[NU Sports] gambling and college athletes (fwd)

[Mike Nolan]

> In the old days, transactions of this nature required some sort of human 
> contact.  These days, what's to stop some guy from logging onto one of the 
> many, many online wagering sites and putting money down on a game? 
> Answer: nothing.  It's not really traceable, either.  Any attempts to 
> prevent online gambling by NCAA student athletes is going to have to rest 
> on convincing the athletes not to do it.  Now that the human contact is 
> out of the gambling equation, there's no one to spill the beans.

I have a friend who plays poker online, based on what he's told me about
the way things work I think any athlete who gambles online leaves a trail 
back to himself, if only in the form of credit card informaiton.

An unscrupulous gambling site adminstrator (and that's almost redundant) may
be able to figure out if any scholarship athletes are using his site, thus
this is really no more secure or confidential than using a bookie.  

While I have very little confidence that the NCAA can control or monitor
online gambling, I predict that sooner or later some athlete will get caught 
doing this and the NCAA will stomp on that person, and probably his school.
--
Mike Nolan