Oregon Getting Set for Wagering on National Football League Games

In a couple of weeks, a new football season opens in Oregon. Fans will walk up to counters around the state, plunk down a dollar, make a few choices and leave with a ticket -- their lottery ticket.

Before this summer, the National Football League and the state of Oregon probably were never mentioned in the same sentence. Then along came a new, controversial lottery and the result is a war of words over the ideals and realities of U.S. sports, a war that yet may land another professional sport in court.

The Oregon lottery game, approved by the state’s lottery commission and seconded by the state’s legislators in July, is called Sports Action. For as little as a dollar and up to $20 a card, players pick four to 14 NFL games against the point spread. Picking four games correctly will pay about $8 on a $1 card. Fourteen of 14 is expected to pay about $8,000.

Oregon Lottery officials predict sales of $10 million to $30 million this season. And after paying off winners and administrative costs, the lottery’s proceeds will go to the athletic departments of the state’s seven universities and colleges. Between $4 million and $9 million is expected to benefit college sports in the state, with a potential $3 million apiece going to the University of Oregon and Oregon State this year.

The NFL hates this. It is on record as being opposed to gambling on its games, even though point spreads are an unmistakable part of newspaper statistics and televised network football broadcasts. And the fact that the money goes to fund college sports makes matters even worse, according to the league.

“We view it as a change in the traditional stance that colleges have taken in opposition to legalized gambling,” said NFL spokesman Joe Browne. “We’re all for full funding of athletic programs, but not for piggybacking on NFL games in this way.”

Administrators of both the lottery and college athletic departments in Oregon love it. Gambling is a fact of life, they say, and their game is small change to the big money of Las Vegas bookmaking. They are happy to take whatever they can get.

“It’s terrific,” said Oregon Athletic Director Bill Byrne. “We have the only state legislature in the country that chose not to fund women’s sports when Title IX was instituted, so we had to drop swimming and baseball to add women’s programs in 1980. Those sports won’t come back because of this, but the money certainly will help us. All this is, really, is a state-run office pool. I have no problem at all accepting the money.”

The NFL still is considering legal action, Browne said, but it must act fast: The season starts Sept. 10. NFL attorney James B. Noel recently met with Jim Davey, director of the Oregon Lottery, to find out the specifics of the lottery.

“Now we see where we go next,” Browne said.

Faced with a similar situation in 1976 in Delaware, the NFL sued and lost, but the lottery went under during the appeals process. Projected revenues of $6 million to $8 million fell far short; the lottery did about $700,000 in business.

But the Delaware lottery was different from the new Oregon lottery. Delaware had predetermined winnings, while Oregon is going to use a parimutuel payout system, meaning that winners receive a share of the prize pool. Also Delaware officials set their own point spreads; Oregon officials plan to use a Las Vegas oddsmaker. This, the folks in Oregon say, will lead to more realistic odds.

“I think they might be successful, just on a smaller scale than Las Vegas,” said Mike Tenay, a supervisor at the race and sports book of the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. “It’s the office pool, only larger stakes. I like the idea.”

In a 1977 opinion in a federal court in Delaware, Judge Walter K. Stapleton said that betting on NFL games had been going on so long without damaging the league or its reputation that there was no reason to stop the Delaware lottery. But, Browne said, the NFL “felt very strong” about its chances on appeal when the lottery folded and the case was dropped.

Since then favorable decisions on trademark and licensing issues “would help our case, we feel, if we do go to litigation,” Browne said.

But Davey said the lottery commission is aware of those concerns and has been careful to avoid conflicts with the NFL in its new game.

“We use no team nicknames, no team colors, no team uniforms,” Davey said. “It will just say Washington and Dallas, with the point spread. That’s it.”

The advertising also is generic. Posters appear at the counter showing football players in nondescript uniforms.

There also is a disclaimer saying the game is not sponsored or promoted by the NFL.

“If the NFL is so concerned about gambling, why don’t they go into Nevada and clean that out? We have $1 bets. They have $1 million bets. Go after the big boys, then come after us,” Davey said.

The problem isn’t Oregon, but the developing trend that has the NFL all worked up. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia conduct lotteries, but none, save Delaware, ever involved professional team sports.

“We are not concerned about the two senior citizens in Oregon putting down $1 on a gambling sheet,” said Browne. “What we are concerned about is what this will lead to.”

Lottery officials in Kentucky are talking about a similar game, and New Hampshire and Massachusetts are interested. “We don’t want to see this throughout the 50 states,” said Browne.

The amount of money gambled on sports in this country in a year is staggering: an estimated $20 billion to $40 billion. Counting non-sports betting, estimates range to more than $200 billion, with approximately $40 billion going through illegal bookmakers, Davey said.

“We don’t think we’re expanding gambling at all,” he said.

What bothers the NFL is the thought that fans, betting legally, will be more concerned about the point spread than about their team winning or losing. As for Las Vegas, the sports books were doing business “when we were simply a cottage industry,” Browne said.

“The lottery commission says the state will reap the benefits that now go to the neighborhood bookie,” he said. “Well, if people believe that, I’ve got a bridge in New York I’d like to sell them. This state-approved lottery allows no credit, no tax-free earnings and gives smaller odds and smaller payoffs than a bookie. Rather than taking business away from a bookie, lotteries like this will just produce a new generation of gamblers in America.”

“You have to laugh a little bit at the NFL’s argument,” retorted Byrne, who said the estimated $3 million that the Oregon athletic department will receive will just about cover the cost of non-revenue sports this year.

“They raise the specter of the evils of gambling on a $1 bet. I’ve heard them mention organized crime. It’s just a little bit ridiculous. I haven’t heard the NFL complain about oddsmakers on TV. They seem to enjoy the broadcasting revenue. They don’t complain about point spreads in the paper.”

Byrne also said it’s not a novel idea for money bet on state lotteries to be sent to state colleges and universities.

“We will fund our faculty salaries from video poker,” he said. “A $50 million science center is under construction at the University of Oregon, thanks to the lottery. The $100 million Portland Convention Center too. If it’s perfectly all right for the lottery to fund these things, why not help the athletic programs too?”