Intermezzo: On the NFL and legalizing sports gambling
Watching a disaster happen in real-time
Here is an interview I did on CBS-TV on September 11, 1989—35 years ago—about corruption and game-fixing in the NFL. . . . I still stand by everything I said.
With the NFL team owners celebrating, heavily promoting, and cashing in on its new adjunct role as professional bookmakers—embracing an institution that had once been illegal by now accepting bets on its games in the aftermath of the boneheaded decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018—some uncomfortable new rules must be created.
For instance, when a player singlehandedly makes an on-field mistake that not only costs his team a big game but allows his opponent to cover the spread, he needs to be asked—under oath—whether he had a bet down on the game and/or whether he has a relationship with legal or illegal gamblers.
When a game official singlehandedly blows one or more major calls at key moments that favor one team over another, he needs to be asked—under oath—whether he had a bet down on the game and/or whether he has a relationship with legal or illegal gamblers.
That is the price the NFL owners must accept if they want to claim to be preserving the integrity of the game while exploiting their lucrative new roles as professional bookmakers.
With the billions of dollars that are now bet on NFL games, innocent on-field errors will inevitably be perceived as nefarious acts.
The admonitions in my 1989 book, Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football, about the NFL and its hidden desire to embrace sports gambling have been vindicated.
Below are my recently posted columns about the red-hot issue of the NFL and sports gambling:
* “Reversing the brutally cursed history of Interference: Giving my long-embattled, now-vindicated book about the NFL and sports gambling a life it never had” (December 8, 2024)
* “The death of Carroll Rosenbloom: The evidence is clear that he died in a tragic accident and was not murdered” (December 1, 2024)
* “Remembering bookmaker Don Dawson who admitted to me that he had fixed "at least 32 NFL games”: The NFL still insists that no game has ever been fixed” (November 24, 2024)
* “Anatomy of a past investigation of NFL game fixing by two referees: In today’s sport-gambling environment, game officials are again under suspicion” (November 17, 2024)
* “The Seminole Tribe settles, standing to make billions on sports gambling in Florida: The tribe's ribbon-cutting ceremony for casino gambling was 20 years ago” (October 28, 2024)
* “Today is the 6th anniversary of the Supreme Court's reckless decision to open the door to legalized sports gambling” (May 14, 2024)
* “Legal sports gambling supercharges illegal gambling and organized-crime activities” (April 4, 2024)
* “My 1989 world-class prediction on ABC's Nightline about the NFL and gambling—now completely vindicated 35 years later: The NFL and the sports media continue to pretend that my book about the NFL and the Mafia never existed” (February 9, 2024)
* “The Kansas City Chiefs, The Mafia, and the 1970 Super Bowl (Part 2): An NFL team that routinely went ‘off the boards’” (February 4, 20024)
* “The Kansas City Chiefs, The Mafia, and the 1970 Super Bowl (Part 1): An NFL team that routinely went ‘off the boards’” (February 2, 2024)
* “Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., the San Francisco 49ers, and the Mafia.: The NFL permits a DOJ-identified mobster to buy the 49ers” (January 28, 2024)
* “The Detroit Lions, the Mafia, and the 1963 NFL gambling scandal: The events that led to the creation of ‘NFL Security’” (January 27, 2024)
* “Sports-gambling glossary” (October 19, 2024)
* “Today’s New York Times vindicates my 34-year-old prediction that the NFL would open sports betting operations inside NFL stadiums” (September 14, 2023)
* “How to win big money by arbitraging the illegal sports-gambling economy” (September 6, 2023)
* “My 1993 anti-sports gambling testimony before the N.J. State Assembly” (September 3, 2023)
* “Billy Walters discusses my role in The Computer Group caper in his new book, Gambler” (August 26, 2023)
* “Legalized Gambling Will Destroy College and Professional Sports” (August 20, 2023)
* August 12: BOOK: Catalog for my 12-part series about the NFL, sports gambling, and the Mafia
