Outlawing betting on amateur sports will give pause to many, he said. And Brownback said a stiffer law might persuade news organizations to stop publishing Las Vegas oddsmakers' college point spread predictions, which he said underpin the illegal bookmaking industry. It probably won't, said Arnie Wexler, a reformed sports gambling addict, counselor and national lecturer. But it also won't curb gambling on campus, which Wexler says is epidemic and getting worse. I've worked with young kids who have stolen things, sold their cars to support their gambling habit.
College athletes caught up in shaving scandals lose their scholarships.
I know one who's working in a grocery store today. He really liked St. Louis and was giving 8 points. But St. Louis won the game by 7 points, and the student doesn't have the money to pay off all the bets he was holding. Kansas City has had its share of illegal gambling scandals. In 1975 a federal grand jury indicted 10 men on charges of conducting an illegal bookmaking operation following a five-year sting operation that included FBI wiretaps of area businesses and residences.