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College basketball: March Madness 2005
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March on Vegas is bettors' ritual
By BRADY DENNIS
Published March 31, 2005
LAS VEGAS - Another day of March Madness, and the smoky, gritty, granddaddy of casino sports books is bursting at the seams again.
This dingy corner of the Stardust Resort & Casino is filled mostly with men - young men, old men, desperate men - who don't care that the Wayne Newton Theater is only steps away.
They are too busy sucking down Budweisers, screaming at more than 80 televisions that line the walls and studying the betting board that glitters above them as they line up to bark their bets across the ticket counters.
All of the nearly 300 seats are taken, and people pack themselves three and four deep along the back wall. Settled in among them, wearing sweat pants and sneakers, is Jerry Tarkanian, who used to coach basketball in this town.
"Who's going to win it all, Coach?" passersby ask on their way to bet. North Carolina, he tells them.
In Nevada, especially in Las Vegas, the NCAA Tournament means monster business. The hotels fill to capacity, the restaurants stay packed, the blackjack tables are lively. And the sports books cater to standing-room only crowds beginning at dawn.
"It's growing every year. Every year, it gets busier," the Stardust's well-dressed, veteran sports book manager Bob Scucci says from behind the ticket counter. "Next to the Super Bowl, it's the busiest time of year for us."
He's talking about more than the crowds.
This year, Nevada bookmakers expect to take in $90-million or more in bets on the tournament, placing it on par with the Super Bowl (no matter who wins the games, the house gets a slice of every bet).
And while the betting lines stretch for miles, what's wagered in Vegas represents only a fraction of what's bet over the Internet and in the ubiquitous office pool.
Some observers estimate that more than $3.5-billion - about the gross national product of Mozambique, one reporter observed - will be bet on the tournament by the time a national champion is crowned Monday in St. Louis.
But if the NCAA and certain members of Congress had their way, not a dime would be riding on the Big Dance.
* * *
Since 2000, it has become a rite of spring for a member of Congress to introduce a bill that would ban legal betting on college sports. Usually, it's Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who this year said he wouldn't try again until another game-fixing scandal arises.
Taking his place was Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb., the legendary former Nebraska football coach.
"Gambling creates an unhealthy climate in amateur sports where the emphasis goes from appreciation for excellence and skill to point spreads and monetary gain," Osborne said in introducing his bill earlier this month.
Thirty-three other members of the House backed the bill, but like previous attempts, it isn't likely to pass any time soon. Still, legislators who hope to criminalize betting on college sporting events have a permanent ally in the NCAA.
"Philosophically, we have to be opposed to it," said Bill Saum, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities. "One, for the well-being of our student athletes. And two, for the integrity of the game."
The NCAA's opposition stretches as far as the common office pool, at least in spirit.
"Nobody is saying that a $1 office pool is going to infringe on the tournament or its integrity," Saum said. "But (student-athletes) receive so many mixed messages, we need to take the position of being against sports betting" in all forms.
Each year, Saum combats what he views as the perils of gambling while making due with a modest $600,000 budget.
Every Division I team in the tournament this year was shown a video about gambling produced by the NCAA, and each athlete filled out an affidavit, stating whether he or any family members had gambled on sports, Saum said.
The NCAA has been distributing blue "Don't Bet On It" bracelets, similar to the yellow ones made popular by Lance Armstrong, and running public service announcements during the tournament featuring the same slogan.
At this weekend's Final Four, Saum said, an FBI agent and an NCAA official will meet with members of each team to discuss the consequences of gambling on the games.
It's easy enough to agree that student-athletes shouldn't be betting on or fixing games. But when it comes to whether the Average Joe should be allowed to wager a few bucks on college games, the argument grows more contentious.
* * *
Up and down the Las Vegas Strip, those who run sports books argue that they have no interest in seeing college sports corrupted.
"Nobody cares more about the integrity of the game than us," said Scucci, as he pondered halftime point spreads inside his cramped Stardust office. He and others point to the role Nevada bookmakers played during the 1990s, when they helped uncover a point-shaving scam at Arizona State University.
"It was the Vegas sports books that noticed illegal betting patterns," said Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., president and CEO of American Gaming Association, a Washington-based lobbying group. "I've always thought of Nevada as the canary in the mine shaft."
The reference alludes to the days when miners brought a caged canary with them into the mines. It took much less deadly gas to kill a canary than a human, so the miners knew to flee if the bird died. Fahrenkopf's point: The Vegas sports books can serve as a first line of defense against game-fixing. That much, the NCAA concedes.
"We understand that Las Vegas serves a positive role because they can determine whether or not the line moves significantly," said Saum, the NCAA's gambling czar. "We do need to develop our relationship. It's strained at the moment, simply because we became so involved politically a few years ago."
On another front, Fahrenkopf argues that Congress and the NCAA shouldn't target legal betting in Nevada because, unlike the Internet and the world of underground betting, it's tightly regulated.
"Do you think for one moment that if the sports books in Nevada closed down that people wouldn't be betting?" he said. "If there's a problem with wagering on March Madness, it's illegal wagering, not legal wagering. ... There's a bookie on every university campus."
Banning college betting in and around Las Vegas also would harm the economy, Fahrenkopf argues.
"It's a very, very important economic generator for Nevada, besides what is bet on the games," he said, citing the millions spent on hotels, restaurants, golf and other entertainment during the tournament. "If you take away $90-million in wagering and $90-million in non-gaming revenue, you're talking jobs. It would clearly hurt the state."
For now, Nevada remains protected under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which outlawed sports betting in all but the four states that already had authorized it: Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware.
For now, anyway.
* * *
Until the next challenge comes, the revelers will make their annual March pilgrimage to scream at the televisions and mingle with the "wiseguys," the professional bettors.
They will rise at dawn to scramble for seats inside the aging Stardust, the immense MGM Grand and the plush Caesar's Palace. Some will travel 20 minutes down the road to Henderson, Nev., that John Testa, 61, does each year, to slip into the comfortable seats at the Green Valley Ranch Resort.
"Every turnover, every missed free throw, every bad call, you've got half the crowd screaming and the other half groaning because it's going to cost them money," said Testa, who works for a Baltimore-based computer company. "It makes watching the games much more interesting."
Many fans who fill the sports books each March offer similar reasons for why they keep coming back. Most also share Testa's views about whether lawmakers should tinker with betting on the Big Dance.
"I don't know where politicians get off deciding they're not going to let that happen anymore," Testa said. "We're not doing anybody any harm."
What if wagering on the tournament was banned?
"It would change my thinking on whether I'd go or not," Testa said. "I can stay home and pay $59 and get all the games."
But that's a battle for another day and another session of Congress. For now, there is the promise of a Final Four weekend and the anticipation of doing it all again next March.
"It's already on my calendar for next year," Testa said. "Absolutely."
[Last modified March 31, 2005, 01:28:16]
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