Make sure sports gambling is a good bet

So should we legalize sports betting? They did it in New Jersey and my bet is that the bridges and tunnels leading there will be very busy. Like the casino movement, jealous and always cash starved New York will be late to the game but the result is inevitable: we’ll have it. No question that gambling is alive and well in New York. We all know that the dailies print information like the number of people who attend ball games which, I am told, is often the number that people bet on.

There are several problems that lawmakers have to worry about when they allow sports betting. One is that players will begin to throw games on purpose. Of course, we all know that your team doesn’t have to lose -- it only has to lose by a number of points. How do you know if someone dropped the ball because they couldn’t catch it or because they or their gambler friends had money on the game? Of course, we all know that once you get involved with crooked people, they own you. If anyone questions whether there will be crooked sports people, one has to look no further than Pete Rose or to the steroids scandal.

“But how will anyone know?” ask the guys who gamble on themselves. Once you do it, someone will always know. A secret is never a secret after you tell one person. So the athletes themselves are problem number one. You can bet that the already competitive players will tell on each other. If you can’t beat them on the field, beat them by telling.

Problem two is a sort of socio-economic issue. Often many of the people who take illegal bets are connected to the underworld. Being a bookie has always been a semi-respectable way to make money. And numbers runners are often lower on the economic ladder. So, while the economically superior Republican State Senate in New York is all for allowing sports betting, the Assembly, the so-called lower or people’s house won’t do it, at least this year. After all, if your constituents make their living running numbers or taking bets they really will not be happy with you for putting a stop to their way of life. In addition, God forbid that any of our legislators have connections to the mob.

Right now there is a furious competition between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon for African American votes and some people may suggest that the state takeover of gambling, including the taxing of the same, will be just another sign of discriminatory economic and legal behavior on the part of the government. I don’t see a lot of passion from either candidate on the issue.

I understand the reasons why people don’t want to allow sports betting. As for me, I am reluctantly for it. I would prefer that the state taxed the betting. If the question is whether the mob gets the proceeds or the state does, I am all for the latter. We all know that crooks fight among themselves and the results aren’t that pretty. The death penalty may be gone in many states but in the underworld a lot of people get dead. If crooks are going to get rich, it will only make things worse.

Now you may ask, why not take the same attitude toward legalizing and taxing prostitution the way the Dutch do? I am reluctantly in favor of that, too. Right now the mobsters are exploiting women and keeping it all. If you legalize prostitution, the state can tax and ensure that health standards are met. After all, as the late Bessie Smith once sang, “There are lots of ways to sell it, baby,” but don’t get me started on that.

These are tough questions but as long as state legislatures have to consider them, a lot of people will be checking in. Alan Chartock is professor emeritus at the State University of New York, publisher of the Legislative Gazette and president and CEO of the WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network. Readers can email him at alan@wamc.org.