, and athletic officials at member institutions, are already prohibited from betting on college or professional sports.

"Now, there's nothing to prohibit them from going to a casino," Saum said. "But we don't encourage that."

Saum acknowledged that legal Las Vegas bookmakers had helped the NCAA and law-enforcement officials investigate a 1994 point-shaving scandal involving Arizona State basketball players. But, he said, legalizing betting on college sports nationally - in hopes of providing a policing mechanism - isn't the answer.

"That wouldn't stop the action of sports bribery," he said. "You look at that Arizona State case, and all the money was laid on the legal side."

Saum also acknowledged that nothing would stop all gambling on college sports.

"One way we keep our sanity around here is that we admit we're not going to solve the problem - it's not going to go away," he said. "But we're trying to have a dramatic effect on those who wish to wager, and a dramatic effect on any individual who may even think about point shaving."