Columnist Dean Juipe: Stern goofs in position on betting

Dean Juipe

Monday, Oct. 4, 1999 | 11:03 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

File it under "Misguided Reasoning."

And have David Stern's picture on the syllabus.

Stern, the National Basketball Association commissioner, is sufficiently shallow as to believe that Las Vegas -- because of its gambling industry -- is incapable of housing a franchise in his precious league. That, in effect, is his position when he says the league will not permit a team to be stationed in Southern Nevada simply because the people in or passing through this state have the opportunity to bet on NBA games.

That's what he told Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman during a meeting last week, and, if it wasn't a bluff, Stern should be required to do a little studying and present a dissertation on the history of sports gambling and fixed games.

What he would uncover in his research is this truism: Las Vegas might very well be the last place a game could be fixed.

As has been demonstrated more than once in the past, a game anywhere in the country that has been tampered with will quickly surface in Las Vegas' sports books. The tip-offs are suspicious money and inordinate play, and the books not only get wise to it, they notify the proper authorities.

The closer the fix is to Las Vegas -- see Arizona State basketball for a recent example -- the greater the chance the Las Vegas sports books can help identify the culprits. The people in the books are real good at spotting funny money.

Stern may be a brilliant man but he's an idiot when it comes to this subject. (He wasn't too sharp in handling last season's NBA lockout either, as a January column in this space -- "Stern fiddles while NBA burns" -- likened him to a do-nothing Nero for his seeming indifference to the calamity at hand.)

He could cite any number of reasons why Las Vegas isn't ready for an NBA franchise and be correct on most counts, yet the fact that there's gambling here shouldn't be among them. It's hypocritical, given that the league has a franchise (the Sacramento Kings) owned by a Las Vegas family (the Maloofs) with gambling interests (the Fiesta hotel-casino).

When Stern told Goodman of his feelings, and therefore the league's policy on the matter, the mayor took it in stride and remained somewhat euphoric about his New York trip and its prospects for eventually bringing a team to Las Vegas. Stern told Goodman that the league would require Las Vegas sports books to quit taking action on any NBA games, if the city was to be awarded a franchise.

Here's where the mayor erred. While he should have immediately recognized there was no chance, not one in a million, that the city's sports books would agree to such a thing, he didn't really grasp that reality until he returned home and did a little private canvassing.

His dour expressions on the NBA in recent days make it apparent that Goodman's casino friends told him the truth. They're not budging on NBA betting.

If the NBA won't budge on its preposterous, if informal, position, this city will never see an NBA team for more than an occasional exhibition.

If that's the case, so be it.

But, Mr. Stern, don't make it sound like Las Vegas is some unscrupulous wasteland simply because it will take a bet on an NBA game. There are gamblers here running amok, but they're not fixing sporting events.