Pros fire potshots at collegiate betting bill

Sunday, June 11, 2000 | 9:40 a.m.

A federal gambling ban on collegiate athletics will lead to more illegal betting, loan-sharking and hidden point-shaving schemes, local professional gamblers say.

They argue that passing the bill, introduced by former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, will be a boon to those working the shadowy worlds of illegal bookmaking -- and will help the NCAA keep fixes out of the public eye.

While many professional gamblers in Las Vegas are reluctant to share their names, a handful have stepped forward to protest what they consider to be a very bad bill.

The betting measure won't stop the kind of point-shaving that led to the conviction of seven people, including two college basketball players, after an infamous 1994 case at Arizona State University, they say. McCain, who is scheduled to open debate on the bill Tuesday, has said the incident in his home state prompted his concern over college-sports betting.

But that case probably wouldn't have come under public scrutiny if legal bookmakers in Nevada hadn't noticed highly unusual betting patterns, said Lester "Lem" Banker, one of a cadre of Nevada gamblers who make some or all of their income from sports books.

Professional gamblers carefully watch the line, or point spread, in games such as basketball and football. The line is set by the casino but can get pushed up or down by heavy wagering.

In the 1994 scandal, Banker said he saw the point spread favoring a strong Arizona State team suddenly go south, and he then tipped off authorities and sports writers.

"Unnatural money started showing up," he said. "I knew I smelled a rat."

Barry Lieberman, then an assistant federal prosecutor and now general counsel for Coast Hotels, agreed that sports books in the Arizona State case, and likely in others, played an important role in bringing the scandal to light.

"The sports books are absolutely the ones who brought it to somebody's attention," Lieberman said. "Because it is legal, we have the ability to spot unusual betting patterns.

"If that ability is taken away from us, then the NCAA doesn't have to worry about illegal books tipping off the FBI," he said. "I think the NCAA is pushing the bill because they don't want to be embarrassed."

David Crane, a staff member of McCain's Senate Commerce Committee, dismissed Lieberman's charge as "preposterous."

"If it is so widespread that the NCAA should be embarrassed about it, then why aren't the legal books turning up point-shaving cases every day?" he said.

McCain, he said, is motivated by two factors: The first is moral. Betting on college athletics is "exploitation of college athletes," Crane said.

The second is that this bill represents a first step to a wider attack on illegal betting -- a growing problem that is national in scale with billions of dollars betted, Crane said.

"McCain doesn't argue that passing a ban on college sports is going to end illegal betting or end point-shaving schemes," Crane said. "The question is: Should we have legalized betting on kids?

"Beyond that, there needs to be a comprehensive approach to combating the problem of illegal betting," he said.

He said the biggest growth in illegal betting appears to be among college students. Part of that, Crane said, is the problem of "mixed messages."

"They are told that betting on college sports is wrong, while a flood of commercial messages say come to Las Vegas and bet on college sports," he said.

One of the side-effects of a betting ban would be to discourage newspapers throughout the country from publishing point-spreads for college games, Crane said. He compared publishing point spreads to publishing the phone numbers of prostitutes, since both, if the bill were passed, would be illegal activities.

Without easy access to point spreads, it will be more difficult for bettors, particularly college students, to make informed bets, he said. That will put a barrier in place to discourage college wagering, he suggested.

"If betting on college sports is illegal, the newspaper that chooses to continue to publish point spreads will come under a tremendous amount of public scrutiny and pressure," he said.

Bubba Youngblood, a self-described professional gambler and graveyard-shift manager of the bowling lanes at the Sam's Town casino, doesn't buy the McCain line.

Youngblood said he's used to people blaming the problem on legal gamblers and on Las Vegas. It's not called Sin City because people appreciate the bright lights, he said.

But the allegations that legal wagering encourages corruption of college kids aren't fair, Youngblood said.

"It's just asinine," he said.

And legal or not, "people are going to gamble," Youngblood said.

Youngblood and others fear that banning legal gambling will open the door to criminals, both as illegal bookmakers and loan sharks.

"I call it the Mafia employment act," said Peter Ruchman, general manager of the Gamblers Book Shop, a meeting place for pro gamblers -- and would-be pro gamblers -- on South 11th Street in Las Vegas.

Ruchman, who is writing a book on the history of sports betting, said he doesn't know of any case where a legal gambler or bookmaking operation tried to fix a game.

On the tens of thousands of games covered by Las Vegas sports books every year, "There's never, ever, been a fix that emanated from there," Ruchman said.

McCain's bill also would open the door for organized crime to come back to Las Vegas, he said, reversing a long, hard-fought battle to clean up the town. Ruchman compared McCain's bill to the nation's prohibition on alcoholic beverages, a social experiment that met with spectacular failure -- and provided fertile ground for gangsters from 1920 until 1933 when the law was repealed.

"If they shut down the books, it will be really easy to find (an illegal) bookie on any corner of this city," Ruchman said.

He said the momentum for the bill springs from a lack of understanding of the value that legal sports books have, and from the fact that Nevada doesn't have a lot of clout in Washington.

"It's a feel-good bill," Ruchman said. "McCain is really looking ahead to the next presidential race. He wants to keep his name in the spotlight."

"He wants his name in lights," Youngblood agreed.

Banker said local bookmakers and gamblers want to continue to be the "unpaid police force" for the NCAA.

"This is the cleanest of all businesses," he said. "If they want to keep it clean and know what's going on, they should just leave the state of Nevada alone."

Launce Rake

covers growth issues for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4127 or by e-mail at lrake@lasvegassun.com.