Throwing The Game

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    With all that money flowing to lawmakers, you might guess what happened next. The NCAA-backed bills are stalled. But not because they lack the votes. "I would allege there would be a vote of 98 to 2 in this Senate, if it came to a vote," ventured the bill's key supporter, McCain of Arizona, in a July 18 speech on the Senate floor. Even critics of the legislation acknowledge it would pass if brought to a vote. But leaders of both parties have resisted bringing the legislation to the floor because of fear that the gaming industry will cut off its campaign contributions. Here's how that fear works:

    Last year, when the NCAA first took its case to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the college-sports officials got a favorable reception. Committee staff members were confident their boss, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, the committee chairman, would embrace the issue. After all, years earlier the Senator had made his feelings clear: "Sports gambling is bad for the country. It is bad for our young people. It is bad for everybody," he said in the Senate on June 2, 1992. Hatch said that perhaps the exemption for Nevada "will have to be revisited at some future time."

    NCAA officials worked with Hatch's staff on drafting legislation and were told that Hatch would be a co-sponsor. The proposal also secured the support of two other key Senators, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Kansas Republican Sam Brownback.

    Then, all of a sudden, NCAA officials saw their calls go unreturned. Hatch, who had made suggestions during the drafting, suddenly let it be known he would not be a co-sponsor, and has since said the proposed bill does not go far enough to stop the problem. Kentucky's McConnell, a major recipient of gaming-industry contributions, had met with Hatch and other Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee and asked them not to support the bill. "He told them it would impact his ability to raise money for [the G.O.P.'s Senate fund-raising committee] from the gambling industry," said a Capitol Hill observer familiar with the negotiations.

    Eventually, the NCAA found in McCain a powerful advocate--but not powerful enough. The Senate Commerce Committee, over which he presides, held hearings, approved a bill and sent it to the Senate floor recommending passage. There it has languished, a victim of parliamentary maneuvering by the leadership. A similar bill was approved by the House Judiciary Committee last week, but its fate before the full House remains unclear.

    Surely one reason is that the NCAA, which is a tax-exempt organization, cannot make campaign contributions. Even its lobbying budget is minimal by Washington standards, less than $200,000 a year. The American Gaming Association alone, on the other hand, spent $1.6 million last year.

    As part of the lobbying campaign, Las Vegas casinos mounted a p.r. blitz to enlist the support of their customers. They distributed literature warning that "politicians want to snatch away your rights!...They want to take away your rights as an adult to come to Nevada and place a legal wager." The industry has also fought the bill on grounds that it would wipe out thousands of jobs in Nevada. (In fact, wagering on college sports amounts to less than 1% of casino business in that state.) But mainly the gaming industry has rested its case against the legislation on this:

    It makes no sense to eliminate legalized sports gambling in Nevada because the amount wagered is dwarfed by illegal gaming in the other 49 states. Indeed, goes the argument, without a legal way to bet on college games, gamblers would wager illegally and contribute further to the growth in illegal gambling. To promote this view, the industry bought ads in newspapers warning of the consequences if Congress eliminates legal sports betting in Nevada. Under a headline declaring s. 2340: A "FIX" ONLY A BOOKIE COULD LOVE in the Washington Post on June 22, Harrah's Entertainment Inc. admonished, "If Congress bans legalized betting on college sports, it will make a lot of illegal bookies very happy. Because eliminating the only regulated, legitimate way to gamble on college games in the U.S. will do nothing but create new business for illegal bookmakers."

    Law-enforcement officials typically offer a different view: that legal sports betting actually fuels illegal gambling and provides two services for bookies everywhere. It gives them a reliable source for quoting the odds on a game and, more important, provides a convenient place to spread the risk on their bets. Says Wayne A. Johnson, chief investigator of the Chicago Crime Commission, the citizens watchdog committee that has been fighting organized crime since the days of Al Capone: "Legalized gambling only perpetuates illegal gambling. It does not displace it, as many people believe. That's a false assumption." Even Nevada's regulatory officials have acknowledged this connection. The chairman of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Steve DuCharme, said in a 1999 interview, "A lot of money made through illegal gambling is laid off in Las Vegas. If a bookie has a lot of money on one side of a bet, they bet the other one in Las Vegas to try and even the bet."

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