Groth lashes out at NCAA ruling

Nevada athletic director Cary Groth lashed out against the NCAA on Thursday after it approved a policy earlier in the day that bans states from hosting championship events if they allow people to bet on single games.

"My personal opinion of this ruling, it's ridiculous," Groth said. "There is a guiding principal in the NCAA manual that says that the NCAA will provide equitable opportunities for institutions for success or to compete or something like that, it's pretty close to what I'm saying. Well, that flies in the face of one their guiding principals.

"Second of all, anybody can bet on sports from any state. There's international sport betting that's legal and then anybody can pick up a phone and call a buddy of theirs in Montana, Nevada and Delaware and say, 'Hey, will you place a bet for me?'"

Nevada is one of four states that were grandfathered into a 1992 congressional ruling that banned sports betting - Nevada along with Delaware, Montana and Oregon already offered it prior to the ruling. Oregon no longer has any form of sports betting and Montana does not take bets on single games.

The policy came one day after a federal judge denied a request by the NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball to halt Delaware's planned reinstatement of sports betting, which had been dormant since 1976 when the state offered it for just one year.

Chancellors and presidents from all three NCAA divisions approved the measure, saying it applies to "any session of an NCAA championship," though it does not apply to states that allow only parlay betting, lottery tickets, pull tabs and sports pools.

The ruling extends from NCAA championship games to regional games, such as the format used in college basketball and baseball. Las Vegas has hosted several regional women's basketball tournaments with the last coming in 1992.

The ruling does not, however, impact conference championships or non-Bowl Championship Series bowl games. Las Vegas hosts both the Mountain West and West Coast conference basketball tournaments and will add the Western Athletic Conference basketball tournament for the three years beginning in 2010. The city also hosts the Las Vegas Bowl.

Sports betting brought in more than $150 million to the state of Nevada last year, according to the Nevada Gaming Commission. Of that, the second largest percentage after football came from college basketball. The sport has been a hot betting item from sportsbooks to office pools because it allows even the casual fan to have an interest.

Current UCLA football coach Rick Neuheisel was fired in 2003 while he was head coach at the University of Washington because of his participation in a college basketball pool. The NCAA bans any university employee with an athletic interest from betting on college sports.

"You can bet anywhere and it's wrong to penalize those states," said Groth, who previously served as the athletic director at Northern Illinois University. "As a matter of fact, having been an athletic director in the state of Illinois, I have less of a challenge here at the University of Nevada with our student-athletes and staff when it comes to gambling. I had more of a challenge there because it wasn't as prominent and so you had more of an issue.

"Look at the schools that have gotten in trouble for gaming: Arizona State, Northwestern. Those are just two that come off the top of my head. Those are states with non-betting ... But look at that; we've had our biggest issues in non-gaming states and they turnaround and penalize us?"

Nevada was the subject of an NCAA probe in 2008 when former men's golf coach Rich Merritt was alleged to have wagered on college athletics. The university and Merritt were later cleared of the allegations.

There have been several high-profile college scandals including a 1951-point shaving scheme that allegedly involved 35 players. Of those, 25 were indicted and convicted along with 14 gamblers. More recently, the University of Toledo had seven former football and men's basketball players charged in May in an alleged point-shaving scheme.

According to a report by the Harvard School of Law, Nevada has been a key to uncovering such schemes.

"Nevada sports books have been instrumental in uncovering game-fixing scandals when irregular betting patterns raised suspicions," the report said.

The Nevada Gaming Commission has in the past worked with the NCAA and the other professional sports leagues to ban wagers on local teams. Sportsbooks are prohibited against accepting bets on the Reno Aces, the Triple-A baseball affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The ban didn't sit well with Governor's Office either. Just last month Gov. Jim Gibbons lambasted a federal report that blacklisted Nevada from hosting federal agencies' conferences. Dan Burns, the governor's public information officer, called the NCAA's ruling unfair.

"The policy like that is inherently unfair," he said. "There is legalized gambling in Nevada. Yes, we know that's true. (But) there has been NCAA tournament games here ... so for us to not have that opportunity is inherently unfair.

"And on top of that, it ignores the fact there's wildly more illegal sports betting in every state than there is in Nevada."

The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, a group that advocates the legalization of Internet gambling, estimates that Americans wager more than $100 billion with offshore gambling sites. It is illegal in the United States to place wagers with such sites. The Harvard report added that "less than one percent of sports bets placed by Americans are wagered legally in Nevada," and the rest are placed with illegal bookies and online.

Former Nevada president Dr. Joe Crowley, who served as NCAA president from 1993-95, said the NCAA has always been cautious about sports betting and that the ruling was a continuation of its hardline stance against it.

"Frankly, I think it's an overreaction and I've always believed that," Crowley said. "I think it's always been the bottom line that the NCAA and the sportbooks have the same ultimate goal is to ensure, the best it can be ensured, that there is no cheating in sport, in this case college sport, because that would damage the reputation of the gaming industry and that industry doesn't have to cheat to make money."

• The Associated Press contributed to this article.