State officials propose cap on college bets

Brendan Riley

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000 | 5:34 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Gambling regulators outlined wide-ranging proposals Thursday to increase oversight of Nevada's legal bookies and ward off possible federal legislation to stop all betting on college sports.

Gaming Commission Chairman Brian Sandoval said the proposals will be aired at a series of meetings starting Nov. 16 in Las Vegas, and he hopes the National Collegiate Athletic Association will participate.

The NCAA and several high profile college coaches maintain that Congress should outlaw all college sports betting to keep gamblers from influencing young athletes to throw games.

Tentative state proposals include a limit on the size of bets placed on college games, reaffirming a ban on any bets on high school or Olympic sports, improved tracking of big bettors and even a "black book" of unsavory types who'd be barred from legal bookmaking operations in Nevada.

A per-person, per-game bet cap of $550 had been mentioned earlier as a possible solution. But Sandoval said nothing's definite and he wants to hear from the gambling industry, the NCAA and others before the commission adopts any new rules.

Nevada is the only state that allows betting on college sports contests. But Sandoval said the betting handle on professional and amateur sports in the state's 153 books totals about $2.5 billion a year - compared with an illegal betting handle around the country of up to $350 billion a year.

Even though they're closely regulated and their business is dwarfed by the illegal activity, Sandoval said Nevada's legal books are unfairly singled out as a corrupting influence.

Such allegations "have a basis in myth rather than in fact," he added.

"We're just a tiny, tiny piece of the action," said Bill Bible of the Nevada Resort Association, who showed up at Thursday's Gaming Commission meeting with other gambling industry representatives to endorse Sandoval's approach.

The NCAA has said the commission's proposed changes acknowledge betting on young people is wrong and are nothing more than a smoke screen.

"From the NCAA's standpoint, these proposals are a clever attempt to derail federal legislation the association has supported to ban wagering on amateur athletics," the association said.

An aide to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee held hearings on the federal legislation, has said the move by Nevada regulators won't stem the push for a betting ban bill.

David Crane also predicted the bill will move to the floor next year and easily win passage. Nevada's congressional delegation worked hard against the proposed NCAA betting ban and managed to keep it bottled up this year.