Interference (62 page)

When I asked Schettler about today's outlaw line, he replied, “The whole world doesn't hinge on the Stardust line. There're guys who put lines up around the country before the Stardust. I'm talking about the outlaw bookmakers. They still have their own man-to-man betting system. They take bets and move their line. But we don't care what the outlaws have. We make our own line no matter what anybody else thinks. We put our own numbers up. We get no opinions from the outlaws.”

In fact, today the first gamblers to have the opportunity to bet into the Stardust line are from the general betting public. By the time the Stardust opens its line on the NFL and college games at 6:00
P.M
. every Sunday of the football season, a lottery to determine who bets first has already been conducted. Anyone who wants to bet into the initial line signs his name on a list, which is available at the front of the sports book throughout the day. When the list is picked up by the Stardust staff at 5:50, those who have signed it will have their names called.

They then draw cards to determine the order of gamblers who are each assigned to a specific cashier's window. The bettors quietly get in line. They understand that their minimum bet has to be at least $200. The most they can bet on an NFL game is $50,000; the limit on a major college game is $10,000.
⁴

“In other words,” says Roxborough, “everything has changed since the days of the old outlaw line. The public now has the opportunity to bet on the Stardust line before any of the so-called inside professionals.”

When I asked Schettler why he created the lottery system, he replied, “It was out of necessity. The way it used to be done was a few wise guys bet the line first. Then the line would flatten out and all the bargains would be gone. We put the line up for the public. It's never been bet into. It's a virgin line.

“Before the lottery, guys were coming in here two days
before Sunday. And then it got to be so bad that they would come in a week ahead of time. People would pay guys five or six dollars an hour to stand in line twenty-four hours a day. I got so sick of seeing these people. Finally, I came in one day and some guy had left his place in line to get a cup of coffee and when he came back there was a guy in his place. And he told the new guy, ‘You took my spot, and I want it back.' And the guy who took the spot opened his coat, and there was a gun. That's when I created the lottery.

“At first, we just opened the telephones, just so people wouldn't have to come in here and kill each other just to stand in line to give us their money. But the reason why we're in this business is to get people to come to this hotel and its casino. Hey, the guy who is sitting at his house is not going to come here and blow his money on something else.

“So then we came up with the lottery system. The government should come in here and watch how we do this—because it is a model of true democracy. The system couldn't be fairer. The gamblers police themselves. We put the list there. If you're first or second in line, you have to make a bet. You can't come in here with ten guys and whoever gets the best number will cause the other nine to drop out of line. So by forcing these guys to make a bet eliminates guys coming in here and clogging up the lines. If you get drawn and don't make a bet, you're out of the lottery forever.

“Also, once we draw the cards, there is no talking. The reason for that is, say, if you draw number seven and another guy draws number one, you could go up to him and say, ‘Hey, make this bet for me.' And then the system would be useless. And, again, the gamblers actually police each other. Also, if you talk in line after the lottery, you're history. If one guy in line hands another guy in line a piece of paper with a bet on it, the gamblers will tell on him in a second. And then the guy who handed the paper is history. The system is for them and for us. And it's the only way it can work.”

At 6:00
P.M
. a Stardust employee who is standing in front of a microphone begins to read off only the favorite college teams along with the number of points in which they are favored. The opposing, underdog team is not mentioned. There is total silence in the large room as the thirty favored college teams and their lines are read off.

“Notre Dame minus twenty-one and a half … Duke and six and a half … Pittsburgh minus two … Iowa and twenty-four …”

After the college games are finished, the pros are read off. Twelve games are mentioned—“Chicago plus five … Minnesota and six and a half … Houston minus three and a half … New Orleans and thirteen …”

The thirteenth and fourteenth games to be played the next week involving the two teams playing each other the following night on
Monday Night Football
are not included. The line on their games will depend on their performances and casualties on Monday night.

After the pro games have been read off, those who have signed the list and drawn cards step up to the window and begin rattling off their bets. As the bets are being made, the line begins to move—with a Stardust employee calling out the shifts in the point spreads. No computer is computing the changing odds; in fact, the computer is ignored when the betting opens. The Stardust bookmaker, without the benefit of the computer, makes his own personal calculations to move the line, strictly based upon his own experience and his estimate of the money being bet. The computer is simply a bookkeeping device after the initial, frantic wave of action has been completed.

The first man in the lottery on September 18, 1988—who was wearing a blue jogging suit, carrying a clipboard, and bearding for persons unknown—told me, “We have a pretty good idea of what the numbers are going to be before they're read off. After I write them down while they're reading them off, I go down both lists and bet the games I want to bet. If something unexpected has happened, I'll take that into consideration too. Money is no object. My job is to take the lead. Our people will try to middle later on in the week.”

Although reforms are evident on the Las Vegas sports-gambling scene, it would be naïve to think that the underworld has no further interest in Nevada—or that the state's gaming industry will never again be confronted with charges of penetration by the mob. But the key to the continued smooth and honest functioning of the legal Nevada sports books—as well as to the integrity of the NFL—will be keeping the organized-crime gambling syndicate's influence over professional sports in check. This
means strong and vigilant law enforcement and surveillance in Nevada and within the NFL. And that demands public officials who are more sensitive to the problem of organized crime in America, and members of the sports media who are more willing to report it.

January 1989 Epilogue:

On Legalizing Sports Gambling

If once a government indulges itself with organized crime, very soon it comes to think little of political corruption; and from this corruption it next comes to bingo, state lotteries, offtrack betting, and casinos; and from there to legalizing team sports gambling, drug dealing, and murder—while its people grow fearful and selfish, prone to incivility and procrastination. Inevitably, the government, itself, becomes organized crime.

—The author, with an apology to Thomas De Quincey

EACH YEAR, GAMBLING on professional football reaches new heights. Mobsters, gamblers, and drug dealers use their contacts in the NFL to obtain inside information that will help them cover the spread. Games are occasionally thought to be fixed; points are sometimes suspected to have been shaved. Betting lines are printed in the major newspapers around the country. Television oddsmakers are paid by the networks to make their picks, which occasionally do nothing more than mislead viewers and help bookmakers to balance their books. Consequently, sports fans outside of Nevada who reject man-to-man betting and bet illegally with bookmakers are exploited by the entire process.

Sports gambling, particularly on NFL games, is widespread and virtually out of control in America, and no reasonable law appears to dissuade the public from gambling illegally. Meantime, public officials are trying to quench the public's thirst for gambling while being responsive to increasing budgetary demands on local, state, and federal governments. Since 1987, several states have passed laws providing for offtrack betting—upscale versions of the OTB operation in New York.

Unavoidably, the question of whether or not team sports gambling should be legalized, regulated, and taxed by responsible government agencies will soon become a major public-policy issue.

Advocates of legalization adhere to the argument that gambling is going to continue regardless of laws they consider to be archaic and essentially unenforceable. They also express deeper, more fundamental questions about whether the government should be legislating personal morality—while insisting that legalization would drive organized crime out of the sports-gambling business.

Opponents charge that legalizing sports gambling will have a broad and serious impact on society. They contend that this system—in which the state assumes the role as bookmaker—will particularly harm lower-income people. They also cite an increase in political payoffs, loan-sharking, street violence, and other crimes that have traditionally accompanied legal and illegal gambling operations. And they add that legalization will give the American public an even higher toleration for other forms of organized-crime activities, such as drug trafficking—which has also become a subject of debate for possible legalization, because that problem, too, is growing uncontrollable.

Most people directly involved in sports, professional gambling, or law enforcement have strong feelings about the issue of legalizing sports gambling. And their opinions, in view of their professions, are not as predictable as one might think.

Pete Rozelle and NFL Security were consistent in their position against legalization, contending that it would impact on “the integrity of the game.” Of course, the NFL has never publicly challenged the sports media on the ethics of printing the line or hiring handicappers to discuss point spreads. Rozelle and the NFL owners, like the television networks, understood that a betting public means higher revenues. Perhaps this is the best indication that the antigambling stance by the NFL has been hypocritical and nothing more than a public-relations charade that is certainly not rooted in principle.

Former San Diego Chargers owner Gene Klein, who had become a giant in the thoroughbred-racing world, told me in September 1988, “I firmly believe that people are going to gamble. I now bet, but I won't bet with [an illegal] bookie. I'm going to Vegas tomorrow. I've got five horses running around the country. I'm going to sit there, and I'm going to watch those five horses. I'm going to bet on them, and any other horse I want to bet on. And I'm going to watch UCLA play Nebraska, and I'm going to bet on that fucking game. And I'm going to see what the odds are, and I'll bet five or six pro games. Perfectly legal. I'll hand them the money, and I'll get my slips.

“I go to the races a lot. Three weekends ago the offtrack betting and the handle at Del Mar was $9.2 million. And on one Sunday it was $9.8 million. People are going to gamble.

“In England, you can pick up the phone, call your bookie, make a bet, and watch the race. One day, you will go to a baseball game or a football game and there will be betting booths. You'll have all kinds of exotic bets. You'll pay your money, you'll get a receipt, and you'll win or lose.”

When I asked Klein about the impact that legalization will have on fans who then expect their teams to cover the spread, he replied, “In last week's Charger-Raiders game, the Chargers were five-point underdogs. I gave the five points. The Raiders were leading by three with thirty seconds to go. The Raiders had the ball on the Chargers one yard line. They took the ball and the
quarterback got down on one knee. Game's over, right? Except the Chargers called time out. Why would they call time out? The next play they [Raiders] went over for a touchdown. Draw whatever conclusion you want to draw.”

Predictably, former national oddsmaker Bobby Martin also supports legalization and told me, “The NFL says that it can live with illegal gambling, but it cannot live with legal gambling. I think Rozelle said that, which is ridiculous. Legalizing gambling is better than what you have now. It's not a hundred percent. It's not going to change everything overnight. But it's an improvement over the present conditions. It'll create quite a few jobs. The government will realize some revenue. It will have its drawbacks along the way. People may bet what they can't afford, which you have in the lottery. But it's better than what exists at the moment: an underground gambling network spread over the United States—from which the government gets nothing.”

Las Vegas gambler Lem Banker disagrees with his old friend Bob Martin. “I'm against it,” Banker says. “Most people can't control themselves. The average guy who likes to watch football and gamble will just bury himself. It's a scary thing. It's not like betting on a horse for five or ten dollars. The guy who bets fifty dollars cash on a football game will bet five hundred dollars over the telephone. But if it is legalized and if anybody does start booking, it should be the insurance companies. They're the best pricemakers in the world. And they'd make a ton of money.”

Marty Kane, the former manager of the Stardust Sports Book, told me, “It's wrong for the state to gamble. But sports gambling will work if the state licenses independent contractors to bankroll the operations and allows them to take their percentage. In other words, just do it the way they do it in Nevada.”

Kane's successor, Scott Schettler, who has operated the Stardust Sports Book since 1983, agrees with Kane, adding, “People have been contacting me all over the country, asking me how the states could operate a sports book. But the government could never, ever run a book—because the margin of profit is so small. They'd only make about two and a half percent. Can you imagine the bureaucracy? The only way it would work is if it is done like it's done here in Nevada: private industry which is regulated and taxed by the state.”