College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling Away Our Youth

Volume 8 Issue 2 Article 1 2002 College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling Away Our Youth John Warren Kindt Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/mslj Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Gaming Law Commons Recommended Citation John W. Kindt, College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling Away Our Youth, 8 Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports L.J. 221 (2002). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/mslj/vol8/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal by an authorized editor of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. Kindt: College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling Away Our Youth Articles COLLEGE AND AMATEUR SPORTS GAMBLING: GAMBLING AWAY OUR YOUTH?* JOHN WARREN KINDT** I. & THOMAS AsmR*** INTRODUCTION In 1998, United States Senator Bill Bradley, a former NBA great, exemplified the prevailing Congressional sentiment regarding sports betting: I am not prepared to risk the values that sports instill in youth just to add a few more dollars to state coffers .... State-sanctioned sports betting conveys the message that sports are more about money than personal achievement and sportsmanship .... [S]ports betting threatens the integrity of and public confidence in professional and amateur team sports, converting sports from wholesome athletic entertainment into a vehicle for gambling .... [S]ports gambling raises people's suspicions about pointshaving and game-fixing. 1 The socio-economic costs of organized gambling include, but are not limited to, new gambling addictions, bankruptcies, crime and corruption. These costs outweigh any benefits of legalized gambling. Historically, the consequences of legalized betting on college and amateur sports were that it: "threatens the integrity of sports, . . . puts student athletes in a vulnerable position ... [serves] as gateway behavior for adolescent gamblers, and [it can * Due to the rapidly developing issues, it was necessary to utilize current periodicals. The editors attempted to delete the publications that were overly influenced by the gambling industry. Steve Forsythe provided valuable assistance editing and cite-checking this analysis. ** Professor, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana; B.A., William & Mary; J.D., MBA, University of Georgia; LL.M., SJD, University of Virginia. ***McDermott, Will & Emery; B.S., J.D., University of Illinois at ChampaignUrbana. 1. NAT'L GAMBLING IMPACT STUDY COMMISSION, FINAL REPORT, at 3-8 to 3-9 (1999) [hereinafter NGISC FINAL REPORT] (Statement of U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley). Senator Bradley's statement was submitted with the testimony of Nancy Price to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission in Las Vegas, Nev., Nov. 10, 1998. (221) Published by Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository, 2002 1 222 Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, Vol. 8, Iss. 2 [2002], Art. 1 & ENT. LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 8: p. 221 VILLANOVA SPORTS devastate] individuals and careers." 2 Furthermore, the American Academy of Pediatrics estimated that the "first gambling" experience for over one million pathological teenage gamblers involved sports. 3 Much of the American public during the 1990s was unaware that sports gambling was still illegal because point spreads of games were published in the media. 4 Additionally, United States Senators Sam Brownback and Patrick Leahy noted that "[t]here have been more point-shaving scandals on our colleges and universities in the 1990s than in every other decade before it combined, ...[and these] scandals are a direct result of an increase in legal 5 gambling on college sports." At the end of the Twentieth Century, sports gambling was illegal in every state except Nevada, where wagers could be placed through casino sports books, and Oregon, where wagers could be made through a state lottery game based on the National Football League. The state of the law on gambling in college and amateur sports sent a mixed signal to the public because only one state, Nevada, permitted such gambling, while the other states did not. As a result, governmental decision-makers recognized that gambling on college and amateur sporting events should be made illegal in all states, rather than being legal in only one state. This present analysis utilizes the meta-language model of the McDougal/Lasswell methodology of policy-oriented jurisprudence and confirms this conclusion. 6 2. Id. at 3-10. 3. "Dear Colleague" Letter from United States Senators Sam Brownback and Patrick Leahy, to members of the United States Senate (Jan. 18, 2000) [hereinafter Letter of Senators Brownback & Leahy]; see also Gamblingon College Sports, Before the U.S. Senate Com. Comm., 106th Cong. 5 (2000) (testimony of Dr. Charles T. Wethington Jr., President of University of Kentucky and Chair of National Collegiate Athletic Association Executive Committee) [hereinafter Wethington Testimony]. 4. See NGISC FINAL REPORT, supra note 1, at 3-10. 5. Letter of Senators Brownback & Leahy, supra note 3. 6. This particular analysis is summary in scope, but it was conceived within the penumbra of the McDougal/Lasswell model for decision-making. In the areas of legal and government policy, which subsume strategic socio-economic and business concerns, the classic decision-making models were formulated by the post legal realists, in particular, Professor Myres McDougal and Professor Harold Lasswell who postulated a conceptual framework for legal decision-making in a landmark article directed toward legal educators and law professors. See Harold D. Lasswell & Myres S. McDougal, Legal Education and Public Policy ProfessionalTraining in the Public Interest, 52 YALE L.J. 204 (1943); see alsoJohn W. Kindt, An Analysis of Legal Education and Business Education Within The Context Of A JD./MBA Programme, 31J. LEGAL EDUC. 512, 517-18 (1981);John W. Kindt, An Analysis Of LegalEducation and Business Education Within The Context Of A J.D./MBA Programme,13 L. TEACHER 12, 14-16 (1979); Harold D. Lasswell & Myres S. McDougal, Criteriafor a Theoy about Law, 44 S. CALIF. L. REv. 362 (1971); Myres S. McDougal, Jurisprudence for a FreeSociety, 1 GA. L. REv. 1 (1966). The decision-making concepts which McDougal https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/mslj/vol8/iss2/1 2 Kindt: College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling Away Our Youth 2002] COLLEGE AND AMATEUR SPORTS GAMBLING II. DELIMITATION OF PROBLEMS A. The ABCs of Legalized Gambling: Addictions, Bankruptcies, Crime and Corruption A poll conducted in 1974 reported that 61% of the American population participated in gambling, while a Gallup poll conducted in 1989 reported that the figure had grown to 81% and that 31% of adults gambled weekly. 7 Henry Lesieur, one of the leading Ameri (...truncated)