Throwing The Game

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And the questions don't go away. Such was the case with the California State University, Fresno, basketball team during the 1996-97 season, when it failed to beat the point spread in a number of games. The questions eventually led to a federal-grand-jury investigation in which witnesses and game films were subpoenaed. Three years later, the probe continues.

How did it get this way? With a lot of help from Congress. Until the mid-1970s, legalized sports betting in Nevada was confined to dimly lit, smoke-filled rooms in tiny turf clubs where the floor was the ashtray. Recalls Richard Davies, a history professor at the University of Nevada at Reno: "The aroma of stale cigar smoke, day-old spilled beer and greasy hot dogs generated an ambiance only a dedicated horse player could appreciate," which was appropriate, since most of the betting action was on horses, not sports. The casinos had no sports books.

The main reason: no money to be made. From 1951 to '74, the Federal Government levied a 10% excise tax on the amount of sports wagers. Since the profit margin before the tax was generally 5% or less, the tax made the business unprofitable. But in 1974, the Nevada congressional delegation helped persuade Congress to slash the tax from 10% to 2%. The rush was on. By 1988, wagers on all sports--professional and college--totaled $1.3 billion.

Other states joined in, after a fashion. Oregon passed a law permitting a state lottery keyed to professional football, while Montana approved betting on fantasy sports leagues. Professional sports teams and the NCAA grew alarmed and pressured Congress for a law banning all sports wagering. One of the more vocal supporters was Bill Bradley, the former basketball star and Democratic Senator from New Jersey: "State-sponsored sports betting could change forever the relationship between the players and the game, and the game and the fans. Sports would become the gamblers' game and not the fans' game, and athletes would become roulette chips," he said in 1992. Congress agreed and enacted the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the law prohibiting gambling on amateur sporting events in all states except Nevada.

The popular movement to make the ban universal gathered force last year when the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which had been appointed by President Bill Clinton and congressional leaders, called for closing the Nevada loophole. Armed with the report, the NCAA went on the offensive, and sympathetic lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills to make it official. Coaches and university heads testified, including Graham Spanier, president of Penn State: "There has been a blurring of the line between legal and illegal sports gambling in this country. Sports gambling has become such a part of the glamour of Las Vegas that it is fairly safe to conclude that many do not know that gambling on college sports is an illegal activity in virtually every state in the United States." Dozens of other organizations outside the athletic community also urged Congress to act. They represented Republicans and Democrats; church, family and education groups, from the American Council on Education to a commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

But they were fighting a formidable opponent. Over the past several years, the gambling industry and its trade association, the American Gaming Association, have emerged as a major influence group in Washington, doling out large campaign contributions and wining and dining lawmakers. Like many other special interests, they are equal-opportunity givers, as attested to by a sampling of contributions reported to the Federal Election Commission. In 1996, Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands Inc. owns the new Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, contributed $100,000 to the Republican National State Election Committee and $105,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts donated $226,500 to the Republican National Committee that same year. Wynn, who came late to bipartisan giving, would discover the Democrats a little later.

In both 1997 and '98, Adelson again gave $100,000 to the Republican National State Election Committee. In 1998, Mirage Resorts kicked in $300,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, followed with $300,000 to the Republicans and $250,000 to the Democrats in 1999. In 1998, Circus Circus gave $285,000 to the same G.O.P. committee. The following year, Park Place Entertainment, the former gaming division of the Hilton Hotels, gave $100,000 to the Democrats and $75,000 to the Republicans, and MGM Grand gave $150,000 each to the Democrats and Republicans.

Sometimes all this money was delivered privately. Sometimes it was delivered at public fund raisers held along the Strip. In that November 1997 fund raiser, gaming executives paid at least $1,000 a person to rub shoulders with Republican leaders Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell, in an event that gaming officials characterized as a "tremendous success." Democrats received similar treatment in July 1999 when House minority leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and Ways and Means ranking member Charles Rangel of New York attended a Las Vegas luncheon.