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Denver Postsuper bowl
One for the money
Friday, January 30, 2004 -
HOUSTON - You don't have to be a member of the New England Patriots or Carolina Panthers to become a part of Super Bowl XXXVIII on Sunday at Reliant Stadium. You don't have to hail from New England or the Carolinas, have a relative playing on either squad or profess an abiding passion for the teams.
You don't even have to be a football fan. The United States' second biggest day in food consumption (trailing only Thanksgiving) is the absolute zenith for the nation when it comes to gambling. According to the American Gaming Council, Americans wager approximately $5 billion to $6 billion each year on the final game of the National Football League season. Others estimate the number as being as much as four times that amount. The exact numbers are hard to find because, whatever the figure, according to experts, just 1 percent to 10 percent of it is bet legally in Nevada, the only state that allows gambling on professional sports. The rest stems, not from people trying to make a living at it, but rather, you and I, hoping to capture a little bit of the excitement, be it via an office pool or friendly wager at a Super Bowl party. "Maybe I was naive when I played, but now I can really see just how big all of this is," said Jamal Anderson, a former star running back with the Atlanta Falcons who played against the Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII. "It's just a huge, huge thing, a big-time thing." And nowadays, it's becoming even bigger as more and more people turn to the Internet, where the number of online betting services has exploded. Many of these firms are based in the Caribbean and Central America, where they avoid U.S. laws. According to a December 2003 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, Internet gambling operators have established 1,800 websites. These computer casinos will generate an estimated $5 billion in revenues this year. More than half of all bets come from U.S. customers. Those sites are beginning to supplant one of those mythical, shadowy figures in American society - the neighborhood bookie. "A lot of times you get better deals," said Pete Sheppard, who works as a gambling expert for radio station WEEI in Boston. "You can tinker with the line (the amount one team is favored to win by over another) for a smaller price. You can bet on how many times (CBS announcer) Greg Gumbel says a certain word or how many times (analyst) Phil Simms used the telestrator. "There are a lot of people who don't know what they're doing, they just want to be part of the action. And going online seems more legitimate than going down to a street corner or bar to see a bookie." Players can get caught in scheme
One wonders if Pete Rose would have been caught if he had a laptop at his disposal. The former Cincinnati Reds player, major-league baseball's all-time leader in hits, was banned from the game in 1989 after it was found he bet on baseball while the team's manager. Rose only admitted to his actions earlier this month. While three players have been suspended from the NFL for gambling - Paul Horning, Alex Karras and Art Schlichter - and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose lost his team after incurring about $50 million in debt, mainly at Atlantic City casinos, the league says there have been only two instances of game-fixing schemes involving players: one in 1946 and the other 25 years later, when, according to former Houston Oilers center Jerry Sturm, a former teammate offered him $10,000 to throw a game. Sturm, who now runs a restaurant in suburban Denver, told the Houston Chronicle he was only making $30,000 at the time, but still turned the former player in to the league. The difference between salaries then and now make it hard for players to believe a current member of the league would be involved in any sort of gambling. "It would really surprise me," Baltimore Ravens running back Jamal Lewis said. "I don't think anybody's that desperate or hungry for money. It's also kind of hard to do that. It's not basketball or baseball. It's too hard to skim points or anything like that." Strict policies in NFL
But that doesn't stop gamblers, the professional ilk, from trying to gain an edge. According to another former player, 17-year NFL quarterback Warren Moon, about 10 years ago was approached by someone seeking information. "He gave me an envelope full of money - $3,000 in $100 bills," Moon said. "Just for information. I never talked back to the guy - he gave me the envelope and said he'd call me later. I freaked out. I didn't know who was watching or what. I just said, 'Let me get rid of this.' I turned it in to our security people and they took it from there. I'm sure it's escalated more now." Anderson, who retired in 2001, said he "never realized the significance" when people would ask about injuries and point spreads. "I never really thought about what that was all about and what it led to," Anderson said. "Now I see why people would come up to me and go, 'Oh, you lost by six points.' I'd be saying, 'Well, what does it matter, we still lost.' And they'd say, 'No, you were only supposed to lose by four."' Calls to the NFL for comments on the league and gambling were not returned Thursday. One NFL spokesman, Greg Aiello, told the Chronicle, "We have very strict policies that separate our game from the influence of gambling." Fantasy teams form of gambling?
Koleman Strumpf, a University of North Carolina professor of economics, said he finds it strange that while it's common knowledge that there's a great deal of illegal gambling done in the country, hardly anyone, i.e. law enforcement officials, does anything about it. "I can't think of any other illegal activity that's so incredibly common and people are so incredibly blase about it," he said. The NFL conducts seminars and visits each team every season warning of the dangers of getting involved with gambling, but when it comes to the general public, Moon wonders if the league at least tacitly approves of all the wagering. "It's like fantasy football - that's just another form of gambling," Moon said. "When people wonder about who to play on their 'teams' they're really asking about the same sort of information. (The NFL) always told us to stay away from it, but now, because it is a money-maker, the NFL sponsors it - they have teams and shows committed to it. "It's amazing what they accept now. And all that information they give out, who is it really for? They're not fooling anybody. Why do you think there's so much information on injuries? It's for the sports books, it's for the oddsmakers. The public doesn't care, they just want to watch whoever shows up to play on Sunday afternoon." And, at least on Super Bowl Sunday, feel like they're really a part of the game. - Denver Post researcher Regina Avila contributed to this report.
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