Sen. Edwards, ACC’s Swofford use ACC Tourney title game to push for gambling ban

Monday, March 13, 2000 | 9:39 a.m.

Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and ACC Commissioner John Swofford used Sunday's championship game of the conference basketball tournament as a backdrop for a campaign to build support for legislation Edwards and North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms are cosponsoring.

The bill would ban betting on college, Olympic and high school sports in Nevada, the only state that allows widespread sports betting. Congress banned sports betting in most states in 1992, but exempted Nevada. The state's gambling industry took in $2.3 billion in sports wagers in fiscal 1999, with 30 percent to 40 percent bet on college sports.

"There will be a lot of folks sitting in front of the T.V. sets and walking into gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the finals of the ACC basketball tournament," Edwards said. Edwards and his

Swofford agreed that the money laid on college sports risks the integrity of a level playing field of competition. He and Edwards said any tournament could be a target of illegal influence on athletes because of the money surrounding the game.

"Gambling can undermine the game itself and has no basis being a part of it," Swofford said.

The two men where joined by Bill Friday, the former president of the University of North Carolina system. As head of the statewide university system, Friday canceled the 1961 Dixie Classic basketball tournament hosted by North Carolina and North Carolina State in the wake of a point-shaving scandal.

Edwards last month introduced former North Carolina men's basketball coach Dean Smith as a supporter of the legislation. His office said Sunday the measure has been endorsed by 55 major-college football and basketball coaches from Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez to Stanford's Tyrone Willingham, plus the women's basketball coaches at Connecticut, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Tennessee, Kansas and Stanford.

Leaders of the U.S. Olympic Committee, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations also back the bill.

The bill also would prohibit wagering on high school sports and Olympic events. Representatives of Nevada's gambling industry say there is little legal betting on the Olympics and none on high school sports.

Some fans say they see no harm in placing bets on college games.

"We have a basketball pool at work that's about it," said Ashley Barfield. "It's no worse than playing the ponies."