“ the local gambling mob. :

: Occasionally one appears sai claims he has ventured as much as
$500 on a& sporting event. The word spreads all over town like wildfire.
When you check up you find ~ bet was Bea net five hundred.

*

ERRY HECKERT, ie in the see Kan., State Joutnalone

.of “Phog” Allen’s neighbors—sums the situation up quite well this way:

“Allen, being from Kansas, would be the first to pop his eyes when
a New Yorke: flashed a roll during a tournament in the east. Why?

‘Well the Sunficwer State never has gone in for gambling in public.
“Betting is more or less considered completely legal in the
Gotham state. They lay the Morgenthau paper on the horses all of
the time. They put it on the boxers. It’s common as getting up and
dressing every morning—gambling in the east.

“But out here in Kansas the guys who have an extra buck they’d
like to wager have to (cr should have to, according to law) sneak thru.
backrooms to lay it on the line. There’s plenty of parlay cards in the
state and plenty of dough going on them each week.

“Of course, we realize this isn’t the type of gambling that Allen is
campaigning to crush. But he may be a bit confused because he saw it |
being done ror in New York and renee = ‘whole aah.”

* ees
I DO NOT think Allen is confused at all. ge as fae. as I can read hie
writings, has no beef about the type of gamblin} that goes on in-
Kansas or anywhere else, where betting: is a friendly ¥ wager. The m~ is |
such betting lends interest and zest to all sports.  ~

What Allen is talking about, I think, is described in the sunowitke
article by Leonard Cohen, sports columnist for the New York Post, The |
New Yorker writes with authority, for he is.on the scene:

“Sooner or later the charge that gamblers had tried to fix the haaket-
ball games at the Garden had to come out in the open: The surprising
angle of Dr. Forrest C, (Phog) Allen’s statement that the heavy betting
gentry last season had fixed at least one player, (whose name Allen was
reported to have sent to Ned Irish, Garden promoter) was that Allen
should have started the fuss months after the incident was supposed to
have occurred, and two months before the coming season got under way.

“We don’t intend to get into any. controversy with Dr. Allen,
who may know something of a really sinister nature. We do know,
however, that the bettors and gamblers have probably been more
active at the college basketball games at the Garden than they
have been at the professional sports of boxing and hockey.

“College basketball at the Gerdan could ill afford any scandal to be
attached to it, Irish is smart enough to realize that if the general run
of court fans smell a rat in the form of a fixing scandal, his attend-
ance at the Garden will drop as fast as it rose. Allen’s idea of awakening
the college presidents to stop the gambling by appointing a ezar, similar
to baseball's Landis, sounds like a bad dream to us.

“How to keep out about a thousand or more of the gamblers who
crowd inte the Garden for every game seems to be a problem which
even Irish will have trouble solving. However, what he can do, if
they gain admittance to the Garden, is to stop them from congre-
gating in the lobby where for several seasons they have been openly
quoting odds and making bets. trish has built up a tremendous
business out of collegiate basketball, one which you can be sure he
will do anything in his power to keep flourishing and untainted by
any breath of scandal. -

“Another danger confronting Irish, aside from the possible loss of
interest by the spectators who have filled his coffers, is that the colleges
themselves will refuse to. play at the Garden. The teams have been
getting nice cuts. of the gate, it is true, but graduate managers will
quickly be told: by their university councils not to schedule games for
the Garden if the educators auP Est: their Mi Gergraduates are being ex-
posed to corruption. 2

“We think the headache is ‘tiaws. ‘He's. known about the gamblers;
he’s seen them, even as you and JI, standing around the lobby, smoking
their big cigars, talking quietly but none the less obviously in terms of
points, etc. We don’t know how: seriously. he’s tried to stop them in
the past, but his highly successful basketball monopoly is now.in jeopardy.
and we look: for him to put the pressure on the betting fraternity this
winter as never before. It was.thé success of his basketball venture
that led to his becoming acting president of the Garden in the wartime |
absence of Brigadier General Kilpatrick. Irish likes the prestige and |
the financial stipend that go with the title too much to have his dream-
empire-come-true totter mea disappear Tener putting up a terrific fight
in self-defense.” Bee