CALGARY HERALD:Western Hockey League stunned by gambling site

[clevfan]

WHL stunned by gambling site

Allen Cameron
CanWest News Service


Tuesday, October 03, 2006


CALGARY -- Western Hockey League players, coaches and officials were surprised to discover that an off-shore gambling Web site is accepting bets on their league.

Gamblers with a credit-card account at bwin.com -- based in Vienna -- can bet on a WHL game's outcome, along with other bets such as which team will score first, throughout the season.

Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League games are also available.

"You're kidding," said Calgary Hitmen head coach-GM Kelly Kisio on Monday. "I'm very surprised. You have to be concerned. Just like in professional sports, guys can be led astray, and a superstar 17-year-old can be led astray probably a lot quicker than the professional athlete. It's shocking."

"Wow, I can't believe that," added Hitmen defenceman Karl Alzner. "I can't believe people are betting on junior games, and to be able to win a lot of money from that is crazy."

The Web site offers a variety of action on hockey from around the world, and also is taking bets on Canada West university games.

WHL commissioner Ron Robison was dismayed to learn of the site, and said he'd do all he could to prevent the site from using the WHL name.

"It's just contrary to what we believe is appropriate. It doesn't fit at all, morally or ethically, with our sport.

"It goes beyond that; it uses our name, it uses our word-mark in a fashion that we don't believe is reflective of our product. It's more than an issue of gambling; it's an unauthorized used of our brand."

But a gambling expert, who does consultation work for various off-shore gambling sites and co-hosts a popular radio show on sports gambling, believes the leagues will be out of luck in trying to stop bwin.com.

"As long as it's licensed in their jurisdiction, they can take bets on anything," said Randall the Handle, who prefers to be known by his on-air identity. "They (WHL) really don't have a recourse. It's like the Detroit Tigers saying they don't want to be posted on Pro-Line. They can't do that, they don't have the authorization. As long as the Ontario government is licensing Pro-Line, they can put on whatever they want."

An interview request to bwin.com generated no response.

Randall doesn't believe bwin.com is making significant money off the junior bets; instead, the games are posted as a gimmick to get people to open accounts and spend bigger money on high-volume sports such as the NFL.

"If any big money came in on it, it would wave a lot of flags," he said. "It's very difficult for something to be corrupt because it would be identified so quickly. I'm sure they limit the bets on the games. If somebody came in and bet $10,000 on the Kamloops Blazers, a red flag would go up somewhere."

Robison said the topic would be discussed at Canadian Hockey League meetings this week; ironically, a sports-gambling discussion was scheduled, although it had more to do with accepting advertising money from sites such as poker.net.

But from Kisio's perspective, it's another distraction in a league potentially full of them.

"We have a tough enough time directing these kids as it is without worrying about gambling from the outside or people sliding into the culture of your hockey team," he said.

Calgary Herald

[clevfan]

Juniors score with bettors on website in Austria

Chris Yzerman, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Canadian major-junior hockey has found a following in the unlikely locale of Austria, but it likely isn't one the Canadian Hockey League will be happy about.

The Vienna-based sports gambling website bwin.com is taking bets on games in the Ontario Hockey League and its CHL counterparts, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Western Hockey League.

Even Canadian Interuniversity Sport hockey scores with gamblers with credit-card accounts, who can bet on a game's outcome and place other wagers such as which team will score first. Ottawa 67's owner Jeff Hunt said last night that the Austrian gambling website was "not the only one" covering junior hockey.

When Ottawa bid for the right to host the 2006 world junior championship, the competing Canadian cities were given odds on an Australian-based site, Hunt said.

The association between gambling and teenagers is not one that those in Canadian junior hockey like.

"I think the big concern, as with any sports league, is anybody involved in the league betting," Hunt said, adding he doubted that would happen.

WHL commissioner Ron Robison was dismayed when informed of the site and said it would be brought up at CHL meetings this week, when the topic of advertising money from gambling sites was already on the agenda.

"It's just contrary to what we believe is appropriate," Robison told the Calgary Herald. "It doesn't fit at all, morally or ethically, with our sport."

Hunt figures that betting action on the CHL likely isn't great. Rather, it's a way of drawing more people into making bets on more popular leagues, such as the NFL. There's not much the leagues can do about it either.

"As long as it's licensed in their jurisdiction, they can take bets on anything," radio personality and gambling expert Randall the Handle told the Herald. "They really don't have a recourse. It's like the Detroit Tigers saying they don't want to be posted on Pro-Line. They can't do that, they don't have the authorization. As long as the Ontario government is licensing Pro-Line, they can put on whatever they want."

[degenerategambler]

Someone should've told them before they got all worked up that limits are probably $100.

[leoj2002]

was going on during NHL lockout at more well known books

[clevfan]

Gambling site concerns CHL

By DONNA SPENCER

CP) - The Canadian Hockey League has asked its lawyers to look at an off-shore internet gambling website where bets can be placed on major junior hockey games and the Memorial Cup.

The CHL includes the Ontario, Western and Quebec major junior leagues that total 59 teams of players aged 16 to 20.

The Austrian website bwin.com invites bets on OHL, WHL and QMJHL games and the Memorial Cup, which is troubling to a league in which its players are part of a teenage demographic that spends a lot of time online.

"Surprised would be a fair term and disappointed more than anything," CHL commissioner David Branch said Wednesday from Toronto.

"We're looking at options. Gambling is an issue we cannot choose to ignore."

Betting on sports is a grey and in many ways unregulated area. Office hockey and football pools are common.

Anyone over the age of 18 can buy a Pro-Line ticket, or its Sports Select equivalent in Quebec and B.C., at the corner store and put money down on an array of pro sports including the NHL, NFL, Major League Baseball, college sports and NASCAR.

But when those playing the sport place bets, it becomes a moral and often legal issue.

The long-running controversy over whether Pete Rose gambled on baseball has dogged him for years and kept him out of the Hall of Fame. Italian soccer was rocked this year by a match-fixing scandal.

Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet was charged last year along with two other men for running an illegal gambling ring.

Teenage hockey players could be approached and influenced by people placing bets or be tempted to place bets themselves.

"I think we'd be naive to think that couldn't happen," Kitchener Rangers head coach and GM Peter DeBoer said. "Circumstances set it up that it's more of a possibility at our level with them being teenagers and not having a lot money than at the pro level where they are mature and they do have money.

"I think we're a lot more susceptible to that than even the pros would be. We're dealing with teenage kids and it would just be ignorance to how bad a position they could be put in if they got onto one of these sites."

An option the CHL will consider is including a seminar on gambling as it does on drugs and alcohol at the start of every season.

"With young people, education is paramount," Branch said, adding that the NHL and Players' Association have resources on the subject that the junior leagues could use to inform players on the dangers of gambling.

DeBoer feels a gambling seminar will be necessary.

"We run seminars honestly from training camp right to the first regular season game: drugs and alcohol and concussions and the new rules and hits from behind and we'll add this," he said. "You are dealing with kids as young as 16. It's important we educate them on all those things."

[Myron]

pinnacle offers ahl