Gambling on college sports Essay

I’ve been a sports fanatic since the day I was born. It didn’t matter if I was playing or watching or cheering, I just loved being around the game. I have always been very knowledgeable about it too, as I was well known and titled by extended family as â€Å"the stat man. † This of course referred to the often times erroneous and useless facts rattling around in my brain that I couldn’t help but show off. Needless to say, this topic means a lot to me, especially being a college football player myself. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to dig deeper into a topic that has lingered in our country for years. The issues that pertain to gambling on college athletics have a vast range of opinions that stem from the questions; should gambling on college athletics be legal? What are the effects it has on the college athletes? Some argue that it will be detrimental to the game and some argue it has little to no effect, however most land somewhere in the middle. A common justification against gambling brings up the numerous scandals of players taking illegal benefits or point shaving and in extreme cases these events leading to jail or death. This side also argues that it allows players to get mixed up with the wrong crowd and put themselves in danger. Arguments for gambling site the economic reach it has in our country and the illegality will shrink the economy as well as not protect the players any more. Many people on this side think it will not be stopped so if gambling on college sports is illegalized, then every form of it will be illegal causing more trouble. My goal is to reveal those opinions and create a more complex understanding from various viewpoints, and hopefully bring a small degree of clarification to others and myself. In the article, â€Å"Even at Columbia, Gambling And College Athletics Collide† found in the New York Times, Jack Curry and Adam Gershenson enlighten the readers about the gambling infractions that occurred in a Columbia University fraternity house. The authors begin by describing the situation and basic details of the gambling process. â€Å" (They) would accept bets on sporting events from dozens of other students and then phone in the wagers — typically from $40 to $200 each — to a gambling ring based in Queens and operated by people with links to organized crime† (Curry and Gershenson). They go on to unravel the situation further by stating that there were not only college athletes betting on the games, but even current and former players living in the house that was tirelessly on the phone collecting wagers. Curry and Gershenson then discuss the further investigations done by Columbia and the NCAA and the possible disciplinary action that the offenders can face. The authors then write about the numerous amounts of sports gambling incidents in the last decade and also how students and athletes looked upon the Columbia gambling scandal with lesser importance because of the lack of athletic excellence. â€Å" The presence of a gambling operation with connections to organized crime at a school whose football team is best known for a 44-game losing streak in the 1980’s seemed incongruous† (Curry and Gershenson). An athlete was also quoted saying, â€Å"It’s not like this is Arkansas or something. This is Columbia. † Curry and Gershenson conclude their article by including a nationwide 1996 survey of college Division one athletes that reveals 25 percent gambled on other college sports and four percent admitted to gambling on games they had played in. I believe this is an article with good overall quality, even though it was written about 14 years ago in 1998. The time period constraint may lead to questions of relevance to readers in 2012. However, I think if you take all the dates and years out of the article, the purpose is still fulfilled and relays the same messages. The intent of the article was to inform about the events of the Columbia gambling ring, the reaction around campus, and the nationwide relevance. The authors Jack Curry and Adam Gershenson, are fairly unknown writers as far as I am concerned but that doesn’t take away from the quality of the article because it was included in The New York Times, which only adds credibility. For this reason, there would be a nationwide audience because of the shear number of readers. Specifically, the audience would probably be more of the businessman or woman, who are the stereotypical readers of The New York Times. The exigence of this piece was the arrest of gambling ring participants at Columbia but also the fact that these types of gambling scandals had been becoming more and more common in that time period. This was a very eye-opening article for me to read and by far the longest and most in depth. Since it was written 14 years ago, it is a story that I was previously unaware of. It made me even more aware then I already was, of how long this problem has lingered in college sports. It mentioned, more then once, that there are bookies on every campus in America. This really made me think about how unbelievable the number of illegal bets being placed by college students and athletes must be. However, even though this article is depicting the illegal gambling as a bad thing, I think it unintentionally makes arguments for both sides of the issue. If gambling on college sports were acceptable, this would have been a legal act. Hypothetically if it were legal, it would cut down on crime like this, which is usually linked to people with other criminal activity going on. Disconnecting the link to other criminal activity would make it all around safer for bookies and bet placers and athletes, because frankly, I think that people will never stop gambling on sporting events. I had always just assumed that gambling on college sports should be illegal, but this article made me reconsider whether that would really be the smartest and safest resolution. In the article â€Å"NCAA threatens to move events out of New Jersey† from SportsIllustrated. com, the unnamed author introduces the proposed plan to legalize sports gambling in New Jersey as well as reaction from sports organizations nationwide. The writer kicks off the article by stating background information about New Jersey’s push to legalize sports wagering. The article then goes on to describe the reaction from sports organizations, and goes in depth on the quotes from NCAA officials as well as their threats to move all playoff games out of New Jersey. It is also mentioned that The NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB have â€Å"collectively sued to block New Jersey’s sports betting law from taking effect. † However, there is also information and quotes from parties that are for the sports betting law. Quotes from State senator Raymond Lesniak and Governor Chris Christie demonstrate their support for the new law. The article is concluded with talk of â€Å"several new gambling options New Jersey is seeking to offer† (â€Å"NCAA Threatens†). The author writes that these other options include in-state Internet gambling and the use of hand-held mobile gambling devices at the casinos as well as at horse tracks. I thought this article was fairly credible and factual as well. It did not have an author to add to credibility but being a Sports Illustrated article maintained its effectiveness. I believe this piece was intended to inform the audience of residents of New Jersey as well as pretty involved sports fans. People who would read Sports Illustrated would obviously just be in it for the sports because that is the only information it obtains. This also acts as a constraint. The article cannot reach as much of the population because not everyone is a sports fan. The event that triggered this response was the attempt to make sports gambling legal in the state of New Jersey. My understanding of gambling in college sports was drastically upgraded by reading this article. It was an informative piece, so there was very little, if any, bias in the writing. The inclusion of statistics and legality of the topic really helped me understand why the sports organizations are hoping that the law will not pass. The shear amounts of money changing hands can lead to a lot of trouble, however for the same reason, legalizing that money could really boost economic growth. These types of pros and cons exist on both sides, making it an even tougher issue to sort out. My next source comes from a script from the testimony of Danny Sheridan before the Senate Commerce Committee on April 26, 2001. The testimony was for a hearing for the Amateur Sports Integrity Act (S. 718), which would determine the legality of gambling on college athletics. The first part of the testimony consists of Sheridan validating why his testimony should be considered by sharing his credibility and involvement in athletics. â€Å"My name is Danny Sheridan, and I have been involved with sports and the sports? promotion business for more than 25 years. I have published college and pro football? magazines, written about sports in a variety of national publications, and have been the? host of a number of sports TV and radio shows† Sheridan proclaims. Sheridan goes on to explain how he is also a friend of many high profile athletes and he knows first hand the dangers that athletic gambling has on athletes. Sheridan also includes many statistics in his argument. â€Å"An estimated 40 million Americans currently wager $6 billion illegally every weekend during the entire 20-week college and pro football season alone† (Sheridan). The testimony is concluded by Sheridan stating that he appreciates the good intentions of trying to legalize gambling, but it would instead, result in negative effects. The rhetor, Danny Sheridan, is a very well known sports industrial component, which gives his testimony (and therefore my source) credibility. He presented this to the Senate Commerce Committee in hopes to persuade them to vote against legalization of gambling on sports. The fact that this is a testimony, instead of a highly publicized article restricts the extent his message. I found the script on his website, however it isn’t an often visited site by the common Internet user, so the audience is a big constraint for this text. I found this testimony to be a great source for this project. It was interesting to read a text that wasn’t just a traditional article. My understanding for the anti gambling side grew significantly, because it was so biased. The speaker does a great job making his argument come full circle. For that reason, I came away from reading it with a slight lean towards supporting keeping gambling on sports illegal. Another interesting aspect is that this testimony was given in 2001. My previous source, about the gambling law in New Jersey, is a current issue, and the arguments made by Sheridan could simply be restated now with the same effects. It is astounding to see how such little progress has been made through the years. In the article â€Å"Study Provides New Data on the Extent of Gambling by College Athletes†, from netfiles.edu, Welch Suggs dissects a study done to determine the facts about college athletes that gamble on sports. Suggs begins by introducing the parameters of the University of Michigan study that was released by the athletic department. â€Å"The study, based on a survey of 758 football and basketball players, found that 72 percent of college football and basketball players had bet money at least once since entering college† (Suggs). The author goes on to give further statistics that the survey revealed. Welch Suggs concludes the article with opposing viewpoint quotes from NCAA employee William Saum, and former NFL player Lynn Swann. Suggs’ last statement included next shifting attention to basketball referees to gain information about their gambling experiences. This was a questionable source to say the least. It had some solid content but the article opened as a PDF and my research failed to try and find the original homepage of the website. Likewise, the author was a mystery man as well. This text was very brief, but I believe the purpose was to inform about the findings of the survey revealed by the University of Michigan athletic department. However, the audience is hard to determine because of the unknown author and questionable website. If I were to pick an audience though, I would say it was intended for the adult college sports athlete because of the language and the inclusion of quotes from Lynn Swann. This text also has massive constraints, mainly for the same reasons as stated before. The website is random and in an odd format, therefore finding Suggs’ piece would be difficult to come across. The audience is extremely limited because of this, and the credibility suffers as well. Also, it did not include dates it the article, so the exigence of the piece suffers because the provoking event of the writing cannot be identified. The facts that are stated in this article hold strong relevance for this topic. It is more of an anti gambling article based on the information it presents, but it also gives a quote of the opposite viewpoint. Numbers don’t lie, and the numbers from the study are very eye opening and convincing. It makes me think about how much gambling affects the games we love, without us even knowing. Since all the surveys were anonymous, nothing will develop in terms of punishment or solutions to the problem. In this sense, the article does a great job persuading the reader. However, nowhere in the article did it give a date of the information or of when the article was written, so it is hard to put it in context and determine the importance. This, along with the briefness of the article, made it more difficult to shape my thinking about the topic. After analyzing the four sources included in this essay, I have yet to come to a concrete conclusion. I began researching the topic with the idea that gambling on college sports should be illegal and that all the effects of illegal gambling are bad. However, my research has muddied my view a little bit, which is actually a good thing because now I am informed more then I even have been. Being informed in such a way makes me understand how this predicament has been able to linger around in our society and in our legal system for so long. There seems to be no perfect solution and neither side of the argument wants to budge. I think both sides would agree that the illegal activity that surrounds gambling is a bad thing, but the argument remains; would legalizing sports gambling have a more positive effect on unlawful activity then keeping gambling illegal? The next step for me would simply be gaining more knowledge and weighing the pros and cons of each side and coming to decision of which side to take. Until then, ill be sitting on the fence of the topic, along with most of America. What Are the Effects of Legal vs. Illegal Gambling on College Sports? I’ve been a sports fanatic since the day I was born. It didn’t matter if I was playing or watching or cheering, I just loved being around the game. I have always been very knowledgeable about it too, as I was well known and titled by extended family as â€Å"the stat man. † This of course referred to the often times erroneous and useless facts rattling around in my brain that I couldn’t help but show off. Needless to say, this topic means a lot to me, especially being a college football player myself. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to dig deeper into a topic that has lingered in our country for years. The issues that pertain to gambling on college athletics have a vast range of opinions that stem from the questions; should gambling on college athletics be legal? What are the effects it has on the college athletes? Some argue that it will be detrimental to the game and some argue it has little to no effect, however most land somewhere in the middle. A common justification against gambling brings up the numerous scandals of players taking illegal benefits or point shaving and in extreme cases these events leading to jail or death. This side also argues that it allows players to get mixed up with the wrong crowd and put themselves in danger. Arguments for gambling site the economic reach it has in our country and the illegality will shrink the economy as well as not protect the players any more. Many people on this side think it will not be stopped so if gambling on college sports is illegalized, then every form of it will be illegal causing more trouble. My goal is to reveal those opinions and create a more complex understanding from various viewpoints, and hopefully bring a small degree of clarification to others and myself. In the article, â€Å"Even at Columbia, Gambling And College Athletics Collide† found in the New York Times, Jack Curry and Adam Gershenson enlighten the readers about the gambling infractions that occurred in a Columbia University fraternity house. The authors begin by describing the situation and basic details of the gambling process. â€Å" (They) would accept bets on sporting events from dozens of other students and then phone in the wagers — typically from $40 to $200 each — to a gambling ring based in Queens and operated by people with links to organized crime† (Curry and Gershenson). They go on to unravel the situation further by stating that there were not only college athletes betting on the games, but even current and former players living in the house that was tirelessly on the phone collecting wagers. Curry and Gershenson then discuss the further investigations done by Columbia and the NCAA and the possible disciplinary action that the offenders can face. The authors then write about the numerous amounts of sports gambling incidents in the last decade and also how students and athletes looked upon the Columbia gambling scandal with lesser importance because of the lack of athletic excellence. â€Å" The presence of a gambling operation with connections to organized crime at a school whose football team is best known for a 44-game losing streak in the 1980’s seemed incongruous† (Curry and Gershenson). An athlete was also quoted saying, â€Å"It’s not like this is Arkansas or something. This is Columbia. † Curry and Gershenson conclude their article by including a nationwide 1996 survey of college Division one athletes that reveals 25 percent gambled on other college sports and four percent admitted to gambling on games they had played in. I believe this is an article with good overall quality, even though it was written about 14 years ago in 1998. The time period constraint may lead to questions of relevance to readers in 2012. However, I think if you take all the dates and years out of the article, the purpose is still fulfilled and relays the same messages. The intent of the article was to inform about the events of the Columbia gambling ring, the reaction around campus, and the nationwide relevance. The authors Jack Curry and Adam Gershenson, are fairly unknown writers as far as I am concerned but that doesn’t take away from the quality of the article because it was included in The New York Times, which only adds credibility. For this reason, there would be a nationwide audience because of the shear number of readers. Specifically, the audience would probably be more of the businessman or woman, who are the stereotypical readers of The New York Times. The exigence of this piece was the arrest of gambling ring participants at Columbia but also the fact that these types of gambling scandals had been becoming more and more common in that time period. This was a very eye-opening article for me to read and by far the longest and most in depth. Since it was written 14 years ago, it is a story that I was previously unaware of. It made me even more aware then I already was, of how long this problem has lingered in college sports. It mentioned, more then once, that there are bookies on every campus in America. This really made me think about how unbelievable the number of illegal bets being placed by college students and athletes must be. However, even though this article is depicting the illegal gambling as a bad thing, I think it unintentionally makes arguments for both sides of the issue. If gambling on college sports were acceptable, this would have been a legal act. Hypothetically if it were legal, it would cut down on crime like this, which is usually linked to people with other criminal activity going on. Disconnecting the link to other criminal activity would make it all around safer for bookies and bet placers and athletes, because frankly, I think that people will never stop gambling on sporting events. I had always just assumed that gambling on college sports should be illegal, but this article made me reconsider whether that would really be the smartest and safest resolution. In the article â€Å"NCAA threatens to move events out of New Jersey† from SportsIllustrated. com, the unnamed author introduces the proposed plan to legalize sports gambling in New Jersey as well as reaction from sports organizations nationwide. The writer kicks off the article by stating background information about New Jersey’s push to legalize sports wagering. The article then goes on to describe the reaction from sports organizations, and goes in depth on the quotes from NCAA officials as well as their threats to move all playoff games out of New Jersey. It is also mentioned that The NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB have â€Å"collectively sued to block New Jersey’s sports betting law from taking effect. † However, there is also information and quotes from parties that are for the sports betting law. Quotes from State senator Raymond Lesniak and Governor Chris Christie demonstrate their support for the new law. The article is concluded with talk of â€Å"several new gambling options New Jersey is seeking to offer† (â€Å"NCAA Threatens†). The author writes that these other options include in-state Internet gambling and the use of hand-held mobile gambling devices at the casinos as well as at horse tracks. I thought this article was fairly credible and factual as well. It did not have an author to add to credibility but being a Sports Illustrated article maintained its effectiveness. I believe this piece was intended to inform the audience of residents of New Jersey as well as pretty involved sports fans. People who would read Sports Illustrated would obviously just be in it for the sports because that is the only information it obtains. This also acts as a constraint. The article cannot reach as much of the population because not everyone is a sports fan. The event that triggered this response was the attempt to make sports gambling legal in the state of New Jersey. My understanding of gambling in college sports was drastically upgraded by reading this article. It was an informative piece, so there was very little, if any, bias in the writing. The inclusion of statistics and legality of the topic really helped me understand why the sports organizations are hoping that the law will not pass. The shear amounts of money changing hands can lead to a lot of trouble, however for the same reason, legalizing that money could really boost economic growth. These types of pros and cons exist on both sides, making it an even tougher issue to sort out. My next source comes from a script from the testimony of Danny Sheridan before the Senate Commerce Committee on April 26, 2001. The testimony was for a hearing for the Amateur Sports Integrity Act (S. 718), which would determine the legality of gambling on college athletics. The first part of the testimony consists of Sheridan validating why his testimony should be considered by sharing his credibility and involvement in athletics. â€Å"My name is Danny Sheridan, and I have been involved with sports and the sports? promotion business for more than 25 years. I have published college and pro football? magazines, written about sports in a variety of national publications, and have been the?host of a number of sports TV and radio shows† Sheridan proclaims. Sheridan goes on to explain how he is also a friend of many high profile athletes and he knows first hand the dangers that athletic gambling has on athletes. Sheridan also includes many statistics in his argument. â€Å"An estimated 40 million Americans currently wager $6 billion illegally every weekend during the entire 20-week college and pro football season alone† (Sheridan). The testimony is concluded by Sheridan stating that he appreciates the good intentions of trying to legalize gambling, but it would instead, result in negative effects. The rhetor, Danny Sheridan, is a very well known sports industrial component, which gives his testimony (and therefore my source) credibility. He presented this to the Senate Commerce Committee in hopes to persuade them to vote against legalization of gambling on sports. The fact that this is a testimony, instead of a highly publicized article restricts the extent his message. I found the script on his website, however it isn’t an often visited site by the common Internet user, so the audience is a big constraint for this text. I found this testimony to be a great source for this project. It was interesting to read a text that wasn’t just a traditional article. My understanding for the anti gambling side grew significantly, because it was so biased. The speaker does a great job making his argument come full circle. For that reason, I came away from reading it with a slight lean towards supporting keeping gambling on sports illegal. Another interesting aspect is that this testimony was given in 2001. My previous source, about the gambling law in New Jersey, is a current issue, and the arguments made by Sheridan could simply be restated now with the same effects. It is astounding to see how such little progress has been made through the years. In the article â€Å"Study Provides New Data on the Extent of Gambling by College Athletes†, from netfiles. edu, Welch Suggs dissects a study done to determine the facts about college athletes that gamble on sports. Suggs begins by introducing the parameters of the University of Michigan study that was released by the athletic department. â€Å"The study, based on a survey of 758 football and basketball players, found that 72 percent of college football and basketball players had bet money at least once since entering college† (Suggs). The author goes on to give further statistics that the survey revealed. Welch Suggs concludes the article with opposing viewpoint quotes from NCAA employee William Saum, and former NFL player Lynn Swann. Suggs’ last statement included next shifting attention to basketball referees to gain information about their gambling experiences. This was a questionable source to say the least. It had some solid content but the article opened as a PDF and my research failed to try and find the original homepage of the website. Likewise, the author was a mystery man as well. This text was very brief, but I believe the purpose was to inform about the findings of the survey revealed by the University of Michigan athletic department. However, the audience is hard to determine because of the unknown author and questionable website. If I were to pick an audience though, I would say it was intended for the adult college sports athlete because of the language and the inclusion of quotes from Lynn Swann. This text also has massive constraints, mainly for the same reasons as stated before. The website is random and in an odd format, therefore finding Suggs’ piece would be difficult to come across. The audience is extremely limited because of this, and the credibility suffers as well. Also, it did not include dates it the article, so the exigence of the piece suffers because the provoking event of the writing cannot be identified. The facts that are stated in this article hold strong relevance for this topic. It is more of an anti gambling article based on the information it presents, but it also gives a quote of the opposite viewpoint. Numbers don’t lie, and the numbers from the study are very eye opening and convincing. It makes me think about how much gambling affects the games we love, without us even knowing. Since all the surveys were anonymous, nothing will develop in terms of punishment or solutions to the problem. In this sense, the article does a great job persuading the reader. However, nowhere in the article did it give a date of the information or of when the article was written, so it is hard to put it in context and determine the importance. This, along with the briefness of the article, made it more difficult to shape my thinking about the topic. After analyzing the four sources included in this essay, I have yet to come to a concrete conclusion. I began researching the topic with the idea that gambling on college sports should be illegal and that all the effects of illegal gambling are bad. However, my research has muddied my view a little bit, which is actually a good thing because now I am informed more then I even have been. Being informed in such a way makes me understand how this predicament has been able to linger around in our society and in our legal system for so long. There seems to be no perfect solution and neither side of the argument wants to budge. I think both sides would agree that the illegal activity that surrounds gambling is a bad thing, but the argument remains; would legalizing sports gambling have a more positive effect on unlawful activity then keeping gambling illegal? The next step for me would simply be gaining more knowledge and weighing the pros and cons of each side and coming to decision of which side to take. Until then, ill be sitting on the fence of the topic, along with most of America. What Are the Effects of Legal vs. Illegal Gambling on College Sports? I’ve been a sports fanatic since the day I was born. It didn’t matter if I was playing or watching or cheering, I just loved being around the game. I have always been very knowledgeable about it too, as I was well known and titled by extended family as â€Å"the stat man. † This of course referred to the often times erroneous and useless facts rattling around in my brain that I couldn’t help but show off. Needless to say, this topic means a lot to me, especially being a college football player myself. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to dig deeper into a topic that has lingered in our country for years. The issues that pertain to gambling on college athletics have a vast range of opinions that stem from the questions; should gambling on college athletics be legal? What are the effects it has on the college athletes? Some argue that it will be detrimental to the game and some argue it has little to no effect, however most land somewhere in the middle. A common justification against gambling brings up the numerous scandals of players taking illegal benefits or point shaving and in extreme cases these events leading to jail or death. This side also argues that it allows players to get mixed up with the wrong crowd and put themselves in danger. Arguments for gambling site the economic reach it has in our country and the illegality will shrink the economy as well as not protect the players any more. Many people on this side think it will not be stopped so if gambling on college sports is illegalized, then every form of it will be illegal causing more trouble. My goal is to reveal those opinions and create a more complex understanding from various viewpoints, and hopefully bring a small degree of clarification to others and myself. In the article, â€Å"Even at Columbia, Gambling And College Athletics Collide† found in the New York Times, Jack Curry and Adam Gershenson enlighten the readers about the gambling infractions that occurred in a Columbia University fraternity house. The authors begin by describing the situation and basic details of the gambling process. â€Å" (They) would accept bets on sporting events from dozens of other students and then phone in the wagers — typically from $40 to $200 each — to a gambling ring based in Queens and operated by people with links to organized crime† (Curry and Gershenson). They go on to unravel the situation further by stating that there were not only college athletes betting on the games, but even current and former players living in the house that was tirelessly on the phone collecting wagers. Curry and Gershenson then discuss the further investigations done by Columbia and the NCAA and the possible disciplinary action that the offenders can face. The authors then write about the numerous amounts of sports gambling incidents in the last deca.