Federal panel recommends no more betting on collegiate sports

Mark D. Preston

Tuesday, May 18, 1999 | 12:45 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Citing threats to the integrity of collegiate athletics and the rise of youth gambling, the federal gambling commission voted Monday to recommend that Congress ban wagering on college sports.

This is one of the 119 recommendations the National Gambling Impact Study Commission addressed Monday as it finalizes its report detailing gambling's social and economic effect on the nation. The report will be presented to Congress, President Clinton and the nation's governors next month.

The commission adopted 36 recommendations it will make, including requiring casinos to post the odds of winning, establishing 21 as the legal age to gamble, prohibiting Internet gambling and instructing state lotteries to curtail their marketing efforts in low-income areas. It jettisoned 62 other suggestions and tabled 21 that it will consider today.

But wagering on college sports was the panel's most contentious issue as pro- and anti-gaming commissioners split over whether to recommend its abolition. The ban would repeal Nevada's, Oregon's and Delaware's rights to accept wagers on college sports. Congress has already passed a law prohibiting other states from opening sports-betting operations.

Commissioner Robert W. Loescher, the only American Indian on the panel, joined Bill Bible and Terry Lanni in voting against the recommendation. But five other commissioners voted for the ban. Commissioner John W. Wilhelm abstained.

"I don't think it was fully demonstrated that there is any problem with allowing wagering on amateur athletics or intercollegiate sports activities," Bible, the former Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman, said. "We have done so in Nevada for many years without any problem."

Lanni, who is MGM Grand chairman, said Congress has already studied the issue in-depth and decided that the three states should be able to operate sports-betting operations.

It's not fair to tell people the guidelines and then go back and tell them you are changing them, he said. "I don't like going back and changing laws."

Lanni also said he "firmly believes the problem with collegiate sports and gambling deals with illegal gambling."

Anti-gaming commissioners such as James C. Dobson, a Christian radio talk show host, said wagering is a "danger" to college sports.

Commissioner Leo T. McCarthy, a former California lieutenant governor, said he thinks the "general feeling on the commission is that sports betting is a big factor in youth gambling."

It wouldn't have been appropriate for the commission to recommend a ban on college sports betting in every state except Nevada, Oregon and Delaware, McCarthy said. "Making exceptions like this for three states cuts across the logic of how clear the statement we want made."

Commissioner Richard Leone, a former New Jersey treasurer, said he doesn't understand the logic behind Nevada's rule to prohibit betting on colleges within the state when it allows wagering to occur on out-of-state collegiate matches.

"If we ban gambling on events that take place on your college, because you are concerned about the potential negative effect ... then I don't see how it can justified to permit gambling on activities in other states," he said.

Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, said that while he supports the concept of banning betting on college sports, he described the idea as "irrelevant and off-base."

"I don't think there is any reality to (this) recommendation to pretend it is going to be rolled back in Nevada. I don't believe that is going to happen, and it is silly for the commission to make recommendations when we know in advance they won't have any impact."