Betting no longer a hurdle

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

No Major League Baseball owner or executive, or any of the nine members of the relocation committee, has visited Las Vegas to discover how its sports books operate.

Moreover, according to various sources involved with the transfer of the Montreal Expos, no Las Vegas sports book director has been summoned to New York for gaming insight at MLB headquarters.

Both of the above run contrary to the last time the city's sports gambling industry drew widespread attention, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to abolish amateur sports betting in Nevada in 2001.

In the House, McCain had allies in Reps. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Tim Roemer, D-Ind.

Bill McBeath, president and chief operating officer of MGM MIRAGE, helped quash that legislation by Silver State political figures when he visited with, and played host to, dozens of senators and congressmen for most of 2001.

"They were pretty uneducated as it relates to gaming in general, and the sports book operations (were) a complete mystery to them," McBeath said. "What they knew about it was typically based on what I believe were gross misconceptions."

McCain failed to appear for one Las Vegas tour at the last second, according to one knowledgeable source.

"He was concerned about being bombarded," said the source, who requested anonymity. "We were just going to educate and inform him ... he stood us up."

That no baseball executive or official has made such a pilgrimage to discover the realities of the Las Vegas gaming industry might reflect MLB's genuine attitude about the city.

Last month, baseball commissioner Bud Selig told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was raised in an era in which those who run the game wouldn't have considered placing a team in Las Vegas.

"It wouldn't have been plausible," Selig told the Inquirer. "But the fact of the matter is gambling is legal most everywhere today."

Blackjack and craps, yes, on scores of Indian reservations and dozens of river boats. Nobody, though, can saunter into those venues and wager on a sporting event.

Congress sealed that in 1992, when the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act it passed prohibited sports gaming in all but four grandfathered states in the country.

Regular sports bets can be placed only in Nevada. Oregon sponsors a sports lottery. Delaware and Montana, the other two grandfathered states, are not currently involved in sports wagering.

Jay Kornegay, the former Imperial Palace race and sports book director who recently accepted a similar position at the Hilton, said no casino property would acquiesce to not taking baseball bets just to allow a major league team to play in Las Vegas.

Hence, close inspection of sports book operations would be a natural, if not required, act for any league if it were truly serious about tapping the city's big-league potential.

That hasn't happened.

Mike Shapiro, a San Francisco-area consultant who has represented the Las Vegas groups -- Teamscape and Las Vegas Stadium Co., LLC -- in negotiations with MLB executives for more than a year, said he has been an effective messenger.

"I know we have presented to (MLB) that the Las Vegas regulatory system is the finest in the world," Shapiro said. "And we have presented to them that the kind of security that legalized gambling, particularly a legalized sports book, can offer is unrivaled.

"I think they understand. I can't say what's on their minds. All we can do is point to the facts, and the facts are that the regulatory environment (in Nevada) makes any potential abuses unlikely."

Relocation committee members and any of Selig's lieutenants still have time to study the gaming system, and all of its checks and balances, before a permanent new home for the Expos is determined.

Washington, Northern Virginia and Norfolk, Va., are among the candidates that are battling Las Vegas for the beleaguered franchise.

Shapiro has until Friday to ship the final proposal of the financiers whom he represents to baseball's offices on Park Avenue. Shapiro, 53, will be its sole author. At a meeting in New York on May 19 and 20, a limited group of owners is expected to follow the relocation committee's recommendation to whittle a list of seven cities to two or three.

The relocation committee will then evaluate that short list and make a final recommendation that will be voted upon by the full ownership group. Selig hasn't wavered on his goal to announce the Expos' new home by mid-July.

McBeath invites any MLB owner, executive or official to the city to take a closer look at the business, the same invitation he once sent to every congressman and senator.

Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., helped coordinate those efforts and introduced a counter bill to curb illegal, offshore Internet gambling, which reportedly makes up 99 percent of all sports betting.

From January to September 2001, according to McBeath, he spoke with more than 150 senators and congressmen in four trips to Washington. He estimated that more than 30 visited Las Vegas to learn more about sports gambling.

McBeath guided tours of the Mirage sports book, personally showing his guests such minutiae as computer screen connections and wire-service lines, and teaching how lines, or odds, are made and how they move.

He said his actions were triggered by a copy of a "Dear Colleague" letter, signed by Graham and Roemer, he had received from a Nevada politician whom he declined to identify.

"That's how things work in D.C., with a 'Dear Colleague' letter," McBeath said. "It's sent to everyone in Congress and the Senate."

This one, according to McBeath, proclaimed, "It's time we make a change. We have to take control of, and eliminate, these activities, where the outcomes of games are being scripted by shady characters in the smoky back halls of sports books in Las Vegas."

Infuriated, McBeath went into action.

"It was the disinformation, or propaganda, that they were disseminating about our industry, or this specific element of the industry," McBeath said. "We had to bring them out here and educate them."

He cited four Arizona State basketball games, specifically one against Washington State, in 1994 that drew high bets and curious attention, and led to arrests, as evidence of how well the books are policed.

"We put a 'red circle' around it," McBeath said. "We believed the integrity of that one game was suspect. We called the Gaming Control Board, then they called the FBI and the Pac-10 (Conference) ...

"These days, the Caribbean (offshore books) takes the bets first, the high action, and then the line settles. Whether it's accurate or not, by the time we take bets there's already been a shakeout."

McBeath's efforts contributed to the disappearance of McCain's bill, according to MGM MIRAGE senior vice president of public affairs Alan Feldman, along with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, McCain's focus on campaign finance reform and a change in NCAA leadership.

A member of McCain's staff visited Las Vegas once, but it was unannounced; he was in Las Vegas on his own time for recreational purposes.

"While he was here, he wanted the benefit of my perspective and input," McBeath said. "He was here, in the sports book, for two hours."

McBeath awaits a call from anyone from MLB requesting a similar tour.

"Sure, we're on a full-disclosure basis," he said. "We're proud of how we manage our business and the integrity of our business."

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