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Dirty little secret no more
Professional sports forge cosy relationships with gambling industry

Curtis Stock
The Edmonton Journal


Saturday, February 17, 2007

EDMONTON - In the world of sports betting, it doesn't get any bigger than Super Bowl Sunday.

Las Vegas casinos took in almost $100 million on the Bears-Colts matchup, with some high rollers betting in the six-figure range. Internet gambling sites predicted even higher action -- as much as $600 million. Topping them all was the mega-millions wagered with illegal bookmakers.

Throw in money bet legally through government-sanctioned systems like Sport Select in Alberta and this one football game generated billions of dollars in wagers.

Without question, gambling on sports has seen phenomenal growth -- and with it a blurring of the lines that have traditionally separated sports leagues, players and owners from the gambling industry.

Starting today, The Journal examines many of the nuances of sports gambling in a five-part series called Games of Chance: Inside Sports Gambling.

The shift is dramatic, from an era not so long ago when sports distanced themselves from gamblers to today's downright cosy relationship between the two.

Gone, for instance, are the days when NBA commissioner David Stern considered denying Toronto a franchise unless basketball was taken off the Ontario government's sports wagering menu.

Now, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman tries unsuccessfully to link the future of the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Isle of Capri casino chain being awarded a licence to build a slot machine parlour and a new arena.

Gone also are the puritanical days when baseball banned retired Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays from the game because they worked as greeters in an Atlantic City casino.

Now, the Edmonton Eskimos and several other CFL teams have a sponsorship agreement with Bowmans.com, an Internet gambling giant, and the league itself has a marketing agreement with a poker playing site called PokerStars.net.

"Who can be surprised that gambling shows up in sports more and more," says former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent, who organized the 1989 investigation that banished Pete Rose from baseball. "Owners (of sports franchises) would take money from the devil if the money was high enough."

So what's the big deal? So what if Internet gambling is helping to fuel a betting boom on sporting events? So what if a gambling firm sponsors a league or team? What possible harm could that cause?

Plenty, as it turns out -- to the integrity of the game, to the coaches and athletes who play the games and to those who bet on them.

Rose is a prime example. While managing the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980s, it turns out Charlie Hustle, as he was known, was doing more hustling off the field than on it. Once an investigation determined he was betting on baseball, he was quickly banished from the game. Why? Because no league can afford the fallout when the integrity of their sport comes into question, when fans are left to wonder if matches are being fixed.

Fixes are in the news today as much as ever, with soccer officials being bribed in Europe and South America in the past year. And some athletes are getting caught up in the adrenaline rush of betting themselves, then running up big debts and being forced to "settle" by helping to throw a game. Otherwise, says Michael Franzese, a former Columbo crime family captain and admitted match fixer, "They may meet up with a guy like me and that's not going to be pleasant for you."

"Sports ducked the issue of steroids, tried to sweep it under the carpet," says Arnie Wexler, a New Jersey counsellor of professional athletes. "Now it's gambling. You don't hear them talking about gambling because it's the forbidden fruit. If a player gets caught gambling, it destroys the whole industry.

"But now it's starting to hit them in the face. This is another steroid situation. Just wait and you'll see."

What else you'll see is the spike in sports betting and the ease of access to gambling websites fuelling an increase in problem gambling, not just by rich athletes, but by the average Joe sports fan.

Like Edmonton's Gary Corbett. While the gambling industry salivates at the potential for profit every year at the Super Bowl, Corbett has very different memories of the big game.

Corbett wagered $10,000 with a bookie on what he thought was a sure thing -- Green Bay over Denver in the 1998 Super Bowl. The Packers lost, Corbett was out 10 grand, and a gambling addiction eventually cost him everything -- his marriage, his business, his house, his car -- everything.

"Gambling is a secret disease," says Wexler. "Compulsive gambling is an addiction like alcoholism and chemical dependency."

In addition to addictions and match fixing, over the next five days the sports and gambling series will look at the apparent hypocricy of government-sanctioned sports betting, the explosion of Internet betting, the world of illegal gambling and then ask, "What's next?"