By Tony George www.sportsaudioshows.com  

The recent headlines for the NBA with referee Tim Donaghy must be a hard pill to swallow for NBA commissioner David Stern, who HATES the gambling industry. For the NBA it is an "integrity issue", much like baseball had with Pete Rose pertaining to gambling, and now with the on-going steroid issue. Wayne Gretzky's wife was recently involved or mentioned in a Hockey betting ring this past year as well. Before anti-gambling freaks and supporters start getting their panties all bunched up, I use the old phrase my grandpa used to use, "If you see a single weed in the garden, simply pull it out, it does not ruin the whole garden."

There is no doubt all of us in this industry of picking games for a living are disturbed and appalled at the recent events of the referee who may or may not have "fixed games", while refereeing NBA games, including post season games. In the NBA, it is more than an easy deal not necessarily to sway the outcome of a game from a win / loss perspective, but from a pointspread perspective is would be easy. This is turn affects the results I may been documented with. Without question it sheds a bad light on the gaming industry, which has been in the limelight with dark headlines far too much the past 12 months with all the anti-gambling legislation issues and arrests.

There are so many calls that can be made with little or no argument in the NBA, reaching in fouls, hand checking, too physical when boxing out, personal fouls, technicals and many more. Late in a game these affect the bottom line when it comes to pointspread covers. Most games in the NBA, and this is unscientific, the spreads are 7 points or less and usually sway 1 to 2 points during the day on side plays and anywhere from 2-4 points in totals. Line movement is part of the process of any legit sportsbook balancing their action. These guys in cahoots with the ref I assume were smart enough not to just unload on 1 game but to spread it around the entire season, avoiding raising any red flags with Vegas books or offshore books. If heavy action was to come in with any 1 team, the first people to call the NBA would be Vegas Sportsbook managers, just like back in the 90's when some Arizona State Basketball Players tried to pull a fixed game and officials from the university as well as the NCAA were contacted immediately.

Think of the possibilities on this from this referee's perspective, and how easy it would have been. The calls I mentioned earlier, plus just calling a quick two or three 1st quarter or early second quarter fouls on playmakers like Shaq, Kobe Bryant, David Wade, Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Steve Nash to name a few. no doubt will affect a pointspread cover, but in those cases the outcome of the entire game. Looking down the road may in fact have playoff implications. Now that issue goes into the millions of dollars when you are talking post season dollars with owners! That is not a "gambling issue", that in fact is an issue the NBA itself has to deal with. Constant follow-up and background checks on the very guys who are paid to make the game fair for both teams on the floor. Those background checks need to include bank account activity.

The overall outcome of this and indictments yet to be handed out is unclear, but the issue is once again a black-eye for gaming industry. It is a simple issue of trickling down. I doubt Las Vegas will see any NBA franchises soon either. The All Star game was just held there, and Commissioner David Stern stated again that as long as Vegas Casinos have odds on the NBA, no franchise will be allowed in Vegas. Well why the hell did you have the All Star game there to begin with? Prop bets were the rage in Vegas that weekend on the NBA All Star game. Did it affect the integrity of the game? Does daily wagering affect the integrity of the game? All those guys buying Direct TV packages for the NBA pumping millions of dollars into the coffers are for the most part gamblers watching teams they bet on. Gambling is the 5000 pound elephant that is always invited to the NBA, NFL and MLB annual Christmas Parties, the only thing is, no one will buy him a cocktail.

Whatever the outcome, is reflects badly on the sports gaming industry. Legalizing sports gambling in every casino in America will do more to shore things up than anything. Having a regulated industry is a good thing. The recent anti-gambling legislation has taken a vast amount of wagers from legitimate offshore sportsbooks that are regulated and serious about issues like this, and put those millions of wagers made back into the hands of criminals and organized crime, who in turn have the resources to get to an NBA referee or player, and have enough influence to pull something like this off. It is one bad person here, not the entire lot of them, but it exposes a much bigger problem in my opinion. There are two human emotions, greed and more greed, and NBA referee Tim Donaghy has them both and in the process shed a bad light on gambling and made it ugly. Lock him up and throw away the keys folks. I hope he squeals on every criminal involved in this deal and they all go away to prison for the better part of the next 20 years and it sends a message to anyone thinking the same thing.