Casinos set to wage war over wagers

Friday, Jan. 21, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

The drums of war are beating in the escalating conflict over a proposed betting ban on college athletics.

Worried casino industry leaders in Nevada and Washington, D.C., are digging in for a bitter battle with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which is pushing the ban on Capitol Hill.

The battle unfolds next week in the U.S. Senate, when NCAA allies in both parties plan to introduce a bill to outlaw wagering on college games. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., intend to unveil their legislation at a star-studded news conference on Wednesday.

Undaunted by threats of retaliation from the casino industry, the NCAA appears determined to push the legislation through Congress.

It has been urging its 1,150 member colleges and universities to lobby their senators to back the High School and College Gambling Prohibition Act. A sample letter of support appears on the NCAA's website.

The bill is aimed at Nevada, which last year took in $2.3 billion in legal bets, a large portion of which was wagered on college games.

But the NCAA hasn't been the only one mobilizing its forces.

Casino industry executives, led by the American Gaming Association, the industry's Washington lobby, have been taking up arms, too.

All week long gaming lobbyists in Washington have been meeting behind closed doors mapping out a counterattack against the NCAA.

The strategy is to throw back as much dirt at the NCAA as possible in a calculated effort to persuade Congress that the organization needs to clean up its own house before targeting Nevada's.

"We're going to go after them," AGA President Frank Fahrenkopf said late Thursday. "It is their problem, and they are trying to pass the blame for their problem to us."

Fahrenkopf and other battle-tested casino operatives on the Hill have been reluctant to disclose exactly how they plan to hit the NCAA next week out of fear of tipping off the group.

"There's going to be a moving strategy," one casino insider said. "It's going to deal with the issues as they develop."

One thing is clear, however. The industry expects to drop some heavy bombs.

"This is the fight this year," said Wayne Mehl, Washington lobbyist for the Nevada Resort Association, the industry's political arm in Nevada. "There's a hypocrisy here, and we're going to try to point that out to members of Congress."

Gamers believe the NCAA -- which has acknowledged in testimony before the National Gambling Impact Study Commission that student betting is widespread at its colleges -- has not done enough to curb the problem.

"They're collecting billions of dollars from the television networks, and they're not spending any of that money on the problem of illegal wagering on their own campuses," said NRA President Bill Bible, who was a member of the federal gambling commission.

Added Fahrenkopf: "If this really is such a serious problem that they're concerned about, why don't they take a large portion of that money and use it to establish on the campus of every school an education program on gambling."

Industry operatives, meanwhile, don't expect to confine their counterattacks to the gambling issue. They also intend to point out to reporters a host of unrelated troubles within the NCAA.

At the same time, those operatives, who have had much success on the Washington lobbying front in recent years, acknowledge the fight to turn the tables on the NCAA won't be easy.

Fahrenkopf said butting heads with the organization may be his biggest challenge since taking the reins of the American Gaming Association nearly five years ago.

"I'm concerned about it," he said. "Since it's only Nevada that's affected, it's going to be hard to put together a coalition to fight them."

Making matters worse, the NCAA is well respected across the country and will have the built-in public relations advantage of parading students victimized by gambling before the senators during hearings on the betting ban bill.

Casino leaders are concerned that members of Congress will look at the fight in its simplest light -- a choice between preserving the integrity of amateur athletics or the pocketbooks of the rich casinos in Nevada.

If the plan to dirty up the NCAA fails, expect gaming to play its trump card, state's rights, an issue dear to the heart of Republicans who control the Senate.

"This is not an area for the federal government," Fahrenkopf said. "We view this as an attempt by the federal government to come into Nevada and tell it what to do."

Though the industry has set low expectations in the fight, the chances of delaying the bill this election year appear good. That will buy the industry more time to plan even bigger counter-offensives.

The task of seeking the delay likely will fall on the shoulders of Nevada Democratic Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, who wield some influence on the Hill. Reid, is the assistant minority leader, and both senators sit on influential committees that could be called upon to hear the NCAA bill.

Fahrenkopf plans to meet with Reid and Bryan, who have just returned from trips oversees, on Monday to finalize the industry's strategy.

In the meantime, there seems to be no stopping the drums of war from beating.