Commentary: Gambling Refs No Surprise

A report from the University of Michigan says college basketball officials are gambling; gambling on sports, and gambling with the integrity of the game. The report says 40 percent of the officials surveyed have gambled on sports. 23 percent have bet on the NCAA tournament. Two officials said they were approached about fixing a game, twelve officials said they knoew of colleagues who had not called a game fairly because of gambling, and two guys actually admitted to making bad calls because they knew the point spread. Is this report disturbing and sad? Yes. Is it surprising. Not really. Gambling is rampant throughout sports. I would love to believe that gamblers have no effect on the games I love to watch, and that athletes and officials would never take a pay-off. But you know it happens. Oh, I don’t think every game is fixed, I’m not a major conspiracy theorist, but it happens. Points are shaved, bad calls are made, people make money. It happens in college and it happens in the pros. Always has, always will. You may think you know enough about sports to gamble, but you never know when the fix is in.