Gambling and Its Effect on Professional and College Sports - Case Study Example

Running head: Gambling and its effect on professional and college sports Paper Teacher Introduction Sports have been an accompaniment of human as well as animal society. Games and other physical activities are actually sources of refreshment as well exercise for a tired body and mind. Indulging in any sport promotes overall health and keeps the physiological and psychological balance in a regularized state. The superior intelligence and comprehension abilities of man and the tendency to seek new sports adventures is a well recognized phenomenon. Over the years various social and cultural influences have given rise to different ways of leading life and the channelizing of sports into mega events which are now a major source of recreation as well as entertainment. However, humans are a unique and the only species on earth which is conscious as well as concerned about the future and their superior brain allows them to be predictive and speculative in nature. This extra ability allows humans to indulge in fantasy and speculation which is reflected in the phenomenon of gambling which has developed into an art over the years. In face of the stiff competition everybody tries to stay ahead of the other and subtle methods and means are employed to get an edge in one’ favor. Gambling is also an evil which has developed over the course of time and has assumed such proportions that it is legalized in some parts of the world. Everybody tries to chance their luck in order to get short term immediate monetary gains and thereby obtain temporary succor from the travails of life. Sports are an essential component of education and are incorporated into the course curriculum in order to eliminate the monotony of student life. People even opt for adopting sports as a career as it is a highly paying profession if one is capable of reaching the pinnacle in any of the sports disciplines. Collective efforts at the state and the national level are made to support their representative teams in various tournaments across the nation as well on the international platforms. The general public usually builds up euphoria and attachment with the local or the national team and this sometimes transforms into downright craze. This allows for the elements of wagering and bets in or against a particular team to develop. In fact the phenomenon has assumed the mantle of a business itself in the present era of online connectivity and rapid communication. The US Scenario In the United States sports wagering has assumed serious proportions and it has taken the form of a highly organized industry with statistics showing that almost 85% of the population indulges in gambling in one form or the other and a major component is sports betting (Udovicic, 1998). Although sports gambling and bookmaking are considered illegal in the major states of the United States, still gambling in general is legal in 48 states as well as in Washington D.C. Sports gambling is legal only in the two states of Nevada and Oregon where casino sports books and a state sponsored sports lottery are in operation respectively (Udovicic, 1998). The extensive spread of internet has allowed such operations to spread far and wide. In colleges and other institutions students indulge in wagering and sports betting surreptitiously and the money involved and earned in such operations is not accounted for while paying the taxes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NACC) is very clear cut in its attitude towards gambling for sports within students and opposes any form of sports wagering, whether legal or illegal as it undermines the integrity of sports contests and the careers of budding athletes are jeopardized at the very outset. The very purpose of sports stands defeated and healthy competition suffers. The motivation for sports is devalued when money is involved in any way and it may change the course of a game. Sometimes it also results in match fixing and predetermined results which favor somebody’s wager or bet and the athletes or sportspersons are paid to play below their actual potential. Underperformance results in unfair results and the very purpose of sports stands defeated. At the institutional level, various universities and schools have well defined rules and laws to discourage such practices amongst sportspersons and non observance of rules can result in severe penalties which can jeopardize a sports career. The NCAA conducted a study at the national level and the results showed that in 2004 there is an element more preponderance of gambling activities in male students (35%) as compared to females (10%) (www.princeton.edu). The study also admitted that Division III student-athletes were the most likely to gamble and the rate decreased at the lower level with Division I students being the least prone to this malady. Gambling prevention programs of NCAA include information and awareness campaigns in campuses with the use of multimedia, educational and professional development seminars for administrators, faculty and coaches, community developmental activities and institutional change strategies (www.princeton.edu). Special focus should be given to the development and implementation of public and social strategies to define the gambling policy at a particular institution, intervention strategies to handle high risk and prone student athletes, development of ‘Gambling Action Teams’ at the campus, providing consultation services to student bodies on gambling and debt management and ensuring full compliance with the existing local/state/federal laws and NCAA legislation (www.princeton.edu). In February, 2006, The University of Alabama (UA) sponsored a gambling symposium which addressed the issue of sports gambling at the collegiate level (www.ua.edu). Three sessions were held which addressed the athletic department, faculty and other staff as well as the students in order to enlighten everybody about the legal and moral aspects associated with sports gambling. In fact, one of the key speakers was Thomas French, who had initiated the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Sports Awareness Program for Professional and Collegiate Sports in 1993. This shows that the appropriate authorities at the highest level had taken up and built appropriate strategies to address such issues since they assumed alarming proportions. The existence of betting is reflected in the behavior of the present day audience. In the historical past, the viewers were usually impersonal and did not favor any particular team and watched sports purely for entertainment purposes. Any good action or achievement of an individual player or a particular team was cheered with equal aplomb. Entertainment was the sole purpose of watching a game. But in the present times there is vociferous and biased support for particular sportspersons or teams for whom the audience cheers to the point of hysteria. This fact cannot be explained on the basis of faithfulness or love for a particular player or a team, but due to the economic factors associated with such games where a lot of money is proposed to exchange hands after the result. This display of sheer excitement or despair is a symptom of the underlying bet or wager that a single person or a group has placed on a particular team (Udovicic, 1998). Gambling which was once considered as immoral as prostitution or drug use has assumed a mantle of acceptance by the general public (Udovicic, 1998). The malady has spread its tentacles so far that compulsive gamblers for sports events are increasing at meteoric rates all across the United States. The most disturbing trend that has emerged over the years is the decreasing age-group of such compulsive gamblers with the adolescents assuming an alarming figure in the total population of such miscreants. The problem with young players at the institutions is that they are hard pressed for financial resources unlike the professional athletes who make large amounts of money through sponsors and endorsements. This serves as an incentive to earn easy money which drives them to gambling which has existed in the US from as early as 1919 when eight Chicago White Sox players were banned from playing baseball throughout life for fixing the World Series baseball championship (Udovicic, 1998). Although such instances were less the problem magnified enormously in the late 1970-1980s and has risen by enormous proportions now due to the spread of internet. The sports gambling activities have now crossed international borders and spread its tentacles worldwide with most of the emerging nations emulating the American phenomenon. The proportion of the economic resources involved within the US tells the story of how deeply entrenched it has become in the psyche of the people. In 1995 almost half a trillion US $ were wagered on sports in America alone and the gaming industry made a profit of $ 44.4 billion which was much more than the combined revenue of other entertainment based industries (Miller & Claussen, 2001). Gambling, therefore is considered a big business and has reached such a stage that strategy for controlling it revolves around regulation of gambling rather than its prohibition (Miller & Claussen, 2001). There is strong confrontation between the general public and the sports regulatory authority as far as gambling in sports is concerned. The public has got used to the phenomenon to the point of addiction while the sports regulatory bodies are concerned about the ethical issues regarding fair-play and healthy competition. Government endorsement of state run lotteries has rendered legitimacy to the act of gambling and this has contributed to the loss of consideration of gambling as a vice among the young growing population, who are unaware of its demerits as understood by the previous generations (Miller & Claussen, 2001). In fact the government now considers gambling an integral part of revenue generation for running state funded programs. In light of this situation the present generation fails to comprehend how betting in sports is illegal or wrong. Another factor contributing to the rise of gambling is the emergence of industries which have developed on the basis of the adventurous streak in human nature where chance, risk and excitement factors have assumed important roles in public life (Miller & Claussen, 2001). The tensions of modern life combined with pressures of obtaining immediate materialistic gains trigger the search for short cuts to success and gambling is an easy way out which offers excitement and nurtures expectation. Rapid urbanization and distance from nature has made man a statistical figure rather than a human being which thrives on the basis of calculated risks and economic matters predominate in one’s life today. Another contributing factor is the increased access to watching sports on the television which triggers mass hysteria and involvement with the popular games within a country (Miller & Claussen, 2001). The popularity of sports channels, news tickers, cable television and satellite channels has greatly increased and everybody is kept abreast of the latest situation which allows them to speculate and participate in sports related wagers and bets. Keeping these facts in view, it is difficult to envisage a drastic change in values in the future generations and separation of gambling from the omnipresent sports in today’s world appears to be a Herculean task. Efforts at the government level and social reawakening to realities of true sports are the need of the present era if it has to attain some semblance of rationality to sports. Gambling at the commercial level and in big games may be impossible to eliminate now, but at the university and collegiate levels, certain improvements are needed to eliminate this scourge from young growing sportspersons. One such effort was the realization by the US administration of the increasing levels of scandals in sports at the collegiate level and the impact it was having on the integrity of sport which prompted the Congress to enact the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) into a law which prevents state authorization of gambling in the United States with the exception of the state of Nevada (Grady, 2005). The law prevents any person or any government entity to sponsor, operate, advertize, promote, license or authorize a lottery, sweepstakes, wagering and betting, in any direct or indirect manner, for one or more competitive games in which amateur or professional athletes participate (Grady, 2005). However this law has not been able to solve the problem as is evident from studies and monitoring conducted in 1998, when 80% of the boys and 50% of the girls from grades 6th, 9th and 12th in Minnesota were found to have indulged in some sort of gambling or wagering activities during the past year (Grady, 2005). Incidents of gambling and match fixing kept occurring despite the promulgation of this law until the NCAA decided to take some steps to ensure the practice of fair sports albeit at the institutional level. The NCAA enacted a Bylaw in 2003 which prohibited athletic department staff members and student-athletes from engaging in gambling activities (Grady, 2005). The stipulation in this Bylaw was very clear in its statement which prevented those involved from providing information to organizers of gambling activities in institutions, soliciting a bet on any inter-collegiate team, accepting a bet on any team representing the institution, soliciting or accepting a bet on any intercollegiate competition for items with tangible value and participating in gambling activities through bookmakers, parley cards or other methods employed by organized gambling syndicates or groups (Grady, 2005). However after the enactment of this law, incidents of gambling in the student community kept reoccurring with alarming frequency despite the affected students being in full knowledge of the inhibitory statutes in force (Grady, 2005). This prompted the government to examine new plans and strategies to offset this menace and two Acts were examined for the likelihood of their application and success. These two Acts were named the ‘Student Athletic Protection Act (2000)’ and the ‘Amateur Sports Integrity Act (2003)’ (Grady, 2005). The Student Athletic Protection Act envisaged the removal of immunity awarded to Nevada State earlier and the application of uniform rules countrywide. PASPA was accordingly amended to prevent gambling in any sort of sports activity, even in a single game. The Amateur Sports Integrity Act proposed to address the issues of drug use in sports and match fixing. The role of internet gambling sites has also come into limelight and the dangers associated with it identified and discussed by the law makers as well as sports regulatory authorities. The role of electronics is tremendous in increasing the accessibility as well as availability of gambling opportunities to the present generation and it is essential to put some curbs on its use for promoting gambling activities. Recommendation Despite the realization of the grave danger it imposes on the practice of true sports, gambling has now impregnated the sports arena in a manner from where it seems almost impossible to evict due to the loopholes in the laws, the new mindset of the current generation, availability of lightening speed communication and information resources, involvement of megabucks and the business stature it has acquired. The already running gambling business organizations cannot be banned in a single move. At the same time check on students cannot be kept at all times as privacy and democracy issues are at play. Only a cultural reawakening and restructuring of society with the aid of some spiritual intervention or a drastic policy change or law by the government can help in this desperate situation. Inculcation of true sportsmanship at the very outset, restructuring and redesigning of educational patterns at the institutional level at the very grassroots are the need of the hour. Addiction needs to be curbed by regularizing and preventing access through electronic means of communication among the student-athletes and youngsters. Coaches and sports administrators need to be more vigilant and curb the tendency wherever it is detected. Even such drastic measures may need quite a few years now to show actual results. REFERENCES Grady J. (2005). Gambling and Collegiate Sport, Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, 15 J. Legal Aspects Of Sport 95 Miller L.K. & Claussen C.L. (2001). Online Sports Gambling - Regulation or Prohibition?, Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, 11 J. Legal Aspects Of Sport 99 Strategies to address gambling and sports wagering issues in intercollegiate athletics, Online article assessed September 26, 2009 at http://www.princeton.edu/~ivyorg/gambling.pdf UA Sponsors Gambling Symposium, Online article assessed September 26, 2009 at http://www.ua.edu/advancement/ur/releases/anews2006/feb06/gamb021406.htm Udovicic A.Z. (1998). Special Report: Sports and Gambling a Good Mix? I Wouldn’t Bet on It, Marquette Sports Law Journal, 8 Marq. Sports L.J. 401 Read More