The March 7 Emerald had a front page story suggesting college sports betting may end because of a Congressional bill that has been proposed.
Don’t believe it.
The big money Mafia of Las Vegas has invested so many dollars in the campaigns of incumbents (“free speech” in Constitutional lingo) that no elected rep is going to risk going against the money.
A big name football coach, Joe Paterno of Penn State, has been lobbying senators to fight gambling. But he told me some months ago that most senators won’t return his calls. He has a recognizable name. But he apparently has not distributed enough “free speech.”
Traditional gambling, except when destructive, can be a benign personal choice. Like a little nip of brandy after supper, it supplies pleasure for some, as long as it does not become excessive, or harm others. There’s another kind of gambling. It infects college students, and is proving destructive to the universities they represent. It is gambling by college boys who play basketball or football for their schools.
The problem their schools face is not that the boys bet, but that some become pawns of the Las Vegas gambling Mafia, which bribes them.
What has tricked players is that they are not persuaded to lose, but to win by less than predicted on the odds charts. Then the gambling Syndicate wins big by betting under the predicted margin.
When I was a kid, the term, “the fix is on,” referred to a boxer throwing a match. Today, because of the inattention of college administrators, it applies to college games rigged by the gamblers. The campus problem first occurred in 1950, when such basketball powerhouses as Kentucky, CCNY and Bradley were involved. It has grown to epidemic levels in the last three years, infecting Boston College in football and Arizona State and Northwestern in basketball.
It reflects failure of our university presidents and athletics directors to clean up the problem. In 1970, when I chaired the National Intercollegiate Committee on Gambling Awareness, my committee saw a chance to defuse what was becoming an explosive danger.
It proposed that athletic directors instruct their publicity offices to no longer send information and player photos to pre-season magazines that published tout sheet ads for gambling.
The directors vetoed us.
Tippy Dye, once basketball coach at Washington, told me: “You mind your own damn business!”
Now the Congress supposedly will consider legislation to forbid Las Vegas gambling syndicates from publishing odds on college games. Don’t hold your breath. The deep pockets of Vegas gamblers long have made large campaign contributions to many incumbents, who are not likely to bite the hand that feeds them.
Today the cancer grows as most daily newspapers carry on their sports pages the Syndicate’s gambling odds on college games. That’s bad. But it is mild compared to the behavior of athletic directors, supposed caretakers of the varsity games our students play.
Where did the directors choose to hold their 1999 national convention?
In Las Vegas.