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The federal indictments against 26 former and current college basketball players and a
former NBA player announced this week alleging a widespread point-shaving operation is yet
another “told you so” moment in sports betting. And unfortunately, there’s more of that to come.
I should know.
For over 40 years I built and ran sports books in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace, the Las Vegas
Hilton, Station Casinos and more. And as a longtime industry leader, my position was and
remains straightforward and consistent – there must be a clear separation between participation
in sports and gambling on sports. The sports leagues and NCAA used to agree.
Before 2018, Nevada was the only state in the U.S. to bet on sports and we did a commendable
job monitoring suspicious wagering activity and unusual point spread movement. For instance,
we saw big bets coming in against then-coach Bill Frieder’s Arizona State men’s basketball team
in 1994 and alerted the authorities. Frieder wasn’t involved, but several of his players were — along
with some Chicago mobsters.
There were also a couple of instances where we missed it, such as in 2007 when veteran referee
Tim Donaghy was charged with betting on NBA games and giving information to gamblers. I
was the NBA’s gambling consultant at the time, and a few years earlier I had told former commissioner David Stern to keep an eye on the referees. If anyone could effect the outcome of a game, it was the refs.
The NBA always maintained that Donaghy never fixed any games, but a consultant the league hired to look into his betting patterns determined Donaghy did in fact fix at least two dozen games, and probably more. (That report was never released).
But those instances were very few and far between, until 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down PASPA, the 1992 law that prohibited sports betting in every state but Nevada. Now,
all bets are off when it comes to the ability to monitor gambling activity nationwide.
Congress and state legislatures must act now.
First and foremost, I agree with NCAA President Charles Baker Jr’s comments on Thursday in
which he said state gaming regulators should prohibit individual performance proposition
wagering, or “prop bets,” in college athletics.
In addition, they should also require licensed sports integrity monitoring services in their state, and must also focus on curtailing underage gambling, including classifying daily cash fantasy contests and parlays as sports gambling — which would require licensing and and regulatory oversight.
Congress should repeal the outdated Wire Act, a 1961 federal law that prohibits the interstate transmission of wagering information. Enacted before the proliferation of laptops and mobile phones, it is ridiculously outdated.
It should also allocate all federal excise wagering tax revenues (0.25% of wagering handle), towards the protection of the leagues and NCAA, and gambling public. This should include integrity monitoring, and underage and problem gambling prevention and treatment.
The sooner common sense solutions are enacted, the sooner our American institutions of sports
and sports betting will be protected. We have a long way to go.
Art Manteris is a retired Las Vegas sports gaming executive and former NBA security consultant. His book, ‘The Bookie,’ was published Jan. 13 by Dey Street Books.