Assembly panel OKs sports-bet proposal
By DEREK HARPER Statehouse Bureau, 609-292-4935
Published: Friday, January 25, 2008
TRENTON - An Assembly committee took another crack at legalizing sports betting in New Jersey casinos Thursday, while an attorney with the National Football League sharply criticized the plan.
The bill would ask New Jersey voters to approve a referendum to allow casino patrons to bet on professional sports in resort casino sports-betting parlors. The wagering would be taxed like other casino games. It would exclude horseracing, college and high school matches, those involving amateur athletes and pro wrestling.
"If there is no moral problem, no social problem, why only include professional sports?" asked David H. Remes, outside counsel for the NFL.
He added afterward that the NFL opposes the plan because "it's bad for the image of the sport and it's bad to turn the players into roulette chips."
The Tourism and Gaming Committee approved the bill 8-0, and committee Chairman Assemblyman John J. Burzichelli, D-Salem, Cumberland, Gloucester, said he would ask Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr., D-Camden, Gloucester, to schedule a Feb. 7 floor vote.
But even bill supporters acknowledge New Jersey sports wagers are a long shot. If passed by voters, backers expect an immediate federal challenge under a 1993 law that limited sports wagers to Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.
Senate Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee Chairman James Whelan, D-Atlantic, said he supports sports betting but wondered how possible it would be with the current federal prohibition. He also did not know when the Senate version would be introduced.
In her comments, Casino Control Commission Chair Linda A. Kassekert said that aside from any federal challenges, sports betting needs a constitutional amendment to the Casino Control Act to be valid under state law.
State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, sponsored the bill when he served in the Assembly in 2004 and 2006 when it failed to get a floor vote in either house.
In testimony Thursday he said the federal government was overreaching by basing the ban on a section of the Constitution that allows Congress to regulate commerce between states. He asked how could it regulate a person in New Jersey who made a bet in person at a New Jersey casino?
He suggested a legal fight would reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where he thought the more conservative court would side with New Jersey's states' rights argument.
He also said it was hypocritical to oppose this while casual office pools and Internet gambling proliferate. Furthermore, it is costing the state tax revenue, he said.
Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis D. Greenwald, D-Camden, agreed, adding that legal sports wagers would allow the state to tap into what he said is between $300 billion and $400 billion globally bet on sports. He also said it would save unspecified law enforcement funds that fight illegal gambling.
Opposition, he said, "is foolhardy, short-sighted and ultimately costing the state millions of dollars."
Casino analyst Joseph Weinert, from the Linwood-based Spectrum Gaming Group, said Las Vegas took in about $76 million last year from sports wagering. Based on a similar 2.4 percent of gross gaming revenue, Weinert estimated Atlantic City casinos would take in $118 million. He said that would translate into an additional $9.5 million in taxes.
He also said the resort would see extra nongaming revenue around big events such as the Super Bowl.
But he warned about unforeseen consequences of overturning federal law. If voters reject it, that could place resort casinos at a competitive disadvantage with other states. Similarly, it could open the door to sports wagers in states already encroaching on Atlantic City gamblers.
The final bill may also include provisions for the state's horseracing industry, after Republicans and horseracing advocates spoke out. These could include either allowing sports betting in horse tracks or using the proceeds to underwrite purses.
An $86 million purse supplement for the state's race courses expired at the end of last month. It came in 2004 in exchange for the tracks not seeking state approval for video lottery terminals. Officials have discussed reauthorization, but nothing has been agreed upon.
Committee members Alison Littell McHose, R-Sussex, Hunterdon, Morris and Ronald S. Dancer, R-Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean, raised questions about tracks during the meeting, but eventually approved the bill with the majority.
To e-mail Derek Harper at The Press:
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Central Jersey gambling ring busted
5 arrested after cops discover that gamblers in Somerset Co. placing bids though Web site linked to illegal betting.
By MICHAEL DEAK
STAFF WRITER
A former guard for the Chicago Bears and the New Yorks Jets is among five people facing charges in connection with an Internet sports gambling ring that operated throughout Central Jersey.
Richard Todd Burger, 37, of Freehold, who played for the Chicago Bears from 1994 to 1997 and the New York Jets in 1998, collected gambling debts for the ring that was targeted in a four-month investigation by the New Jersey State Police and the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor Wayne J. Forrest said.
Burger, who played high-school football for Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark and college football for Penn State, was arrested Saturday along with four other defendants and charged with third-degree promoting gambling and third-degree conspiracy to promote gambling.
Also arrested were Anthony Pecoraro, also known as "Cheese," 34, of Colts Neck, who authorities say headed the operation; Stephen Barone, 34, of Jackson; and Daniel Alaimo, 51, of Metuchen.
Barone and Alaimo acted as "agents," steering gamblers to Pecoraro in exchange for a percentage of the money generated by gambling, Forrest said.
The fifth suspect, Peter Carfaro, 26, of Brooklyn, N.Y., operated his own gambling operation in Staten Island, N.Y., and Brooklyn and placed bets with Pecoraro through Barone, Forrest said.
Operation Net-Bet Blitz began when authorities learned that gamblers in Somerset County were placing bets through www.beteastsports.com, a Web site connected to the gambling ring, authorities said.
The operation accepted thousands of dollars in illegal sports betting a month, Forrest said.
Undercover detectives were able to place dozens of bets on sporting events through the Web site, Forrest said.
Investigators found that Pecoraro controlled access to the Web site by distributing code names and passwords to the gamblers, setting gambling limits, settling disputes and paying and collecting money on the bets, Forrest said.
Three times during the investigation, an undercover state police detective met with a member of the ring in Bridgewater to pay Pecoraro for gambling losses incurred during the probe, Forrest said.
On Saturday, detectives from the prosecutor's office and the state police arrested Pecoraro and Alaimo at the Cheesequake rest area on the Garden State Parkway. The detectives had set up another meeting to pay Pecoraro for gambling losses.
Detectives seized $42,914 in cash from Pecoraro and a $4,000 check from Alaimo to Pecoraro, Forrest said.
Later that day, authorities arrested Burger at his Freehold home and seized $1,277, Forrest said.
Barone and Carfaro were then arrested at a Route 9 diner in Freehold when undercover detectives met the two to pay off more gambling debts, Forrest said. Detectives seized $5,280 from Carfaro.
Authorities said they also seized two computers, financial records, $20 in cash and a safe containing $900 from Pecoraro's home in Colts Neck. Authorities also seized a computer and financial records from Pecoraro's business, Traffic Safety Services on Hadley Road in South Plainfield.
Two computers, a CPU unit, financial records and a .357 magnum handgun were seized from Barone's home in Jackson, authorities said. Two computers were seized from his business, A Taste of Italy, on Route 9 in Howell.
Assisting in the investigation were the New Jersey State Police Troop B Criminal Investigative Office, the prosecutor's offices from Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties and police departments from Colts Neck, Freehold, Howell, Jackson and South Plainfield.
Michael Deak can be reached at (908) 707-5134 or mdeak@gannett.com.
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 Courier News. All rights reserved.
Lord Condon gambling talk spurs on IOC
By David Bond in Lausanne
Last Updated: 1:30am GMT 13/12/2007
The International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge yesterday set out plans to tackle the growing threat of corrupt gambling in sport, calling for governing bodies to develop a common approach to take on the cheats.
With football and tennis beset by match-fixing scandals, Rogge called in the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Condon, head of the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit, to brief the IOC's executive board on how other sports are dealing with the problem.
Although Rogge said he was not worried about events being fixed by cheats at next year's Beijing Games, he underlined a growing unease at the threat posed to sport's integrity by the explosion of unregulated internet gambling.
While he stressed that it was too early to talk about establishing an equivalent of the World Anti-Doping Agency for gambling, Rogge has called for a seminar of world sports federations to be held next year to discuss a unified international policy.
Rogge said: "I'm not speaking about the threat for any particular Games. I'm speaking about the threat for sport in general in the world and this is something we have to address. There are some sports more touched... than others. We've seen examples recently.
"The purpose of the IOC is to have an organised and common approach with that. This is what we did with the fight against doping and what we did in many other aspects."
Rogge revealed that, at present, the IOC do not have any information-sharing arrangements with gaming companies to ensure they are alerted in the event of suspicious betting patterns. He added, however, that he was looking at whether agreements could be set up ahead of the Beijing Games.
Uefa's investigation into 15 club games suspected of match-fixing was sparked after a tip-off from bookmakers, and a report has now been handed to Europol.
In tennis, it was internet gaming exchange Betfair who alerted the International Tennis Federation to suspicious betting patterns in a tie between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Arguello in the Poland Open.
After his 45-minute presentation to the IOC board, Condon said he was not aware that the Olympics faced any particular threat from gambling, even though the next two summer Games, in China and then in London, would be in cities with strong betting cultures. But he warned the IOC to be vigilant.
Condon said: "It's about vigilance and awareness but I think the IOC are fully aware. I don't see the Olympics as a particularly high target but it was important to describe some of the things happening."
Meanwhile the IOC executive board yesterday took the formal decision to scrub drugs cheat Marion Jones from the Olympic record book. The American sprinter had already surrendered the five medals she won at the Sydney Games in 2000 after she confessed to using banned steroids provided by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative chemist Victor Conte.
The decision on who will get the three gold and two bronzes will not be taken until the IOC have all the facts from the Balco inquiry from US federal investigators. They fear they could promote an athlete who is later linked to the scandal.
But, confirming Jones, who faces three to six months in prison for perjury, had been scrubbed from the record books, Rogge said he thought it would send a strong signal: "I still think this is a good thing for the fight against doping. The more athletes you can catch, the more credible we will be."
(c) Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007
Ladbrokes sees football as a better bet
y Roger Blitz, Leisure Industries Correspondent
Published: November 16 2007 03:06 | Last updated: November 16 2007 03:06
Betting on horseracing has been in decline for the past couple of years, Ladbrokes' chief executive said on Thursday as poor over-the-counter sales prompted a 9.4 per cent slide in the bookmaker's share price.
Chris Bell said the company's shift towards a younger football-loving customer reflected waning interest in horseracing bets.
Ladbrokes shares suffered one of their worst one-day falls since its separation from Hilton after a trading update revealed a 5 per cent drop in over-the-counter sales, which were affected by race meeting cancellations and winning runs from the English and Scottish Premier League's most heavily backed clubs.
UK retail rose 4 per cent in the four months to October 31 compared with the same period last year and was bolstered by a 25 per cent increase in gross win on its 8,200 machines.
But Ladbrokes counted the cost of 23 race meetings being abandoned during the July and August floods and poor weather conditions.
The amount of stakes on football betting, which Ladbrokes is heavily promoting in a 4.7m gbp ($9.6m) television advertising campaign, is significantly higher than last year in spite of the 2006 football World Cup. But margins suffered because of unfavourable results for clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Celtic.
Mr Bell said: "There is an underlying trend that shows [betting on] UK horseracing is on a permanent decline. It's tough right now."
High-rollers continue to boost its overall numbers, swelling telephone betting net sales to 91.8m gbp and contributing to a 84 per cent rise in pre-tax profits. Profits excluding high-rollers rose 12 per cent.
Ladbrokes' total gross win rose 33 per cent but, when high-rollers were stripped out, the increase was 7 per cent. Early November trading showed continuing high-roller telephone activity.
Internet betting grew 5 per cent but net revenue growth in sportsbook, casino and games was undermined by weaker margins and lower net sales growth in poker.
Analysts tended towards pessimism. Paul Leyland at Arbuthnot warned of regulatory threats on machines and the ongoing dispute over the level of bookmakers' contribution to the statutory racing levy.
Nigel Parson at Evolution Securities said the underlying business was disappointing and underlying growth "is still dull".
Ladbrokes bought 17 shops in Italy. It said that premises in Spain were being fitted out in the expectation of receiving a Madrid regional operating licence.
Shares fell 35 1/2p to 344p.
(c) Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2007.
Top leagues seek power in EU gambling market
By Darren Ennis
BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Europe's top soccer leagues want a say in how betting licences are granted as part of a campaign to defend their lucrative image rights.
The move comes at a time when the European Commission is using legal action to force 10 states to make it easier for foreign or private companies to obtain licences and compete with state-owned monopolies.
In a letter sent to EU sport ministers obtained by Reuters, the European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), which represents over 20 of the top leagues in Europe, claim betting companies and national lotteries are exploiting their intellectual property rights worth billions of euros in revenue.
"We (EPFL) would suggest that, as a priority, legislation that must target ambush marketing and internet piracy, as well as sports betting, where unlawful exploitation of rights holders' intellectual property has continued unfettered for too long," the letter said.
Leagues, such as the English Premier League and Spain's La Liga, want compensation from betting companies or lotteries for the use of their logos, results, tables or any pictures related to their organisations.
They also want to be formally consulted in the awarding of any new betting licences and are seeking a review of current agreements in a bid to combat match-fixing which has stained the game and other sports in recent years. "The EPFL is about to conclude a negotiation process with the European Lotteries (71 lotteries from 41 countries) and ESSA (7 largest private operators) in order to effectively detect irregular betting patterns and thus prevent possible match-fixing attempts related to professional football competitions at the national level," the letter said.
Italian soccer was rocked by a match-fixing scandal last year involving a number of its top clubs, while an Asian businessman is wanted by Belgian police in relation to a betting cartel which also spanned to Britain and Finland.
ACTION LIKELY
Tennis has also become embroiled in reports of match-fixing and bribery allegations in the last number of months.
"Unless sports bodies have a say in how betting licences are handed out and a role in policing them, then we cannot combat this disease," a senior EPFL official told Reuters.
The EPFL, which said it is backed by "a coalition of sports rights holders", hopes a victory in its battle at European level will lead Brussels to fight its corner on a global level.
"If we get recognition in Europe, then we would hope that the EU would try and help us to find a global solution with global rules as much of the exploitation takes place in areas such Asia," the EPFL official said.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has conceded there is no chance of rules to create a single market in betting being adopted as many states derive large tax revenues from state-owned lotteries.
Instead, he is using the bloc's legal powers against 10 EU states to stop them from using unjustified legal restrictions to foreign or private sector competition, with some success.
France meets with McCreevy next month to discuss proposals to open up its sports betting market and end a legal action.
"It is quite likely that we will have another number of member states in our focus in the coming months as well," McCreevy told Reuters in an interview.
"The European Court of Justice has laid down quite clearly that gambling is a service same as anything else and have laid down the rules about this and we are applying the law," McCreevy said. (Additional reporting by Huw Jones in Brussels and Jonathan Saul in Dublin)
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Internet Gambling Act Should Be Scrapped: Joe Saumarez-Smith
By Joe Saumarez Smith
Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A year ago last Saturday, President George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and online gambling was banned in the U.S.
At least, that was the intention. Twelve months later, there are just as many people gambling online, if not more. Many bettors don't even know the law was changed, partly because it was tacked on as an amendment to a measure aimed at increasing port security.
The biggest difference now is that the companies offering online gambling are privately held and operate out of countries where it is impossible to know who controls them; if you had a huge win, then the risk of not being paid is probably much higher. The major public companies that used to offer online betting to Americans, such as PartyGaming Plc, 888 Holdings Plc and Sportingbet Plc, all quit the U.S. market last October at a cost of several billion dollars to their shareholders.
America's banks and financial institutions were given 270 days from the passage of the law to block gambling transactions. The detailed rules on how to do this and how to spot a gambling transaction are still to be completed. As a result, online poker rooms, sports bookies and casinos are still able to get money from and send money to their customers, albeit not as easily as a year ago.
Meanwhile, Americans are free to place online bets on lotteries and horse racing as those forms of gambling were deemed legal. They can also visit any number of legal casinos, poker rooms, racetracks or Off Track Betting centers, and play state lotteries.
The situation is, in short, a mess.
Unrealistic Bans
As America learned during Prohibition, some bans are unrealistic. The online gambling law shows that legislators weren't paying enough attention in history class.
At least Prohibition aimed to prevent the consumption of alcohol across the U.S. without exceptions. Banning some types of online gambling while allowing exemptions for lotteries and horse racing is protectionism of the worst kind.
The law criminalized those it described as being "in the business of betting'' and made it illegal to handle money for the purpose of online gambling. That means individuals still aren't breaching any federal law by placing bets.
The daily number of poker players online worldwide was about 34,000 in September, down less than half a percentage point from a year earlier, according to Dennis Boyko at PokerPulse.com in Vancouver. Poker players online in the U.S. have dropped only slightly, said Boyko, who has monitored the number of online players since January 2003.
Gambling Addiction
The law's supporters argued that banning online gambling would lower levels of gambling addiction.
"We do not see any decrease in the number of online gamblers seeking help, and anecdotally we see an increase,'' said Kevin Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling in Washington. "As with alcohol and drugs, prohibition of online gambling is one of the most ineffective ways of addressing a public health problem.''
The law may have made it harder for children to gamble online.
Dan Romer, research director of the Adolescent Risk Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, said its annual survey shows a reduction in underage gamblers on the Internet.
"It is simply harder for children to get their bets on online because it is more difficult to deposit now,'' he said.
World Trade Organization
There is a small chance that the U.S. may be forced to repeal the law. The Antiguan government, which licensed many of the online sports bookies targeting the American market, has taken the U.S. to the World Trade Organization, arguing that anti-gambling laws restrict free trade. The WTO agreed, but the Americans have so far ignored the rulings. The U.S. may be forced to change its stance once WTO sanctions start to bite.
If legislators were brave, they would use the WTO ruling as an excuse to reverse the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and instead legalize and tax the online gambling industry. That would allow the U.S. government to know who was offering its citizens the chance to gamble, and to impose rules and restrictions that would prevent children and vulnerable groups from placing bets. It would also generate vast tax revenues.
Oddly, perhaps the biggest opponents of legalizing online gambling are the major sports leagues and organizations. The National Football League and National Collegiate Athletic Association are the most vocal of these, believing that betting may taint their sports.
Legalize It
The leagues ignore the fact that in pretty much every town across the U.S. you can place a bet at a local bar or barber shop and that the people who suffer financially when a game is fixed are the bookmakers, who have to pay out the winnings.
Almost all the point-shaving scandals of recent years have been uncovered because Las Vegas bookies noticed unusual betting patterns and pointed them out to the relevant authorities. If all betting could be done through legal channels, then these markets would be easier to police.
Laws that are either widely disobeyed or unworkable are bad laws. A year after its passing, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is both disobeyed and unworkable.
The sooner it's scrapped, the better.
(Joe Saumarez-Smith is chief executive officer of Sports Gaming, a U.K. management consulting firm to the gaming industry. He also owns European online bingo companies and odds comparison Web sites. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Joe Saumarez-Smith at jssmith15@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: October 19, 2007 00:06 EDT
(c)2007 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
'Friday Night Lights': Has Everyone Forsaken Small-Town Values?
10/15/07
Okay, so after overblown season debut - in which Landry kills the stalker who tried to rape Tyra last season - it was time to restore peace to Dillon in episode two. As peaceful as things ever get anyway. The seeds are now in the ground for a season's worth of blowups, heartaches, and wounds that can only be mended by winning football games. First of all, Landry and Tyra, in the afterglow of his heroism, got it on, a budding romance that, like all teenage romances, is surely doomed. Given that this is Friday Night Lights, doom will take some especially crushing form, no doubt related to poor decisions, on the part of both the characters and the writers, to dispose of the body and cover up the death.
Meanwhile, Landry's pal Matt Saracen, the brooding backup QB, was dumped unceremoniously by Coach Taylor's daughter Julie. Who didn't see this coming? How a cutie like her ever went for such a sad sack we'll never understand. Fortunately, a new love interest arrived on the scene for Matt in the person of the Latina caring for his doddering grandma. At least, we're pretty sure she's going to be his love interest because she's hot (naturally) and has already busted his balls. While scolding him on the disheveled state of his bedroom, she reached under his mattress and pulled out his porno mags, the sine qua non of teenage-boy humiliation. "Haven't you heard of the Internet?" she taunted him. Matt is going to fall for her hard. The only question is whether it will be mutual, and here's betting the answer is no. That kid is going to have to get his ass off the bench and play some serious football to find love this season.
Finally, there is the megadrama that figures to drive the entire season - Coach Taylor, who took the big assistant-coach gig at far-off Texas Methodist University, is clearly chafing at the distance from his wife and newborn child, as well as at the inhumanity of the whole big-time operation. After helping prevent an arrogant star player from losing his college eligibility, Taylor goes to see the TMU head coach and is told, as a form of thanks, that he must have been a helluva high-school coach. Right you are, sir! One way or another, Taylor will choose family life and small-town values over careerism and return to Dillon this season. There's no time to waste, now that Julie, having forsaken Matt, is succumbing to the charms of the van-driving dude from the pool who doesn't give a shit about football. High-school girls in Texas are supposed to know better than that!
A note about the music: A lovely bit of Big Star's "September Gurls" livened up a montage of kids returning to school. Nice! Then the episode closed with a tune from cheeseball eighties revivalists the Bravery. More Big Star, please. -Hugo Lindgren
Copyright (c) 2007, New York Magazine Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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