Monday, December 11, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
1
Section A·Page 5
Internet gambling plagues universities, athletics
Continued from page 1A
Report, there were 600 gambling-related internet sites in 1998, 60 of which offer real-time betting.
The ease with which students can now bet on games with the single click of a mouse threatens the integrity of college athletics, according to Kansas Athletics Director Bob Frederick, Kansas men's basketball coach Roy Williams and Kansas football coach Terry Allen.
As gambling-related Web sites become more popular, more people are logging on to the Internet and using credit cards to place bets.
This had been a concern at universities across the country, and a NCAA official, Bill Saum, has been appointed to work full-time as the organization's resident expert on college gambling.
$651 million
1998
Credit cards' contribution to the problem
Growing amount of Internet gambling revenue
$2.3 billion
2001 (projected amount)
When Scott lost a bundle on Saturday college games, he would try in vain to recoup the losses betting on Sunday NFL games. His credit card hole just got deeper.
"The computer and my credit card made it pretty easy to lose money quick," he said.
He's not the only one who could fall into the same problem — Saum estimated that 65 percent of undergraduates have credit cards.
cards. Howard Shaffer, director of Harvard University Medical School's Division on Addiction, said research shows that more youth are introduced to gambling through sports betting than through any other type of gambling activity. Children are not likely to pick up a deck of cards or dice. Instead, they learn to gamble on sports by reading a newspaper's daily sports section or doing something as simple as participating in an office betting pool on the NCAA basketball tournament.
Melissa Carr/KANSAN
Not all gamblers take betting seriously.
Steven Kilby,
Lawrence senior,
saw his Internet sports betting as just another form of entertainment — like going to a bar or to a movie — even though he occasionally dropped $50 on a football game, as he did when the Kansas football team played their season opener against Southern Methodist in Dallas earlier this year.
He had an Internet connec-
Source: National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report
"Look around campus.It's so
credit card here. And all you have to do is go onto the Internet and
money."
uon that allowed him to place the bet and a satellite TV that allowed him to get constant updates of the game. The exhilaration of betting this season quickly disappeared with Kansas' chances of winning.
there are thousands of sites to choose from. And it looks like free money."
"I saw the first-quarter score, and I was just hoping they would cover the spread," Kilby said.
Steven Kilby Lawrence senior
SMU was favored by five points, meaning Kansas could lose by four or less and Kilby would still win the bet. But the Jayhawks lost 31-17 and he lost $50 quicker than it took to sign on to his Internet account. To place the bet, he logged onto his favorite Internet site, punched in his ID name and credit card number and selected the bet. The money was posted to his credit card account as quickly as the game was finished.
Gambling is not like the Beach Boys
tune, he learned. You don't have to be true to your school. Kilby bet on three Kansas football games this year. He won bets when he picked Kansas State and Nebraska to win big against the Jayhawks.
"I guess my friends could call me a jerk for not picking KU." Kilby said. "But it's nothing personal. It's just about winning money."
Kilby now has two rules — don't bet with your heart, and don't bet more than you can afford to lose.
"You should never bet outside your means," Kilby said. "Gambling is for
entertainment. it gets a bad rap because of people who blow more money than they can afford to."
Kilby can see how others are sucked into placing big bets they cannot afford to lose.
"Look around campus."
"Look around campus, Kilby said. "It's so easy to get a credit card here. And all you have to do is go on the Internet and there are thousands of sites to choose from. And it looks like free money."
Betting with friends
The ease of placing a bet alone at the computer actually drove one KU gambler away from Internet betting. Eric Goodman, Omaha freshman, said he missed the social aspects involved in betting against friends.
Goodman previously bet on games through the Internet. He had a few favorite Web sites where he could quickly make a bet, and the sites were reliable at paying when he won. But he gave up his computer betting and is now part of a group that regularly places bets with each other and then watches the games on TV together. He enjoys the thrill of having the game create friendly competition.
Goodman said he preferred to bet with friends because that way there's a face associated with the deal.
"It's better when you know the money isn't just going to some machine," he said.
Even when Goodman loses and one of his pals has a big night, the friend is more likely to buy the beer or pizza to enjoy during the next game.
He said he sympathized with students who lose more money than they can afford to, but he thinks gambling should remain legal.
"As long as it doesn't make you lose all your money or your friends, I don't see anything wrong with it," Goodman said.
Scott, who left school last year after he spent his college savings on bad wagers, is trying to pay off his gambling debt. He now works two low-paying jobs in his native Colorado. He left behind a nice
Gambling it all away
Scott said he lied to friends about his reason for leaving the University. His mother was ill. He wanted to switch majors. As he packed his belongings, he sheepish told his friends that he was not cut out for the rigors of college. In truth, his grade-point average when he left was 3.52.
apartment, which he shared with three friends, and a girlfriend who finally grew tired of using her money to help cover his expensive habit. He is now in Gamblers Anonymous, a support group for addicted bettors.
"I'd do anything not to give the real reason," Scott said. "I still will not tell people."
"Working as a waiter and at a car wash is not going to make me nearly enough
He said it was slow-going trying to pay his credit card gambling debt.
money to pay everything book" he said
Scott considered himself an educated better. He used to call Kansas' sports information department to get inside information, so he could place a more
knowledgeable bet.
Plaguing college athletics programs College coaches are familiar with the methods gamblers use to try to get information to gain an edge on the books, especially information regarding player's injuries.
"I've gotten plenty of phone calls from people who just want anything they can get on players." Allen said. "It's definitely not right, but I don't think it's a problem any other Division I program doesn't face."
Both Allen and Williams worry that college students who gamble will try to influence athletes on their campus who play the games.
"It's something a coach has to worry about every day now," Williams said.
Athletes at Arizona State and Northwestern have been convicted of sports betting crimes this decade. In each case, players were instrumental in fixing the game's scoring to help gamblers by not playing up to their full potential.
In the past 10 years, there have been 11 gambling scandals on college campuses, compared to the 10 that occurred during the 40 years prior to that.
Saum, the NCAA official who works as its college gambling expert, regularly visits college campuses to lecture teams about the dangers and pitfalls of gambling. Kansas' coaches have had Saum,
NCAA officials have countered with a message that gambling on college athletics is wrong and dangerous.
other NCAA officials and even law enforcement officials talk to players about avoiding any connection to gambling.
"It's the single greatest threat to college sports and any university," Frederick said. "What a horrible thing it is to have happen to a university, because it completely destroys the institution's credibility."
Saum said part of the problem is how big college sports have become. College sports typically have either a football game or basketball game to bet on nearly every night, meaning there are plenty of options.
"There are two main factors to the success of gambling," Saum said. "One is a good economy. The other is having so many games to choose from on television."
Saum said even students without extra cash can gamble because 65 percent of undergraduate students have credit cards.
Legislative attempts to help
Saum has been part of a political effort to ban collegiate sports wagering.
He has worked with U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, who wants to ban all gambling on college sports. Brownback is a cosponsor of the Amateur Sports Integrity Act. ASIA, developed after a two-year study on the impact of legal gambling in the United States, is regarded by more than 1,000 U.S. universities, including Kansas, as a potential cure for the problem.
Brownback concedes that the plan is not a complete cure, but it is a start. However, NCAA's Saum and Frederick see the lobbying efforts of the American Gaming Association as a large obstacle because of the money it is willing to spend to save gambling on athletics.
"They're literally dumping millions of dollars in the laps of politicians to keep the bill from moving to the floor." Frederick said.
According to Time magazine, the gaming industry gave Congress more than $16 million in the form of contributions in the past six years.
Saum said the Senate had adjourned without acting on the bill this fall, meaning it will probably have to start over.
"We have many high-ups telling us that if this bill gets to the floor it will pass," Saum said. "That's
believe that. But with all the money being
not bravado. We really believe that. But
poured
i n t o
keeping it
from getting
there,
it's a battle."
"There's clearly a grow-
sense sense that this bill lacks the support its sponsors claimed," Fahrenkopf said. "As we have been saying all along, when people started focusing on the facts, they would recognize this bill for what it is: a cosmetic response to serious campus gambling problems. We're pleased that more members of Congress are now joining independent experts in disputing the NCAA's false assertions about sports
COLLEGES INVOLVED IN GAMBLING CASES SINCE 1992
Arizona State
Boston College
Bryant College
Central Florida
Northwestern University
Notre Dame
University of Maine
University of Rhode Island
ON THE NET
■ American Gaming Association:
www.americangaming.org/
■ NCAA: www.ncaa.org/gambling/
■ Gamblers Anonymous: www.gambler-
sanonymous.org/
■ Web page of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-
Kansas): www.senate.gov/~brown-
back/collegiate_gambling.html
■ Amateur Sports Integrity Act:
claer.org/issues/sportsact.htm
More information
Are you a compulsive gambler? Take a quiz to find out.
See www.kunsan.com
wagering in Nevada."
Frederick chaired the NCAA men's basketball selection committee in 1994 and was responsible for selecting and seeding the 64 teams that played in the annual postseason tournament that decides the national champion. Next to the Super Bowl, it is the year's top betting event, attracting more than $1 billion in wagers. When Frederick was chairman, the committee devised a plan to withhold credentials from any newspapers that ran betting lines for NCAA games showing favorites and point spreads.
The committee never implemented the plan.
Frederick said it would have been too much of a hassle because almost every major publication runs sporting odds, including the Lawrence Journal-World and Kansas City Star.
Saum said the plan also had legal problems. "I don't think we would have won that one in court," he said.
The betting lines on college games remain available in most newspapers, and Scott still said he checked them out. He even admitted that he placed an occasional bet with a friend for the sheer joy he experiences when he wins.
But he steers clear of the Internet because he said he is still tempted by the idea that he could quickly log on, place a bet and somehow win
back the money he lost.
Even when he conducts research for term papers he writes for the junior college classes he is taking,he goes to the library rather than uses a computer.
He can never forget that without traveling to Las Vegas and without leaving his own apartment, he sat in front of his computer, mouse in hand, and gambled away his college education.
— Edited by Shawn Hutchinson
— Edited by Shawn Hutchinson
— Designed by Amy Train
Watkins Memorial Health Center Break Hours
Friday
Sat, Sun, Mon
Tues-Friday
Sat, Sun, Mon
Tues-Tues
Wednesday
12/22/00
12/23-12/25
12/26-12/29
12/30-1/1
1/2-1/9
1/10/01
8:00am - 4:30pm
Closed
Closed
8:00am - 4:30pm
(785) 864-9500
8:00am - 4:30pm
Resume regular hours*
* Monday-Friday 8:00am - 8:00pm
Saturday 8:00am - 4:30pm
Sunday 12:30pm - 4:30pm
Flu shots now available on a walk-in basis
BOOK YOUR SPRING BREAK NOW!
Cancun From $539.00 (Mexico)
Montego Bay From $589.00 (Jamaica)
Negril From $609.00 (Jamaica)
All rates based on quad bedding
NO ADD-ONS!
Round Trip Airfare Airport / Hotel Transfers 7 nights Hotel Room Accommodations On Location Resort Staff Daily Parties Optional Meal Plan
Travel
3514 Clinton Parkway Lawrence 843-1600 1-800-234-1112