Why states shouldn't cash in on Super Bowl odds

A federal court case against a New Jersey law allowing sports gambling shows why betting on sports will only damage athletic competition – as well as bettors.

|
AP Photo
Arnie Wexler, former head of New Jersey's Council on Compulsive Gambling, signs certificates last year for employees of Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, who completed a training program he runs on compulsive gambling.

By the half-time show of the 2013 Super Bowl game between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, Americans will have gambled an estimated $10 billion on various aspects of the sports spectacle – from picking the winner to whether Alicia Keys will flub the words of the national anthem.

New Jersey would like a cut of that $10 billion and more of the money now regularly wagered privately on sporting events. Last year, the state approved a new law to start doing just that.

But on Feb. 1, the Obama administration filed a court brief to block the state action. And on Feb. 14, a federal judge will hear arguments on whether New Jersey – along with other states eager to follow its example – can be allowed to ignore a 1992 federal law against sports betting.

The judge in the case, Michael A. Shipp, has already agreed with four major professional sports leagues as well as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, that the integrity of athletic competition might be harmed if states can expand sports betting by making it legal. (The leagues are the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League.)

The brief by the US Justice Department rests mainly on the constitutionality of the 1992 federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA. But it also upholds the intent of Congress to protect sports from the type of game fixing and other corruption seen in other countries where sports betting is legal.

“Congress is not limited to addressing purely economic matters – it also may seek to remedy social or moral concerns that substantially effect interstate commerce,” said the brief.

The court case could not come at a better time. A national poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University finds a rapid rise in the public acceptance of legalized sports betting, from 39 percent two years ago to 51 percent last year. One-third of registered voters – as well as a majority of women – are against it.

New Jersey’s case might seem strong to Americans who now gamble on sports. But consider this: The new law prevents gambling on all collegiate sporting events within the Garden State. What’s bad for New Jersey and its school teams ought to be bad for the country and all its sports teams.

A third of National Basketball Association fans, for example, already think game fixing is a problem. About a fifth of “March Madness” fansagree. This perception would only grow if sports wagering were legal. The big sports leagues also found in surveys that fans would attend fewer games if sports gambling were legal.

Also consider this: Las Vegas, one of the nation’s larger metropolitan areas, has no major-league franchise because the leagues don’t want their sports tainted by the betting now allowed within the state. (PASPA made an allowance for Nevada.)

New Jersey has another problem, one that might not come up in court. About 350,000 people in the state are compulsive gamblers, with many of them young people hooked on Internet betting and about 6 to 10 percent of these addicts losing money on sports wagers.

Why add to this social and financial problem that ruins so many lives? And why should states like New Jersey seek revenue from an activity that only feeds into the addiction of an estimated 3 percent of the population?

But even for nonaddicts, the “fun” of betting on the Super Bowl – the largest sporting event of the year – only adds to a perception that “luck” drives one’s life.

What a contrast to the thinking of athletes who know that such qualities as hard work, talent, and teamwork are the real predictors of who wins in sports.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why states shouldn't cash in on Super Bowl odds
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2013/0202/Why-states-shouldn-t-cash-in-on-Super-Bowl-odds
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe