The Major Sports Leagues v. Jay Cohen: A Criminal Persecution and Other Tales of US Government Hypocrisy

Jay Cohen
September 23, 2002

My World Sports Exchange

I am the founder and former President of the World Sports Exchange, one of the largest and most successful online gambling businesses in the world. In 1996, I resigned from a lucrative position as an options market maker in San Francisco to move to Antigua and launch WSE. In January of 1997, with all of our equipment, computers, and employees secure in Antigua, we opened for business. It was carefully planned. And our plans worked, as the company embarked on a steady path to success. Today, like thousands of other online wagering companies, WSE handles millions of dollars in wagering on sports and casino games. But I am not in Antigua. And I do not work for WSE. Instead, I am serving a 21-month prison sentence. While I am incarcerated, billions of dollars per year will be spent by consumers worldwide wagering online. The industry is stronger than ever and the United States cannot stop it. The following is a summary of what happened to me on my path to federal prison camp, and my thoughts on my case and the online gambling industry.

The following is drawn from a “post” on an active gambling forum at theprescription.com. It sums up the crux of the issue very well.

“Since when does an American citizen not have the right to open up a business in another country? Since when does an American citizen have to get permission from the United States government to operate a business in another country?

Jay Cohen and World Sports Exchange (WSEX.com) were licensed by the government of Antigua and Barbuda to operate an internet and telephone sportsbook.

I don’t remember any customers of WSEX filing a criminal complaint against him. If there was a crime, who was the victim?

WSEX is a foreign company, regulated and sanctioned by a foreign government, employed by foreigners.

So what if WSEX was taking bets from Americans. It has every right to. Just as any foreign company has every right to do business with American citizens.

I challenge you to find a precedent where an American citizen running a foreign company was charged with a crime for doing business with American citizens. I know of no other case unless the activity itself was illegal. Gambling is not in and of itself illegal. There is gambling all over the place in the United States.”

This forum “post” is supported by recent legal precedent. US Courts have held that foreign countries can’t regulate a legal online business in the US. Yahoo sued in federal district court to challenge the ruling of a French court which ordered the company to stop allowing the sale of Nazi memorabilia on its web site (Exhibits 1 and 2). The federal district court sided with Yahoo, holding that since Yahoo’s servers were located in the US, Yahoo’s web site content was beyond the reach of French law and courts, despite the fact that web site was accessible from anywhere on earth.

This decision makes sense. Internet companies should be subject to the jurisdiction where their servers are located. Otherwise there will be chaos. If this simple principle were applied in my case I would not be writing this document.

In May of 1997 shortly after my partner and I were the subject of a favorable feature article in the Wall St. Journal (Exhibit 3), I received a letter from Debevoise & Plimpton, a Manhattan law firm representing the four major sports leagues (Exhibit 4). Through their lawyers, the sports leagues threatened me with a civil RICO lawsuit if I didn’t meet their demands, which included removing their team names from our site, taking down links to their official web sites, and ceasing business with US residents. I promptly sent my lawyers to meet with the Debevoise firm attorneys, and a settlement ensued or so we thought. We met all of their demands short of ceasing business with United States residents. After all they were just a private law firm representing private companies in the US. WSE was a totally foreign corporation that did all of its business offshore. I had been advised by our legal counsel that if we were solely based in a country where our conduct was lawful, we were not violating US law.

What we failed to realize was that the Debevoise firm was the “de facto” midtown office of the US Attorney’s for the Southern District of NY. After we thought we had reached an agreement, the Debevoise firm turned us in to the US Attorney’s office for prosecution. But this was much more than just a concerned citizen reporting an alleged crime. The Debevoise firm took an active lead role in building a case against us. They sent hundreds of exhibits showing what WSE and other offshore companies were doing (Exhibit 5). One of the acts listed in my indictment is based on a call made by a private investigator working for the Debevoise firm, not an FBI agent. The Debevoise firm sent several letters to the prosecutor’s office explaining the case and their exhibits. What was most interesting was how chummy all of these letters were. Instead of Dear Mr. Rubin, letters were addressed Dear Tom.

After a little investigation it all became clear to me. You see, there is an incestuous relationship between the Southern District office and the Debevoise firm. Tom Rubin, the assistant US Attorney who brought this case had worked at the Debevoise firm from 1990 to 1994. Lorin Reisner, the Debevoise point person on this case worked in the Southern District office as a assistant US attorney from 1990-1994 (Exhibits 6 and 7, the Martindale-Hubbell on Rubin and Reisner). I found out that the Debevoise firm encourages their attorneys to go work for the Southern District for a few years, come back and still receive credit towards seniority for the time spent with the government. It’s a “revolving door.” So now it all made sense, I was being prosecuted by Debevoise at the request of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball. >All of the correspondence between Debevoise and the Southern District was also copied to the major sports leagues (Exhibit 8). It was through their close relationship with the Southern District that the previously widely quoted position of the Department of Justice in Washington was thrown out the window. Prior to my prosecution, John Russell, the spokesperson for the criminal division of the US Department of Justice, had stated that “International offshore wagering is out if our jurisdiction” (Exhibits 9 and 10, Sports Illustrated and NY Times articles quoting Mr. Russell). I guess he should have cleared it with the Debevoise firm. In my own trial, when cross-examined about why she hadn’t subpoenaed and reviewed the records of WSEX, FBI case agent Lisa Ferrence acknowledged that Antigua was simply “out of the FBI’s jurisdiction” (Exhibit 11).

In March of 1998, I was informed of the case against me by a NY Times reporter named Ben Weiser, who called my office in Antigua. At first, he acted like he was doing a standard interview. I thought this was odd because earlier during the Superbowl there was a NY Times reporter in my office and he had published a very favorable piece a few weeks earlier. The truth was the U.S. Attorney’s office had leaked the criminal complaints to him before they were public. He told me something was going to happen in Federal Court that day and that I was involved. He called back five minutes later and told me I was charged in a criminal complaint for the activities of my company, World Sports Exchange.

When I was charged, I had a meeting with the other operators on the island. I informed them that I planned to return to the US voluntarily to fight the charges. A fellow bookmaker named Bob said “They” are not going to let you win. I asked, “Who are They? We have the law and the facts on our side.” He repeated “They” are not going to let you win. I should have listened to Bob.

Despite the fact that there have been non-US bookmakers taking bets over the telephone in England for decades, the March 1998 criminal complaints only focused on operations in the Caribbean and Central America. They completely ignored any European or Australian companies engaged in the exact same business. As of today, such operations have been given a pass by the US government. In fact, the largest sportsbook in England and Ireland recently completed IPO’s with the assistance of some the United States’ largest investment banks. The companies, which actively solicit bets from anywhere in t he world, are doing quite well. >

When Steve Schillinger and I initially came up with the idea of setting up a gambling business on the internet, we ran it by my former employers at Group One in San Francisco in August of 1996 to see if they were interested in the project. They were. But the first question was, “Is this legal?” They called their long time law firm of Orrick, Harrington & Sutcliffe to find out. >Through the advice of Richard Haroosh at Orrick, as well as our own research on the industry, it was decided that to be legal we needed to be wholly located offshore and have no US assets, employees, or bank accounts. Orrick signed off on the project.

Later on it was decided that there would be a Private Placement Memorandum. Orrick, of course, reviewed the document that was prepared by Rich Grebe, Group One’s CFO, and Orrick okayed it. The idea of a PPM did not come up until late September, although Orrick was initially called in August regarding this entire project.

When Steve and I were charged, Orrick went into “cover your behind” mode. They took the position that all they had okayed was the PPM and that they never gave out any advice on the legality of the business. This was an outright lie. Why do they think they were consulted in August of 1996 before a PPM was even a thought in anybody’s mind? When key people at Group One got subpoenaed, Orrick had the nerve to send out their “criminal” lawyer to remind everyone that they had never signed off on the business, only the PPM. I have only word for Orrick -- Cowards!!!

In the words of Richard Prior, “My lawyer and I went down to the court house looking for justice and that’s what we found there, just us.”

After pre-trial motions were ignored, we eventually got to a trial in February of 2000. The one thing that is clear to anyone who attended the trial or has read the transcript is the judge concluded a conviction was in order. I am not speculating why, but he did. Almost every time my lawyer made a great point, he would say something to weaken it, and every prosecution blunder was propped up by some assistance from the judge. This happened right from the beginning of the trial, right after the opening statements. In all trials the prosecution speaks then the defense speaks and the judge then says, “Government call your first witness.” Not here. My lawyer, Ben Brafman, was so powerful in his opening statement that Judge Griesa saw fit to give a 20-minute soliloquy (Exhibit 12, part of trial transcript) which amounted to a pro prosecution partial jury charge to take away our thunder. We all sat there in shock. Ben Brafman told me he had never seen anything like this in over 25 years of trials. He told me the judge’s prejudicial speech was my “insurance policy” for a new trial should I be convicted. Similarly, at the end of the trial when it came time to charge the jury, Judge Griesa was rather tilted towards the prosecution. He took over three hours to give the jury its instructions. Among other things, Judge Griesa told the jury among other things that my testimony was “Not relevant” (Exhibit 13, part of trial transcript). In spite of that the jury came back and asked for a read back of my testimony. On Judge Griesa’s orders they only heard an edited version. What happened in my trial was obvious. The judge hijacked the case from the jury. Judge Griesa’s jury instructions were tantamount to a directed verdict. >He all but said get in there and find him guilty. My analysis of the jury instructions was affirmed when a juror came up to me on the street after the trial and said, ”We wanted to acquit you but we felt the judge gave us no choice.”

When Ben Brafman objected to the jury instructions in the absence of the jury Judge Griesa told him, “Mr. Brafman, the reason I had to give such a stern charge was to undo the damage you did during your summation” (Exhibit 14, part of trial transcript). I was being penalized because my lawyer did well during his closing argument! Judge Griesa had even taken the opportunity to interrupt Brafman in the middle of his closing argument, a practice that is not normally done (Exhibit 15, part of trial transcript). Despite that, Judge Griesa still felt he needed to influence the jury some more with his “Stern charge.”

They originally charged 21 people from nine different companies in March of 1998 with violating U.S. Code Title 18, Section 1084, commonly known as the Wire Act. Fourteen were arrested and two cases were dismissed. The other seven remain “at large.” I was the only one to fight. While the other eleven people who plead guilty all received a fine and probation, I received 21 months imprisonment. They say you get a break for admitting guilt, but that is disproportionate. Besides the whole theory is flawed. I exercise my right to a trial because I believe I am innocent. Because a jury finds otherwise I am then penalized for asserting my rights and given more time for the same actions.

The prosecutors DeMarco and Pesce were actually asking for a sentence in the range of 30-36 months. (Some think they would want the death penalty for me if it was an option.) They were accusing me of obstruction of justice and perjury on the stand. How did I perjure myself according to these two nitwits? When I said on the stand that I thought what I was doing was legal. They claimed that was a lie, that I knew it was not legal. Even Judge Griesa had no time for that argument and shut them up in less than two minutes.

The irony of their perjury accusation is that they were the ones who lied at trial when they said that the Interstate Horse Racing Act (IHA) exempted OTB from section 1084. Unfortunately the judge took them at their word over our strong objections. DeMarco and Pesce didn’t care about the truth, all they cared about was winning and putting me in jail. Shortly after the trial we received a copy of a letter issued a week before my trial from the Department of Justice in Washington DC to the New York Racing Association that clearly expressed the position that IHA offered OTB no special exemption from 1084. The landscape of the trial would have been vastly different had the prosecutors told the truth.

While Judge Griesa did give me 21 months, the minimum prison time required according to the non-binding sentencing guidelines, he fined me only $5,000 despite the fact that the probation office was recommending $50,000. I think Judge Griesa felt guilty because he knows that he railroaded me at trial.

21 months, 21 months. Many people get less time for assaulting another human being; many people get less time for stealing. Lizzie Grubman only got two months for driving over and injuring 16 people. What had I done? Had I harmed anyone? Had I stolen money from anyone? Had I defrauded anyone? There was never any allegation of fraud or theft. At the time of the trial, WSE had over 10,000 customers. Not one came forward to complain of non payment. You know the government would have loved to have found someone, but they could not. Jay Cohen and WSE had never wronged anyone.

Prior to the sentencing, Brafman informed DeMarco that he was going to be asking for bail pending appeal. DeMarco said he would object. I guess he feared that I might win my appeal and never see the inside of a prison. Brafman told DeMarco that Judge Griesa gives bail pending appeal in cases with much uglier underlying facts. At the end of the 2 ½ hour hearing Brafman stood up and said two sentences about motioning for bail pending appeal. DeMarco then stood up and said, “While we don’t think the defendant is a flight risk or a threat to the community, here is why we don’t think he should have bail...” and the judge cut him off and said the man has bail. As we were all gathering our belongings Pesce and DeMarco were jabbering with each other and DeMarco stood up again as the judge was half way down the stairs from his bench. He said, “Your honor, if he is to have bail, we’d like to make a motion that it be increased.” I thought the judge was going to take his head off. Judge Griesa snarled, “You just said two minutes ago that the man is not a flight risk or a threat to the community, why should his bail be increased?” (It was already set at $100,000 CASH) Demarco whimpered, “Motion withdrawn,” and we left the courtroom.

Once again, our briefs dominated in the legal arguments. There is no question that our arguments were tight and on point. The government as usual just threw up a bunch of unrelated issues hoping to confuse the matter. (All of the trial, appellate and US Supreme Court briefs can be found at http://www.majorwager.com/jaycohen or at http://www.freejaycohen.com)

After our initial appellate brief was filed, I received an unsolicited letter from Ben Brafman. (Exhibit 16) In it he clearly stated that “only a court....” This is how strong our position was. No lawyer ever tells you you are going to win. They always play it very conservatively. The fact that Brafman went out of his way to send such a letter speaks volumes of how unjust the conviction was.

In mid July 2000, I received a call from Kevin Diamond M. D., a close friend who lived in Manhattan. A gentleman named S. Gale Dick lived in his building and their children were the same age. Mr. Dick was a clerk for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He told Dr. Diamond that there was a memo going around that summarized several pending cases. He informed my friend that while it did not have an explicit decision on it, it was very favorable for me. Mr. Dick subsequently denies ever making such a statement or referencing such a document. Dr. Kevin Diamond still stands by what he told me. S. Gale Dick now works for Debevoise (Exhibit 17).

Our three judge appellate panel included one federal district judge named John Keenan. I am told they often bump up judges because they are short appellate judges. What a coincidence that John Keenan was the one selected for my matter! Much of my legal argument dealt with the fact that WSEX was operating no differently than many state sponsored Off Track betting facilities. These OTB companies take wagers across state lines via telephone and internet, and they brag on their sites you can place a bet from anywhere in the world. (Exhibit 18) They operate under the same exception to 1084 that WSEX claimed it did, section 1084 (b), a section that Judge Griesa went out of his way to keep from the jury during the trial. During the deliberations, the jury asked to see a written copy of the entire law. The judge only gave them a copy of 1084 (a) and had it printed without the “(a)” so it would not look like there was any more to it.

So why was it such a coincidence to have Keenan on my panel? John Keenan was the head of NY’s Capital OTB from 1979 to 1982. Judge Keenan was the one who ultimately wrote the opinion that buried me. He ignored our briefs, ignored the law, ignored controlling precedent, and ignored common sense. >The opinion made no reference to any of our briefs. It was like we never filed them. The entire document was reverse engineered to come up with an Affirmation using the prosecution’s brief. It read like a judge threw it at a clerk the night before and said, “Write an opinion to affirm this conviction, use this government brief to back it up, and ignore anything in Cohen’s briefs.” The nicest thing Mark Baker, my appellate lawyer, could call it was intellectually dishonest. Keenan is either stupid or crooked and by all accounts he is far from stupid.

We decided to file an En Banc petition with the full 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals. What a waste of time!!! I was told ahead of time that they take less than five cases every two years but that this could be one of them. Why they take so few I don’t know. It must be nice to have a lifetime appointment and no accountability. There was at least one technical issue that should have meant an automatic En Banc review. My panel had overturned a decision of an earlier panel in the same court which only the full court is supposed to be allowed to do. It didn’t matter; they just looked the other way.

After I lost the En Banc appeal, DeMarco went to great lengths to have my bail revoked. It was important to DeMarco that I go to prison start paying my debt to society as soon as possible. This included a motion for rehearing to the Appellate Court on the issue of bail which he won. I am told motions for rehearing are almost never granted, but this one was. It was only out of Judge Griesa’s guilt or realization I was no criminal, I suppose, that I was allowed to stay out of prison pending Supreme Court appeal.

I was told before I started the petition process that the Court is generally not in the business of righting wrongs, that they are in the business of resolving splits between circuits. It takes four justices to agree to take a case. We were denied although we did spark enough interest for the Court to request a response to our petition from the government. I did receive a nice letter from my Supreme Court lawyer Ian Gershengorn of Jenner and Block. (Exhibit 19)

I will begin serving my 21-month sentence on October 15, 2002 at Nellis Federal Prison Camp in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the shadow of the Las Vegas strip where multi-billion dollar corporations engage in the exact same activity for which I am being robbed of my freedom. After deducting 15% for good behavior and adding the two years of supervised release that was part of the sentence my entire ordeal will be behind me a mere eight years after I was charged.

There has not been a prosecution of a legitimate offshore gambling operator since the March 1998 sweep. The few scattered cases that have been brought have involved people who were not operating wholly offshore or had a significant presence on US soil.

The US government has never made an effort to go after scam operations that set up offshore and stole the customers’ money. Two places that come to mind are Sports International which traded on the NASDAQ stock market and Aces Gold. Sports International closed their doors and stiffed it’s customers of their deposits back in 1997. Tony Cohelo, the former Majority Whip of the US House of Representatives, and more recently Al Gore’s National Campaign Chairman, served on their Board of Directors. No action was ever taken against Mr. Cohelo, despite the fact that the government knows where he is and that people were robbed. The other company I mentioned is called Aces Gold of Curacao. It was operated by Mr. Charlie Therwhanger originally from Lubbock, Texas. Shortly after the 2002 Superbowl, Therwhanger decided to pull the plug and leave the customers high and dry. Estimates of customer losses are over $10 million. Mr. Therwhanger returned to the US, where no action has ever been taken against him by the government. I am sure they know where and who he is.

There are several other disreputable places that have come and gone over the years. The United States has never gone after any of them. If you had called the Department of Justice prior to my prosecution (and maybe even today) and told them you have been ripped off by an offshore casino they would have told you it is out of their jurisdiction. My theory is that the government is happy when places close up and stiff the players. It hurts the offshore gambling industry. The government hides behind the line that they are just trying to protect its citizens from unscrupulous operators, but they only see fit to go after reputable operations like WSE which have never had a single complaint of non-payment.

Today there are thousands of companies engaged in online gambling. They are in over twenty countries including England, Australia, Antigua, Isle of Mann, Ireland, and the list goes on and on. The United States has never prosecuted anyone from England despite the fact that British bookmakers have been taking bets from the US over the telephone for decades.

Since 1997 there have been threats of legislation from the United States Congress aimed at curtailing online gambling.

For several years the driving force behind the legislation to update the 1961 Wire Act was Senator Jon Kyl, the junior Senator from Arizona. Senator Kyl is a great guy, he wants to dictate to the whole world what they can do in the privacy of their own home yet he will only accept emails from the state of Arizona. The other interesting tidbit about Kyl is that he serves as Vice Chairman on an unofficial Senate Executive Committee. On his website Kyl stated that the committee was “Committed to limited government and increased personal responsibility.” I guess that statement applies only if you agree with the Senator.

Kyl wanted to update the Wire Act to cover internet gambling, I always found this interesting since I was prosecuted for taking bets over the internet using the existing law. Kyl never cared how low he stooped to get his bill passed. He always initiated it through the Judiciary Sub-Committee he chaired, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information. One year he made it an amendment to a must pass appropriations bill, another year he left it to a voice vote on the Senate floor on the last day of the session with less than 10 Senators in the chamber. Both times they passed the Senate. One time it was stripped out in conference, the other time the House failed to pass the companion Goodlatte bill.

Every session these bills go down the same path. First, they are backed by social conservatives opposed to all gambling. Then come the carve outs, all of the special interests get their exemptions. These include the state lotteries, horse racing, dog racing, jai-lai, Indian gaming, Las Vegas gaming etc. This is why Senator Feinstein from California was a sponsor. She made sure to get California Horse Racing their exemption. By the time they get done with all of the carve outs the bills look like swiss cheese. Finally, the conservative supporters pull their support because they feel the bills with all of their exemptions actually expand gaming.

Maybe Kyl should have focused more on other responsibilities of his sub-committee instead of making his Internet Gambling Prohibition Act his raison d’etre year after year.

A panel was appointed by President Clinton in the late 90’s to study the impact of gambling in America. It’s members included representatives of Las Vegas and representatives of the religious right. One of the things they did was commission a $1 million study by the University of Chicago to study the societal costs of gambling. They concluded that the costs of gambling to American society were negligible, about $5 billion a year, compared to the cost of smoking, drinking, and auto accidents. Each of those cost American society over $100 billion a year.

The religious right members on the commission of claimed that the study was flawed and more money needed to be spent. $1 million of taxpayer money wasn’t enough.

More recently attempts have been made by Representative Leach of Iowa to pass a bill that prohibits the use of financial instruments for internet gambling. These would include credit cards, bank wires, and bank checks among others. After a year or so of being stalled in committee Leach tried to have his bill included with the post 9/11 anti-terrorism money laundering laws that were making their way through Congress. He actually had the audacity to claim that internet gambling was an avenue for money laundering for terrorists. (Exhibit 21) This was sickening. Only Representative Ron Paul of Texas had the guts to vote against it in committee. It was eventually stripped out of the final bill.

In the late spring of 2002 Leach tried to get his bill through committee. Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts said it best when he said, “If American citizens or legal residents want to gamble, let them. Why do you care?” Representative Chris Cannon of Utah also saw the light when he said, “I mean, if it's gambling today that you change credit cards on, well what is it tomorrow? It doesn't seem to be the proper role of government."

And Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia stated, "I think the goals of the legislation would be much better met by legalizing and controlling gambling rather than trying to prohibit running a gambling operation on the internet." In the hearings Scott questioned whether an internet gambling ban can be enforced against offshore web sites that are not within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Outside the jurisdiction? Isn’t that where I started this story?

Lately the Attorney General of NY has been in the news a lot. It’s not easy to lay the foundation for a gubernatorial run. First he was going after Wall St. for their elaborate pump and dump schemes, now it is internet gambling. He has applied pressure to Citibank and Paypal not to do business with internet gambling companies.

In his press release after he reached an agreement with Citibank, he had the nerve to state, “Americans now waste $4 billion a year on this pernicious form of gambling.” When I got done laughing, I looked up the 2001 financial statements for the New York State Lottery. The NY State lottery took in over $4 billion in 2001, the house (The State of NY) kept 46%. Sports wagering holds less than 5%, blackjack holds less than 1%. Bottom line is the lottery is for suckers, yet Spitzer has the nerve to call online gambling pernicious.

The lottery isn’t for suckers because it offers such high odds. It is for suckers because the payoff odds are disproportionate to the true odds of winning. There is nothing wrong with offering a product that has a 40 million to one chance of winning but if they win have the decency to pay them at least 35 million to one. The hold tells it all, 46% for the lottery, 5% for sports, 1% for blackjack. Which form of gambling would you call pernicious?

The NFL and the NCAA have always taken a public position that they are opposed to all wagering on their games.They site integrity of the game as their reason. The unspoken reason is they don’t want anyone making a penny on their product, if they don’t get a percentage of it.

The truth is nobody has a greater interest in keeping the games honest than the bookmakers. They are the ones whose money is at stake if there are shenanigans.

The NFL and the NCAA will never publicly acknowledge that many people only watch their games because they have action on them. Sure there are diehard sports fans out there but when a game is a 21 point spread and the favorite is up by 24 in the 4^th quarter, it’s the gamblers that keep the ratings up. They are the ones who stay tuned to see if the dog will come back and cover.

The NFL facilitates gambling by releasing injury reports and fining teams if they are not accurate. If it is just for “fun” what difference does it make who is probable and who is out? They also made a very sly move a few years ago. The Sunday late games used to start at 4 PM Eastern. The NFL moved the late games to 4:05 and 4:15. The reason for this is that the early games were running over and people were missing the beginning of the late games therefore they were not tuning in. This is laughable! If you are just a fan watching for “fun” do you really care if you miss the first 15 minutes (7 minutes of clock time) of a game? Of course you don’t. You love the game and you tune in anyway. But, if you are a gambler and you didn’t have a chance to bet the late games because you didn’t know how you did on the early games that were still in progress would you still tune in if you had no action? Of course you wouldn’t. The time change improved ratings for the late games because more gamblers had time to get their bets in.

Let’s not forget Al Michaels and Monday Night Football. Every week he makes a reference to the spread and/or the total. As an example, I was watching a meaningless game between Pittsburgh and Atlanta. The score was 13-9 with only seconds on the clock. Rather than risk a blocked punt, the team that was favored threw the ball into the end zone and took an intentional safety making the score 13-11. They still won, but now the team that lost covered since the spread was 3. I’ll never forget Al Michaels said with such dignity, “That safety meant a lot to a lot of people in this country.” But, you can tune in any week and hear him make subtle comments. Sometimes a game might be a blow out but not over the total. When the team scores to put it over the total, Michaels will say something like, “Now it’s really over.”

The NCAA loves to preach about the evils of gambling. But they seem to have no problem taking advertising from the NTRA, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. I have watched many a college game where there has been a commercial telling me to go down to the track and bet. I guess they have no problem with student gambling if they are betting on the horses. They also have no qualms about taking beer ad after beer ad during their games. I wonder what has killed more college students, betting or drinking?

The NCAA worries that their players may be corrupted by gamblers looking to fix games. It is not the general public’s fault if their players are of low integrity and would throw a game. Besides, if it’s all for “fun,” what’s the big deal if they did? The bigger issue is that the NCAA refuses to pay their players while they make billions. The most recent NCAA basketball contract gave the NCAA $6 Billion over 11 years. The student athletes who are the stars of the show get nothing. If the NCAA paid their athletes a reasonable amount of money they would be way less susceptible to throwing a game. But then that would leave less money for the NCAA Executive Committee to have their conferences in Hawaii and Scottsdale and the like.

If gambling is so bad, get rid of all of it. If it’s not, let competition flourish, both nationally and globally.

Be consistent.