Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Jeff Haney on why it was a bad call to play into the NBA’s hands and ban wagering on the game, related events

After last week's introduction of the official logo for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, we'll surely be hearing more and more about that extravaganza, scheduled for Feb. 18 at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Relegated to a footnote is the fact that wagering will not be permitted in Nevada's legal sports books on the game or any of its ancillary activities, a concession to NBA Commissioner David Stern, an opponent of gambling.

It was an ill-advised and weak-minded decision to cede that argument to the NBA - and not because of Nevada sports books' betting handle on the All-Star Game, which is negligible.

No, it's the principle of the thing - as if we in Nevada agree that prohibiting gambling on a particular sporting event somehow represents a step in the direction of a more refined society, and away from those less civilized days of yore.

As if as a prerequisite to entering the "big leagues" of American cities, Las Vegas better start shedding some of its embarrassing old habits such as permitting sports betting.

In fact, the opposite is true. As long as it remains highly regulated and taxed, Nevada should look to expand, rather than contract, legal sports wagering.

We should have insisted on allowing wagers not only on the All-Star Game itself, but also on any dunk contest, 3-point shot contest, rookie-vs.-sophomore game and the like that takes place that weekend.

Major sports leagues continue to show an increased interest in Las Vegas - and well they should, as this is a vibrant and dynamic city.

But we can't fall for the line of so-called reasoning from the leagues and their network TV partners that legalized sports betting must be shoved aside in order to make their product safe and respectable for their never-ending quest to sell insipid sitcoms, fast food, mediocre beer and myriad powerful prescription medications.

UNR history professor Richard O. Davies took some of those points and ran a coast-to-coast fast break with them during a recent guest lecture at UNLV.

Davies, the author or editor of 12 books including "Betting the Line: Sports Wagering in American Life," drew a comparison between today's anti-gambling nuts, such as Stern, and another kind of zealotry prevalent in this country hundreds of years ago.

"The current opposition to sports betting is readily traceable to 17th-century New England," Davies said, calling sports betting foes "similar to the Puritans who tried to build a theocracy in the wilderness."

Davies also pointed out that sports betting has been "American as apple pie, an enjoyable leisure activity," since this nation's founding, and dismissed the NCAA's effort to ban betting on college sports as "rank hypocrisy."

The congressional measure introduced several years ago by Sen. John McCain that would ban betting on college sports in Nevada was backed by wannabe theocracy-builders such as the religious group Focus on the Family, Davies said.

"They were picking on one small state with only (five) congressional delegates to outflank," Davies said.

If the history of Nevada's relationship with the NCAA - a "self-serving cartel, a hypocritical, monopolistic, money-making machine," according to Davies - is any indication, the measure is likely to resurface in some form.

Davies recalled a speech he once made in Reno for a large group of NCAA officials.

"I concluded by saying if they want to eliminate campus bookies and minimize fixes ... they should lobby their state representatives to legalize sports betting in their states," Davies said.

"Since then, nothing has changed except the continued growth of the popularity of betting on sports."

Americans have immersed themselves in gambling since well before the rise of the NCAA, the NBA and other big-time sports organizations, Davies said.

In fact, Jamestown, the first British colony in America, was funded by the proceeds of a London lottery created by King James I.

"We were founded," Davies said, "on a bet."

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