Sunday, August 7, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

No smoke fills the dark room where Jimmy Vaccaro sits, and he is not surrounded by a group of shady characters sharing inside information on football games.

Believe it or not, that perception of Las Vegas bookmakers does exist. It has been pushed on the public by NCAA officials and politicians who view sports betting -- and, more specifically, betting on college sports -- as an evil act of the underground world.

"We're looked down upon as bad guys and I don't like that. We're not the bad guys," Vaccaro said. "I want to be looked at in a better light."

After years of trading insults and skeptical stares, the NCAA and Las Vegas sports books are looking to form a better business relationship, in which one works with the other to reach an understanding -- believe it or not.

The two sides have been at odds for so long, a friendly handshake might seem like a long shot.

The NCAA announced last month that it plans to reopen lines of communication with Las Vegas to more closely monitor betting lines on games. That is only part of the organization's anti-gambling efforts, but it's the part that grabs the headlines.

"We've been down this road several times and they never come through on their end," said Vaccaro, a longtime Las Vegas bookmaker who, as public relations director for Leroy's sports books, is starting the city's biggest college football contest this fall.

"It's more up to them, as it's always been. They have come to us a million times and we have answered questions a million times, but every time they go home they leave us high and dry again. I would like to see the NCAA get involved on an intellectual level where they fully understand."

Rachel Newman-Baker, the NCAA's director of gambling activities, said exactly how and when her organization will get involved has not been determined.

"I can't give you a timeline. I can tell you we're working on it. The actual action plan is currently being developed," Newman-Baker said. "The ultimate goal is to open up communication so we can get more of a pulse of what's going on, and we want to be in that loop.

"Obviously, we've had a great relationship with the Nevada Gaming Commission in the past."

Newman-Baker was appointed to her current position in April, so any problems the NCAA had with Las Vegas in the past were not under her watch. And despite the pleasantries the two sides are exchanging now, there have been problems.

Art Manteris, vice president of Station Casinos sports books, said he wants an opportunity to shed some light on the issue for the NCAA.

"My immediate reaction was one of pessimism. But after sleeping on it, I really do welcome any overture they have toward our industry," said Manteris, a Las Vegas bookmaker since 1978. "That is recognition of what we do here and the benefits we can provide here.

"The relationship between the Nevada casino industry and the NCAA obviously has had some ups and downs. There have been some hard feelings on both sides, but that's ancient history. We have to look at the future now."

In the late 1990s, when NCAA officials visited Las Vegas for a behind-the-scenes look at how sports books operate, Manteris said there was a "shocking amount of misconceptions and misunderstandings of our industry."

Manteris said the NCAA was not completely aware of all the regulatory controls in place in Nevada and that there was a theory by some that games were scripted in back rooms of casinos.

"I've always said if they knew exactly how Las Vegas sports books worked and how we take bets and how we moved lines, they would have a better understanding," Stardust sports book director Bob Scucci said. "We don't control the outcome of games and there's not some elaborate scheme to fix games.

"It's ludicrous. There's actually a perception that we have inside knowledge of what's going to happen."

Manteris said some of those misconceptions have gone by the wayside.

What has sparked the NCAA's interest was its study last year that revealed 35 percent of male athletes and 10 percent of female athletes gambled on college sports the previous year, to which Scucci said, "I guarantee you those 35 percent didn't make their bets in Las Vegas."

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission's Final Report in June 1999 recommended a ban on all legal gambling on collegiate and amateur sports contests.

A report by the NCAA News on Jan. 31, 2000, titled "NCAA backs effort to ban all college sports gambling," outlined the organization's stance against Las Vegas.

The report included this statement: "The NCAA has met with representatives of the gaming industry to try to work together on this issue. The gaming industry refused to cooperate."

MGM Mirage sports book director Robert Walker said he can't recall that being the case.

"That's news to me. We have nothing to hide, that's for sure," Walker said. "Why would it be in our best interests to ever not cooperate?"

Arizona senator John McCain has been the face of the fight against legal wagering on college games, first introducing legislation outlawing college sports betting at Nevada casinos in 2000. McCain reintroduced the bill every year until opting not to this year.

"Until there's a scandal, we won't pass it," McCain said in February. "The gambling interests are too powerful. But there will be another scandal."

Eleven years ago, Vaccaro stood behind the counter at the Mirage sports book and watched a historic event unfold. It is remembered as the Arizona State basketball point-shaving scandal and is a common reference point for McCain and others.

Benny Silman was sentenced to 46 months in prison for scheming to fix five Sun Devils games during the 1994 season. Silman admitted to bribing two players to shave points while he was an Arizona State student. An inquiry showed that 15 of 22 fraternities on campus turned up in records of illegal gambling.

The wagers by Silman's group were made in Las Vegas, and Vaccaro helped uncover the scandal by notifying authorities of suspicious activities. Vaccaro said the Mirage took about $580,000 on the fifth and final Arizona State game in the fixing scheme.

He said another similar scandal is unlikely.

"We took about $120,000 from those kids during the course of the day," Vaccaro said. "To get the amount of money that was put down on the Arizona State game, I believe is absolutely the thing of the past. Now can I be proved wrong? Yes, but I would bet I'm right on this one.

"I don't think you'll have all that amount of money moved on any particular game, only because now everybody is watching for it. Can it happen? If it does, I think it's on a much smaller scale."

Vaccaro said any future attempt to fix games would have to be on a "a much lesser scale" and might involve underground or offshore books. But he said offshore bookmakers are just as wise as those in Las Vegas when it comes to spotting red flags in betting patterns.

"You could pound games maybe for $20,000 and really spread it around and not get people shaken up," he said. "I think the way that you trace all this stuff, in the new era, would simply be if a certain amount of money showed on the same team for a few games."

There were cases in the 1990s of players betting on games at Boston College, Maryland and Northwestern and a 2003 admission by Florida State quarterback Adrian McPherson that he bet on games involving his team, but none of those became scandals the magnitude of the one at Arizona State.

"Mr. McCain will have a hard time trying to shove a huge scandal down everybody's throat, or put it this way, trying make a big thing out of something small that might occur, and that stuff will occur," Vaccaro said.

For those concerned about losing the privilege to bet on college sports, Vaccaro said not to worry. He applauded the efforts by Nevada politicians to band together and battle McCain.

"I don't ever, ever think, barring John McCain being president of the United States -- even with him being president -- that they ban betting on college sports," Vaccaro said.

UNLV quarterback Shane Steichen practices on a field two blocks from a casino that takes bets on his team's games but says he pays little attention to point spreads. The players get lectured every year to avoid associations with gamblers and stay away from sports books.

"I don't ever look at the lines or anything like that. The only thing I'll ever hear about is predicted scores in the paper and things like that," said Steichen, a junior who started the last four games of last season when the Rebels finished 2-9. He started in a 63-28 loss at Utah, which was a 24-point favorite.

"Last year against Utah, I knew we knew we were underdogs by 28 points going in there," Steichen said. "But I don't know how many people bet on us."

If UNLV had a better team, Steichen said, "the town would have been buzzing about the games." But interest in UNLV games has been nothing out of the ordinary since the betting ban on Nevada college teams was lifted in 2001.

The ban was lifted in part because it implied that any game in Las Vegas might have an impropriety that could compromise the integrity of the games.

"We haven't seen any big difference because we're taking bets on UNLV and Reno now. We haven't seen any unusual bets on those two teams," Scucci said.

The only team involved in unusual line moves during the last college football season was Hawaii. The erratic Warriors were 7-2 against the spread at home and 0-4 on the road.

Scucci said his opening lines on Hawaii games sometimes differed by 10 points with the opening offshore lines, and betting often moved lines on some games by seven points or more. Some books pulled Hawaii games off the board.

"For some reason, we could not get point spreads accurate enough on Hawaii games," Scucci said.

Newman-Baker said the NCAA does not monitor betting lines in a formal way now, but does receive anonymous tips and hears from confidential sources about some games. "We receive information all the time," Newman-Baker said.

According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, $969 million was wagered on football in 2004, and $543 million was wagered on basketball. It is estimated that one-third of that is wagering on college games.

If the NCAA seriously wants to get involved, Vaccaro said, the organization should send representatives to Las Vegas to get educated on the issue by various sports book directors and Las Vegas Sports Consultants oddsmaker Ken White.

"They should come here and see how we do business," Vaccaro said. "They should come and see that just because a line moves, they don't have to focus on there's something wrong with the Florida State game. We can teach them that side."

In the end, Vaccaro said, he hopes it's not all talk and no action from the NCAA.

"For a while, everybody was all over the behind of Nevada and every other place that takes bets. And then what happened? It died down again," Vaccaro said.

"It's like a roller coaster. It gets right up here and everybody wants to get involved and everybody wants to get facial time, that they're going to be the next guy to clear everything up. But it dies down."