Legislation would ban Olympic gambling

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2000 | 9:18 a.m.

"There have been enough stories about corruption in connection with bidding on venues for Olympic Games," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He cited Salt Lake City's vote-buying scandal as one motivation for the bill, which was introduced Tuesday.

"We do not need a scandal having to do with gamblers seeking to influence the outcome of Olympic events. If we act soon, we have the opportunity to put this into place before the next Olympic Games."

A bipartisan group of senators led by Leahy and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have long said they would push a bill to end legalized gambling on high school and college sports - and then added Olympic sports.

No Utah members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, the Deseret News reported from Washington.

In 1991, Congress banned such gambling in all states but Delaware, Oregon and Nevada. Almost all legal gambling on college sports now occurs at casinos in Nevada - and newspapers nationwide often carry the odds on games figured by them.

Brownback said allowing that to persist likely helped lead to eight major point-shaving scandals affecting colleges in the 1990s.

Stephen Bull, director of government relations for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said his group the bill sponsors' moves to ban legalized gambling on Olympic events.

"It hasn't been a big problem as far as I know," Bull said.

He said others have noted that "interest in gambling on certain Olympic events is higher when they are hosted in the United States."