Colleges, casinos gear up for congressional fight over sports betting

Laurence Arnold

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2000 | 1:40 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Betting on intercollegiate sports should be outlawed, say two senators who plan legislation banning it, arguing that it has contributed to the growing number of gambling scandals on campuses nationwide.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association this week urged its 1,031 member colleges and universities to lobby members of Congress to support the bill, which Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., plan to introduce Jan. 26.

"We think the kids are very vulnerable," said Doris Dixon, NCAA director of federal relations. "They're young people. They don't have professional contracts or careers - $500 or $5,000 to miss that shot or stumble on that finish line doesn't mean their team won't win, just that they won't win by the point spread."

The NCAA says illegal attempts to influence collegiate sports are increasing. In recent years, gambling scandals have surfaced at Arizona State University, Northwestern University, the University of Maryland and Boston College, among others.

"There have been more point-shaving scandals at our colleges and universities in the 1990s than in every other decade before it, combined," Brownback said in a statement. "These scandals are a direct result of an increase in gambling on college sports."

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission last year recommended banning wagering on collegiate and amateur athletic events. The Brownback-Leahy bill would bar wagering on college sports, and high school and Olympic competitions.

Nevada is the only state that allows widespread betting on sports. Most of those bets involve college and professional sports. Its casinos and other gambling outlets take no bets on high school sports and do very little Olympics business.

Nevada's gambling industry took in $2.3 billion in sports wagers in fiscal 1999, earning nearly $99 million, the state Gaming Control Board said. Jason Been, an oddsmaker at Las Vegas Sports Consultants, estimated 40 percent of the betting is on college sports.

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., president of the American Gaming Association, told casino owners at an economic conference in Reno on Wednesday that the NCAA's push to ban betting on college sports in Nevada appears to be gaining support in Congress.

"The choice will be 'You can support our young people in the NCAA or you can support those gamblers,"' he said.

Typically, Fahrenkopf said, he builds coalitions with other states where forms of gambling are legal to help beat back new federal restrictions or prohibitions.

"This time Nevada stands alone, because we're the only state that has this," he said. "It is going to be tough. It is a deep, deep concern I have."

Fahrenkopf said banning legal college sports wagering will increase business for illegal bookies and do nothing to stop gambling scandals on college campuses.

The NCAA should improve its policing of its member schools rather than "trying to point a finger at the legal sports books in Nevada," said Fahrenkopf, who has consulted with his Nevada casino members on how to fight the proposed legislation.

In 1991, Congress passed and President Bush signed a law banning sports wagering in the 47 states where it was not then legal. Exempted were Nevada, Oregon and Delaware. Oregon allows betting on pro football through a lottery; Delaware has not adopted sports betting despite a 1976 public vote approving it.

New Jersey was given a one-year window to decide whether to sanction sports gambling in Atlantic City, but the state Legislature did not muster enough votes to hold a public referendum.