[NU Sports] gambling and college athletes (fwd)

[Mike Nolan]

> What is interesting is that these gambling sites are almost all run
> out of the country (i.e. Cayman Islands, etc.) where they are not
> subject to any specific country's laws.  This makes tracking down the
> gamblers and the bookies extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
> find, particularly by the NCAA.  

The secrecy of accounts in the Caymans is highly overrated, especially when
the FBI decides to get involved.  They're capable of tracking much more
sophisticated money laundering schemes than what most college students
are likely to try.  

And I don't buy the 'grain of sand' argument at all, because grains of sand 
aren't made part of a relational database and virtually every non-anonymous 
money transfer is.  It's not very hard for the police or the FBI to search 
for a transaction once they suspect it exists.

The biggest reason this hasn't hit the fan yet is that for the most part
these are small potatoes transactions, and these days it takes a really BIG
number or some other factor (like terrorism or murder) to get the FBI 
interested.

My best guess:  When a scandal along these lines surfaces at the NCAA, 
it'll be uncovered while investigating something else.  
--
Mike Nolan