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It’s Odd Business With This Madness

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To borrow a line from Capt. Renault in “Casablanca,” I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on here.

But unlike Capt. Renault, who delivered his famous line while collecting from the croupier at Rick’s Cafe Americain, I actually was shocked to find gambling on the NCAA’s official Internet Web site.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. April 1, 2000 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday April 1, 2000 Home Edition Sports Part D Page 9 Sports Desk 1 inches; 23 words Type of Material: Correction
NCAA--Arnie Wexler, a recovering compulsive gambler, has a hot line--(888) LAST BET--for others similarly afflicted. The number was incorrect in a story Friday.

That is the same NCAA that is marching on Washington in an effort to ban betting on college sports in Las Vegas, the same NCAA whose concerns prompted CBS to sever ties last year with an online sports book, the same NCAA that has threatened newspapers that accept advertising from gambling touts to withhold credentials for its events, and the same NCAA that is sponsoring a media campaign counseling, “Don’t Bet On It.”

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Yet, in the days after the release of the NCAA tournament brackets, you could log onto the NCAA’s official Web site, www.NCAA.org, click on the official tournament site, FinalFour.net, then click on the banner ad for Maxim magazine and enter a contest called Maxim Madness.

The contest was similar to the office pools in which you select winners in each of the tournament’s 63 games, and although you were not required in this case to put down money in order to play, more than $45,000 in prize money was offered.

No one at Maxim headquarters in London could tell me exactly how many people entered the contest, but I did learn that the site was deluged, to the extent that the magazine issued an e-mail advising would-be contestants to stay up late in order to have a chance to register.

Now, I should confess that I am not an anti-gambling crusader, as long as the gambling is done legally and in moderation. Because entrants weren’t risking their own money, I’m not even sure if this contest constituted gambling, at least not with a capital G. The people at Gambler’s Anonymous disagree, but you would expect them to have a stricter definition than most of us.

Others, however, who have studied this issue are concerned about the possible implications.

“Although completing a bracket without any risk [financial or otherwise] by definition is not gambling,” one person who is waging war against gambling on college campuses, wrote this month, “it may encourage gambling behaviors among youth who, according to research studies, start gambling through sports wagering.”

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The letter, obtained this week by The Times, was written to the NCAA’s corporate and media partners by Cedric Dempsey, the NCAA’s executive director.

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“This was a flat-out error,” NCAA spokesman Wally Renfro said Wednesday, although it should not come as a surprise that he tried to deflect blame from the NCAA.

He blamed Total Sports, an NCAA corporate partner that is responsible for the NCAA’s official Final Four Web site and had a separate arrangement with Maxim.

“Their banner wasn’t supposed to go on our Web site,” Renfro said, alluding to Maxim. “We didn’t know it was going to be there and we absolutely do not condone it.”

As soon as NCAA officials became aware of it, he said, they ordered that it be removed from the Web site.

He couldn’t recall the day that edict was issued.

But it wasn’t until after the tournament started. In other words, not until everyone who was going to enter the contest had already filled out the brackets.

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Some find the NCAA’s explanation more than a little disingenuous.

“The NCAA parades a get-tough message to the public, but then allows its name and logo to be used to promote gambling,” said Arnie Wexler, a recovering compulsive gambler who has a hotline--(877) LAST BET--for others similarly afflicted.

“Too bad there is not another word in the English language to describe such hypocrisy.”

He added that the NCAA’s “Don’t Bet On It” message should be replaced with, “Gambling on college basketball is morally reprehensible . . . unless we get a piece of the action.”

“While the NCAA and the media glorify the Big Dance,” he concluded, “I’m on the phone trying to talk kids out of killing themselves.”

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Point-shaving scandals have been uncovered in the last decade at Arizona State, Boston College and Northwestern. In a University of Michigan study released Wednesday, 84.4% of Division I football and basketball game officials who were surveyed said they have gambled and 40% said they have gambled on sports.

The NCAA knows it has a problem, and, although you might not agree with some of its strategies in combating gambling, it has not, in my opinion, overreacted.

But because the NCAA has been so sanctimonious in promoting its cause, it must be especially vigilant in avoiding anything that can be construed as promoting gambling.

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As Dempsey wrote in his letter, which was dated six days before the brackets were announced and was intended to discourage just the kind of contest that Maxim devised, “One of the most positive ways a corporate sponsor can help to attack sports gambling is to eliminate the connection between the Final Four bracket and gambling. . . .

“The NCAA’s endorsement of such promotions by its corporate partners may send a mixed message to the public regarding the NCAA’s position on gambling and may provide the media an opportunity to criticize the NCAA’s gambling policies as being hypocritical.”

Yes, it may.

But it is even more hypocritical for the NCAA to merely dismiss the matter as a flat-out error.

According to NCAA rules, as interpreted by compliance officers at major universities, an athlete proven to have entered the Maxim Madness contest would have been guilty of a violation and presumably would have been suspended.

“Would the NCAA allow that athlete’s defense to be that he made a mistake? I don’t think so,” said Marc Isenberg, an athlete’s advocate and founder of the AthleteNetwork.com Web site.

As evidenced by numerous cases this basketball season, among them JaRon Rush’s at UCLA, the NCAA is not a benevolent dictator.

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Will someone at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis accept responsibility?

Don’t bet on it.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.

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” The NCAA’s endorsement of such promotions [Maxim Madness] by its corporate partners may send a mixed message to the public regarding the NCAA’s position on gambling and may provide the media an opportunity to criticize the NCAA’s gambling policies as being hypocritical.”

Excerpt from letter, right, written to NCAA’s corporate, media partners written by Cedric Dempsey, the NCAA’s executive director

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