Sporting News, The: Viva Las Vegas: Legal gambling isn't the problem

The Commerce Committee sent a bill to the full Senate that was simple and direct: No more betting on college athletics. No frills. No fuss. Whether it becomes the law of the land still needs to be decided.

"Legalized gambling on kids is wrong," says Commerce Committee chairman Senator John McCain, who, since giving up on running for president, is taking on this challenge. "They should not be reduced to points and spreads and a spectacle for wagering."

Nice words. Strong words. Noble words.

But what do they mean?

More than $2.3 billion was wagered on sports in this country last year, and between 30 and 40 percent of that was bet on college athletics, primarily football and basketball.

The NCAA has stuck with its `gambling is evil' doctrine, at least, in terms of its crusade against wagering within its member schools.

But the target the Senate went after was legal gambling in Las Vegas-the wagering that is seen by the public.

It's the wrong target. The problem with gambling and college athletics is not the money wagered in Vegas, but the betting that takes place on 99.9 percent of the college campuses in the country.

It is the "for entertainment purposes only" football cards that you can find each week during the fall. It's the small-time and not-so-small-time wagering that occurs in dorms, with a network that reaches far beyond the campus gates.

And it's not the low-rent commuter college campuses where the problem is most acute. In the past few years, Boston College and Northwestern, two of the most prestigious academic schools in the country, have had major betting and point shaving scandals.

By banning collegiate wagering, all you are going to do is send the system further underground than it already is. The gambling web will get more tangled, and the problem will continue to grow.

There isn't any easy fix for this.

The NCAA has made a crusade of its anti-gambling stance. It has threatened to take credentials away from news outlets that print point spreads or accept tout-sheet advertising.

Yet, it looks the other way when its member institutions and conferences hold tournaments and events in Nevada, where gambling is legal, and the "sins" of wagering are as readily available to the student-athletes as a soft-drink machine.

Meetings are scheduled where gambling exists in the lobby of the hotel where the meeting is held.

Please.

What the NCAA and its member institutions can do is continue to educate and monitor its programs. Almost every school delivers some kind of antigambling message to athletes at the start of a season.

Some schools bring in former FBI agents who advise student-athletes how gamblers can approach about fixing games. They talk about the dangers of revealing too much inside information. Things like who is injured, which could affect a wagering line.

But despite the NCAA's efforts, the point spreads that appear each week still are accurate. Eerily accurate. It is amazing how close those lines are to the actual scores.

Does this mean that all of those games are fixed? Of course not. Usually, it means the odds-makers are very good at evaluating talent and conditions and making assessments.

The bottom line here is murky. But it seems to come down to a basic truth: Trust.

We have to trust the coaches and athletes who are involved in college athletics to make sound judgments, to play the game fairly and honestly, to do the right thing.

Passing bills to eliminate gambling from college athletics is not the answer.

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Mark Blaudschun covers college football for the Boston Globe. E-mail him at blaudschun@sportingnews.com.