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She Daih| aar Herl 3jj I/I/ijyjßL/CtQO^& College Gambling Timeline 1949 Kentucky stars Ralph Beard, Alex Groza and Dale Barnsdale admit to accepting S7OO bribes to shave points in the NIT. 1951 Three students from City College of New York are arrested and admit to accepting up to $1,500 to shave points in three games. City was favored against Missouri, Arizona and Boston College and lost to all three schools. 1961 The NCAA forces St. Joseph's to forfeit its third-place NCAA finish because three players were allegedly involved with a gambler. 1962 Thirty-seven players from 22 schools are implicated in a major gambling scandal that results in the arrest and conviction of three gamblers charged with fixing games. 1978-79 Organized crime figure Henry Hill and N.Y. gambler Richard "The Fixer” Perry plot to fix several Boston College games with players Ernie Cobb, Rick Kuhn and Jim Sweeney. 1984 Four starters and one reserve on Tulane's basketball team are accused of shaving points in two games. Two of the five are granted immunity for testifying that the others shaved points in exchange for cash and cocaine. 1992 Nineteen Maine athletes from the football and baseball teams are suspended for their participation in a gambling operation said to be worth as much as SIO,OOO a week. 1995 Five Maryland athletes are suspended for gambling on sports. They were betting $25 or less on football parlay cards in which they attempted to predict the outcome of games. 1996 Thirteen members of the Boston College football team are suspended for betting on sports. Two of those suspended allegedly bet against their own team. 1 ii>< 1997 An investigation into alleged point shaving at Fresno State starts after the team beats the point spread in fewer than one-third of its games during a 30-game span. 1998 A Cal-State Fullerton student, Jack Oh, is charged with point shaving after being accused of offering SI,OOO to a player on the basketball team to throw a game. ONLINE From Page 3 “You just have to log on, put in a credit card number, click a few buttons here and there and there you go, you get a I t 1/2 spread, Bulldogs over Tigers. It’s simple and easy, and it works.” Also, many of the Internet bookie sites are rela tively simple compared to online casinos. Whereas ttsers often have to download software before they Jean play casino games online, customers of sports ‘ wager sites usually can place a bet with only a few clicks of the mouse. Convenience aside, Jane Jankowski, a public relations coordinator for the NCAA, said online gambling had struck a chord with the college pop ulation for various reasons. “Certainly in the case of college students, that’s a group of individuals who are the first generation that has great access to the Internet,” she said. “It’s something that can be very private that indi viduals do sitting at a computer by themselves. We also found that college students have greater access ito credit cards, and that’s usually how bets are made online, with a credit card.” Internet bookie sites require customers to sign up ;for an account before placing wagers. The sign-up form is often very simple and requires only minimal personal information. Forms that require an age rely on the user to provide an honest answer, thus leaving the door open for underage gambling. “1 think it’s someone’s personal choice,” Matt that much money in the first place. (Underage gam bling) could be a problem, but it’s not really any thing that concerns me.” Internet gambling also raises other legal issues. Only two U.S. states, Nevada and Oregon, allow wagering on sports. Most of the Internet casinos that provide sports wagering, however, are hosted in foreign countries and islands off the U.S. main land. While a federal statute prohibits wagering on sporting events through the use of the Internet, there is a debate over how the law applies to online bookies. The debate centers on whether jurisdiction lies in the region where the site is hosted or in the State in which the bet is placed. The development of wireless Internet connections, such as cellular and satellite access, have also clouded the issue. Several states have preempted that debate by prohibiting Internet gambling. Some states have won permanent injunctions against gambling sites, and some site owners have been fined, sanctioned and ordered to dissolve their companies. The over all impact, however, has been limited. NCAA Seeks Elimination Of Gambling Bv Will Kimmey Assistant Sports Editor Dion Lee was in trouble. He had run up a gam bling debt to a student bookie and didn’t have the money to pay it off. So the Northwestern basketball player asked one of the school’s sports boosters to grant him a loan. The booster reported him, and Lee was suspend ed from the team for several games. During Lee’s suspension, a man contacted him, and the two cut a deal to shave points in future games and bring some of his teammates into the situation as well. The scheme was uncovered, and Lee eventually pleaded guilty to sports bribery. He was sentenced to one month in federal prison in 1998 for wager ing illegally and participating in point shaving. But Lee’s case is not an isolated incident in the world of collegiate athletics. According to Businessweek, the NCAA suffered more game-fix ing scandals during the 1990s than in its entire prior history. At least 47 NCAA student-athletes admitted to gambling on games, and three others received jail sentences for point shaving during the decade. Looking for a way to curb the epidemic, the NCAA teamed up with Congress. Sens. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Patrick Leahy, D.-Vt, intro duced a bill in the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee on Feb. 1 to prohibit gambling on college athletics. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. John Edwards, D- N.C., would make it illegal for Nevada casinos to accept wagers on amateur sports, including high school, college and Olympic games. These legal wagers in Nevada casinos now total $690 million each year, according to Businessweek. “There are multiple reasons for introducing this bill,” Edwards said at a press conference held at the Smith Center on Feb. 8. “First and foremost, it is to address the issue of the integrity of the college ath letic system in this country. Some of the purity, unfortunately, has been lost in college athletics as a result of gambling and the influence of gambling on these illegal point shaving scandals that we’ve seen over the course of the last few years.” Edwards noted that while the Nevada legislature allows gambling on a North Carolina-Duke bas ketball game held in Chapel Hill, casinos could not take bets on sporting events at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “They do not allow gambling in their own state,” Edwards said, “which means that the legislature of Nevada has recognized what I think we’ve recog nized through this proposed legislation, which is that gambling is bad and potentially has a very neg ative influence both on college athletes in terms of Just a Click Away Online gambling sites, such as www.intertops.com, provide an easy outlet for sports betting. Gamblers need only access to the Internet and a credit card to place wagers on professional and amateur athletic competitions. □ _____ Netscape: intertops Online Sportsbook and Casino On-Une Sportsbettfnq and Gambling 0 0 jp £ Jl a 4i JH >* |t j|j| j ,„<*' * '**•" *’ H i It ' <t, r Welcome to the World's best I On-line SportsbooJc & Casino „ S3 g§g | lIffITir’HWWniBMIIfIIIWIHWWTHMf SOURCE: WVVWINTEKTOPS.COM “The states are passing these laws just to make a statement,” said Michael Peterson, chairman of the Internet Gaming Committee. “The only way to enforce it is on the national level.” The Senate has passed a bill for a national ban on Internet gambling. A companion bill is awaiting approval from the House. Peterson said the only way to enforce such a ban would be to compile a list of gambling sites and make Internet service providers block their cus tomers from those sites. The NCAA is also seeking federal legislation to ban gambling on college sports altogether. “(Internet gambling) is certainly a relatively new phenomenon that many people are getting their arms around,"Jankowski said. “We have to contin ue to pursue legislation that oudaws it.” Many of the online bookie sites are connected to online casinos. Many gambling sites present users with both options and a common account for both. After logging in, the user must first deposit money in the account through a credit card. While pay ment methods vary among sites, winnings usually are kept in the account until the user decides to make a withdrawal, at which point the money is either transferred to a credit card or sent to the user via checks. Matt said he began gambling online in spring 1998. He started betting on sports and then began Focus on: Gambling in College Sports - 11 1 JgBBBUBL SkfIUI I§l Mm.. ' I LL* W Hr DTH/SEFTONIPOCK Sen. John Edwards, left, and former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith appeared at the Smith Center on Feb. 8 to discuss a bill that would make it illegal for Nevada casinos to accept wagers on amateur sports. A Senate committee passed a similar bill last week. the inappropriate pressure that it adds to the pres sure the college athletes already face and also because of the perception that it creates.” Dean Smith, the former UNC men’s basketball coach, was at the same press conference to voice his support of the bill. “Gambling on college campuses is a problem,” Smith said. “It was many years ago when I was on campus.” In fact, the first major college basketball gam bling scandal took place at Brooklyn College in the 19405, a decade before Smith’s days as a player at Kansas in the early ’sos. Both Smith and Edwards were careful to make the distinction between high stakes gambling and friendly wagers. “Certainly no one is here to say the governor can not bet something against another governor in a bowl game,” Smith said. “Certainly if a (N.C.) State guy next door wants to bet a Carolina guy $5 on a game - we’re not talking about that kind of gambling. “What we’re talking about here is big-money gambling on college sports, which I think has a direct tie with the point-shaving scandals that we’ve seen in recent years,” Edwards said. Edwards has received a lot of support from Congress and said that it’s not a partisan issue. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed a similar bill Thursday. playing some of the games in the casinos. “You can lose a lot more a lot quicker (in casi nos),” Matt said. “If you bet S3OO on a sports game, you’ve got to wait until the game ends. But the casi no games, you might just be clicking, clicking, click ing, and all of a sudden, you’ve lost SIOO. It takes a lot less time losing money that way. Also, I think the odds are much less in your favor.” While he said he believed online sports wager ing could become addictive, Matt said he had been careful to avoid getting hooked on betting. He esti mated that he had made about SSO to SIOO since he began gambling online. He said the most he had won on one game was $250, while the most he had lost was about SIOO. “There are some people, I’m sure, who get addicted to it,” Matt said. “Some people get into the (situation) where they lose S2OO this week and S2OO next week. Then they think, ‘l’ve got to make this back.’ And they start playing with four figures, five figures, and they go bankrupt. “I’m not ever spending money that I need. I’ve never looked at a loss and said, ‘I need to get this money back.’ I just look at it as I haven’t made much money in it. When I do win, it’s nice. When I lose money, I get over it.” The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu. The bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., will now go before the full U.S. Senate. McCain was one of the 11 lawmakers who co-sponsored the original legislation. There is also a great deal of backing from the ranks of college sports. Penn State football coach Joe Patemo accompanied Smith to Capitol Hill in January to lobby for the legislation. College basketball analyst Dick Vitale has also thrown in his support to the bill. “I’m anti-gambling,” Vitale said. “So, anything that could be done to prevent that from taking place, I’m all for it. “It’s always a threat. We just had it recently at Northwestern. Ii it can happen at Northwestern, it can happen anywhere. 1 think today kids on college cam puses are gambling. I think coaches try like heck to do an educational process, bring in people to talk to their players about it, and you hope that that doesn’t hap pen. But unfortunately, in some situations, it does.” Smith installed an educational program soon after taking the job at UNC. He kept a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings from when several Long Island University players were arrested for point shaving in 1951. The pictures depict students being led away in handcuffs with tears in their eyes. At the beginning of each season, he would show each player the scrapbook individually and talk with him about it. Smith also had members of the Papers Print Spreads Despite Critics' Cries Art Cooper, a faculty member at N.C. State, recently questioned the legality of running point spreads in an area newspaper. By Brian Murphy Senior Writer Point spreads. Odds. Lines. They are the way bookies keep the wager ing even. They are the way gamblers deter mine who they’ll bet on. They are the reason for terms such as upset and underdogs. And there are almost as many names and uses for them as there are opinions about putting them in newspapers. Former North Carolina coach Dean Smith, the all-time winningest Division I col lege basketball coach, says point spreads are not news and therefore not worthy of being printed in newspapers. “Asa coach, I never wanted to know it,” Smith said in a Feb. 8 press conference, advo cating legislation to oudaw betting on college athletics in Nevada. “It wouldn’t affect me, but I never wanted to know. At the very least of this bill, I hope somehow the editors can stop putting point spreads in the paper.” The point spread is a way of making teams equal in athletic contests for gambling pur poses. Used in football and basketball pri marily, the spread offers a favorite and a num ber of points that team is expected to win by. Gamblers can take the favored team minus the points, or the underdog plus the points. Bookies, or people who take illegal wagers, need the lines to keep the bets even for both teams. If too much money is going toward one team, the line will shift to com pensate. Bookies make their money through “juice,” usually 10 percent of each losing bet. If the money bet on each team is equal, the bookie is assured of making 5 percent of the total bet or 10 percent of the lost total. Wednesday, April 19, 2000 FBI come in before each season to talk to his play ers about the ill effects of gambling. Smith instructed his players to come to him immediately if anyone approached them about get ting involved in a point-shaving plot or even if peo ple asked them about injuries on the team. At that point, Smith would call die FBI and let that agency handle things. Tar Heel coach Bill Guthridge con tinues Smith’s practices today. In a similar vein, the NCAA is also working dili gendy to prevent players from becoming involved in gambling schemes while it waits for the bill to be sorted out in Washington. Before the start of the men’s and women’s bas ketball tournaments, it issued 20 copies of a pam phlet tided “Don’t Bet On It” to every Division 1 coach in the country. The literature explains what gambling and point shaving are and what legal problems they can cause. Plans to save money and use credit cards wisely are also included in the brochure. Members of the NCAA staff also spoke to teams, coaches and officials at this year’s Final Four about sports wagering. In doing so, the NCAA echoed Edwards’ senti ments on gambling when he said, “No school is immune from this point-shaving problem.” The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu. But sports editors around the country do not agree with Smith’s conclusion that point spreads should be removed from the papers. The majority of newspapers throughout the country provide the lines as part of their daily coverage. The Associated Press releas es the latest lines from Harrah’s, a casino in Las Vegas, each night. Jimmy DuPree, the sports editor at The (Durham) Herald-Sun, calls them tools for nongamblers, claiming that even casual fans want to know if their team is favored. “I don’t think the point spread promotes gambling,” DuPree said. “People are going to find out the spread somehow. If they ban it from the newspapers and the Internet, they’ll pick up the phone and call their bookie.” Tim Burke, the sports editor at the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, said the lines were not his concern. “When I put the latest lines in the newspaper, 1 don’t take any moral position,” he said. “I put it in the newspaper because I think people want to know who’s favored.” Now, The News & Observer is weighing readers’ interests against legal concerns raised in a letter to the editor from Art Cooper, faculty athletics representative at N.C. State. Cooper argued that newspapers were breaking a federal law prohibiting “advertising” and “promoting” betting “on competitive games in which amateur or pro fessional athletes participate.” Although Cooper acknowledged that the interpretation hinged on whether or not the lines merely provided information, he said the paper was investigating the matter inter nally. While Smith and Cooper use analogies with prostitution and drug trafficking to illus trate the illegal activities papers would never be a part of, the battle shows no signs of stopping. “We put the information in the there and don’t concern ourselves with gambling issues,” Burke said. “That’s not my job.” The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu. 5
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 19, 2000, edition 1
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