Jeff Haney wonders why athletes and coaches don't leave bookmaking to professional bookies and stop getting themselves i

[clevfan]

February 10, 2006

Jeff Haney wonders why athletes and coaches don't leave bookmaking to professional bookies and stop getting themselves in over their heads

Betting tough for sports figures

Jeff Haney
Las Vegas Sun

And you thought the adoption of the shootout was going to be the most exciting news from the NHL this season.

Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet was named by New Jersey authorities this week as the ringleader of an illegal sports betting outfit that could also ensnare at least six NHL players as well as Wayne Gretzky's wife.

Authorities dubbed the investigation "Operation Slapshot," prompting one wag at CBS Sportsline to wonder if "Operation Mystery, Alaska" was already taken.

Tocchet said he will fight the charges, but we haven't heard the last of this story, which has raised questions such as:


Why would a former NHL star and current coach want to embark on a second career as a bookie?
Despite their image as rakish bon vivants, I think street bookies spend more time and energy than they care to admit chasing down slow payers and trying to drum up new customers to replace bust outs.

Of course, if you have both a crooked police officer and the mob in your corner - as authorities have charged in the case - it would become a lot easier to persuade would-be welshers to pay up.

Conspiracy theorists, however, can relax. Whatever the motivation behind this racket, it had nothing to do with influencing the outcome of hockey games.

Authorities say there is no indication any of the betting took place on the NHL.

Certainly they weren't moving any money through Las Vegas, where hockey betting generates about as much action as faro.


What is it with athletes and reckless gambling?
They usually try to characterize their propensity to wager as an offshoot of their "competitive nature."

But with jocks and gambling, "competitive" usually is a synonym for "an intense desire to lose money rapidly."

Think Michael Jordan and his blackjack junkets to Atlantic City.

Or Lenny Dykstra getting taken to the cleaners in underground Mississippi poker games in the late '80s.

Or Jaromir Jagr digging himself a hole, click by click, with some ill-advised sports betting and day-trading online a couple of years back.

Tocchet, during his playing days with the Philadelphia Flyers, became a fan favorite thanks to his hard-nosed, blue-collar approach to the game. Kind of like another Philly athlete of roughly the same era. Fellow named Pete Rose.


What's the best way to drive out the bad guys and keep the integrity of sports betting intact?
Don't get me wrong. Nobody is looking forward to the new season of "The Sopranos" more than I am.

I believe "When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen so stiff it took them three days to thaw him out for the autopsy" (from the movie "GoodFellas") may well be the finest line in the history of American cinema.

But I also know in real life, the guys Tocchet was allegedly involved with are lowlife criminal scum.

The organized crime factor elevates this offense to an entirely different plane from something such as filling out an NCAA tournament bracket or playing a $22 sit-n-go on your friendly Gibraltar-based online poker site.

That's why I agree with TV sports prognosticator Wayne Root and others who are calling for a move toward establishing a national sports book that would be based in Nevada and operated by the powerful and well-regulated gaming companies headquartered here.

It's discouraging that we have yet to take even baby steps in that direction - such as reworking state regulations to allow sports books to streamline the cumbersome phone betting account system in Nevada. Comedian Lewis Black pointed out that simply saying "Michael Jackson" serves as an all-purpose punch line to any joke, guaranteeing a big laugh. Unfortunately, the same can be said for "Nevada phone betting accounts."

State regulators should also allow casinos the option to book action on events such as presidential elections and the Academy Awards. Surely I'm not the only one who cringes when I hear about a Las Vegas line on such events that's "for amusement only."

Bookmakers elsewhere in the world take real money on them. Why not here?

And we can hope a big Nevada-based operation would siphon some business from state lotteries, the most contemptible form of gambling, in which the house (the government, in this case) typically keeps 50 percent of the dollars wagered. Not even Carbone and his goodfella buddies were that brazen.

[SlipperyPete]

He cant figure out why they would do it?????

Tocchet must have seen all that money being wagered and then [img]i/expressions/light.gif[/img] "hey they could lose all that money to me!!!!