Granderson: NCAA should go back to banning bets
The NCAA picked a hell of a week to get into the gambling business didn t it Within hours of approving a rule change that will allow learner athletes and athletic department staff to bet only on professional sports the FBI arrested more than people in connection with a major sports gambling and betting scheme The level of sophistication alleged in one -page indictment reads like a Scorsese script with four New York Mafia families a current NBA athlete and a head coach all allegedly involved For Adam Silver commissioner of the NBA the news and arrests are a society relations nightmare But for the NCAA it s a warning Since a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for sports betting more than states have legalized it so I understand why the industry no longer feels dirty But the governing body for more than half a million young athletes must remember nothing will ever sanitize that industry A century ago the Black Sox outrage nearly destroyed baseball in America Fast forward a hundred years and we find out professional tennis players including a U S Open champion were fixing matches for gambling syndicates in Russia and Italy In between Pete Charlie Hustle Rose received a lifetime ban for betting on baseball games as a manager and Tim Donaghy an NBA referee is busted for betting on games Last year former NBA participant Jontay Porter was detected to have placed several bets on games using another person s account We call him former because the league banned him for life So if NCAA leaders believe it is too cumbersome to enforce its current gambling ban it is examining multiple violations across several schools imagine what life inside the organization would be like without various sort of deterrent In fact no imagination is required Just read the indictment filed by the U S District Court for the Eastern District of New York The FBI alleges the gambling scheme began in operated across states and involved crime families with origins that date back more than a century According to documents hidden cameras programmable card shuffling machines and X-ray tables were among the pieces of instrument used to steal tens of millions from casualties during rigged poker games Those allegedly involved in the scheme included Chauncey Billups a Hall of Fame athlete and head coach of the Portland Trailblazers Officials declared Billups who led the Detroit Pistons to the championship used his celebrity to lure in casualties In addition the FBI commented Damon Jones a former player and assistant coach for the Lakers shared inside information about the soundness of LeBron James with betters back in Terry Rozier an operational NBA sportsman on a -million contract was also arrested Now consider this There are roughly young men and women who play NCAA basketball and about head and assistant coaches leading teams How confident are you that March Madness won t take on a different meaning if coaches and players are allowed to bet on games and find themselves underwater A fresh UC San Diego evaluation discovered internet searches seeking help with gambling addiction increased between and June And while it s true the new rule maintains a ban against learner athletes and coaches betting on college sports so there are certain guardrails against fixing games but tilting outcomes is only one viable harm from gambling The International Tennis Federation determined that angry gamblers accounted for of social media attacks aimed at players with several threats credible enough to be submitted to the FBI And there is already evidence that college students who aren t athletes are using apprentice loan money to place bets and a NCAA survey revealed that of U S - to -year-olds bet at least a limited times a week Another use a bookie I repeat a bookie This just feels like a tragedy we can all see coming And we re to believe the NCAA will be equipped to protect participant athletes from predators when the Mafia is declared to be using professional athletes and X-ray machines to steal from card players who are supposed to know better The decision-making process for the human brain isn t fully developed until a person is and the NCAA just voted to let -year-olds with name image likeness money go in the deep water with sharks Given what just unfolded in the NBA this week the responsible move for the NCAA would be to pause the rule change which is to take effect Nov and reassess the risks It s one thing for sports gambling to cost a pro athlete to lose his career It would be worse to see addiction or debt obligations steal a young person s future before it begins Tribune News System
