Vegas sneers at NBA
Jul. 24, 2007 12:00 AM
To appreciate how dangerous it is to the National Basketball Association that a referee may have bet on games in which he officiated, look no further than Las Vegas.
"We're one of the most highly regulated industries in America, and we live and die on our integrity," said Alan Feldman of the MGM Mirage Hotel and Casino. "We can do nothing to put that in jeopardy. If it turns out that the (NBA) is shown to be incapable of protecting the integrity of their game, it's not a league we need to have in Las Vegas."
Once upon a time the domain of mobsters, Las Vegas now views itself as the world's benchmark for honest vice. In a nation that has witnessed the near doubling of legal gambling in just 10 years - to $83.7 billion in 2005, according to the American Gaming Association - no one better appreciates the value of an honest game than the folks running Vegas casinos.
And, to them, the NBA now is radioactive. Considering how long and desperately Las Vegas has craved a major professional sports franchise, those must be unnerving words indeed for NBA commissioner David Stern.
The NBA is facing a genuinely horrific scandal. A referee stands accused of betting on games, including possibly games in which he officiated, possibly playoff games and, of particular note to Arizona fans of the NBA, possibly a playoff game that the Suns lost to the San Antonio Spurs.
Yes, Mr. Stern. Las Vegas is looking down on you. Your game, your league, is not clean enough for Sin City. You've got problems.
It may not hurt, then, to take a lesson regarding integrity from your betters, which is not to say "bettors."
What Feldman describes as "integrity" also may be defined as transparency. The degree to which the Nevada gambling industry submits to open scrutiny of its various games is indisputably intense.
We know about how Las Vegas games work, who works them and what the industry's revenues are. Essentially, American casinos are treated no different than banks by the federal government. The 1985 Bank Secrecy Act, for just one example, requires casinos to report every deposit, every withdrawal, every exchange of currency, gambling tokens or chips of a value in excess of $10,000. The Nevada Gaming Commission has more than 400 employees. Oversight in Las Vegas is its own growth industry.
In its treatment of this ongoing scandal, the NBA would do well to view the long-term benefits of transparency similarly. Every detail of the investigation of this reported crime, to say nothing of its aftermath, should be under a public microscope.
In the course of the countless pro-sports scandals during the years - including, but not limited to, betting scandals - a driving force behind industry reform has been the fear team owners have for the prospect of government intervention. Leagues, such as Stern's NBA, do not want the feds dictating how they run their operations.
Stern's actions in the coming weeks may well tell us whether his league might benefit from more forced oversight from the feds. It seems to have done well by Las Vegas, after all.
The NBA has a serious problem facing it. And, frankly, it shouldn't expect much sympathy from a community whose team lost a playoff game that we now have reason to suspect could have been rigged.
Jul. 24, 2007 12:00 AM
To appreciate how dangerous it is to the National Basketball Association that a referee may have bet on games in which he officiated, look no further than Las Vegas.
"We're one of the most highly regulated industries in America, and we live and die on our integrity," said Alan Feldman of the MGM Mirage Hotel and Casino. "We can do nothing to put that in jeopardy. If it turns out that the (NBA) is shown to be incapable of protecting the integrity of their game, it's not a league we need to have in Las Vegas."
Once upon a time the domain of mobsters, Las Vegas now views itself as the world's benchmark for honest vice. In a nation that has witnessed the near doubling of legal gambling in just 10 years - to $83.7 billion in 2005, according to the American Gaming Association - no one better appreciates the value of an honest game than the folks running Vegas casinos.
And, to them, the NBA now is radioactive. Considering how long and desperately Las Vegas has craved a major professional sports franchise, those must be unnerving words indeed for NBA commissioner David Stern.
The NBA is facing a genuinely horrific scandal. A referee stands accused of betting on games, including possibly games in which he officiated, possibly playoff games and, of particular note to Arizona fans of the NBA, possibly a playoff game that the Suns lost to the San Antonio Spurs.
Yes, Mr. Stern. Las Vegas is looking down on you. Your game, your league, is not clean enough for Sin City. You've got problems.
It may not hurt, then, to take a lesson regarding integrity from your betters, which is not to say "bettors."
What Feldman describes as "integrity" also may be defined as transparency. The degree to which the Nevada gambling industry submits to open scrutiny of its various games is indisputably intense.
We know about how Las Vegas games work, who works them and what the industry's revenues are. Essentially, American casinos are treated no different than banks by the federal government. The 1985 Bank Secrecy Act, for just one example, requires casinos to report every deposit, every withdrawal, every exchange of currency, gambling tokens or chips of a value in excess of $10,000. The Nevada Gaming Commission has more than 400 employees. Oversight in Las Vegas is its own growth industry.
In its treatment of this ongoing scandal, the NBA would do well to view the long-term benefits of transparency similarly. Every detail of the investigation of this reported crime, to say nothing of its aftermath, should be under a public microscope.
In the course of the countless pro-sports scandals during the years - including, but not limited to, betting scandals - a driving force behind industry reform has been the fear team owners have for the prospect of government intervention. Leagues, such as Stern's NBA, do not want the feds dictating how they run their operations.
Stern's actions in the coming weeks may well tell us whether his league might benefit from more forced oversight from the feds. It seems to have done well by Las Vegas, after all.
The NBA has a serious problem facing it. And, frankly, it shouldn't expect much sympathy from a community whose team lost a playoff game that we now have reason to suspect could have been rigged.
