Public Tells NFL Sports Gambling Not Top Problem for Integrity

A new poll shows that NFL claims of public trust being tied to keeping sports gambling illegal disregard the real issues of crisis for sports leagues.

The NFL and its consortium of sports leagues, including the NBA, the NCAA, the NHL, and MLB, are challenging Delaware's right to host sports gambling, saying such a policy threatens public confidence in the purity of game results. But polls and recent events show other problems are far more damaging to league integrity in the public eye than sports betting.

A Gallup Poll, operated in conjunction with USA Today, finds that 75 percent of respondents think players using performance-enhancing drugs is a more serious issue to game integrity than the gambling Pete Rose committed, including placing bets on his own team to win. Only 14 percent thought the gambling situation was a worse offense.

At the same time, the NCAA is rocked by yet another recruiting scandal, in which a school blatantly broke rules to get a star player in its lineup. In this case, Memphis star Derrick Rose is alleged to have had a substitute take his SAT entrance exams.

The Rose case is the second time coach John Calipari has seen the best player in his program tainted by recruiting cheating, only to blithely skip on to another school without penalty. Yet the NCAA worries about the moral degradation that may be caused by legal and regulated sports betting in Delaware.

Reverend Richard McGowan, author of "The Gambling Debate" and an economics professor at Boston College, notes that a growing public acceptance of sports gambling has brought opinion around to Pete Rose's side. He notes that other black eyes for sports leagues have made gambling of little significance, comparatively.

"People are saying, 'Is that such a bad thing compared to these cheaters?' " McGowan told USA Today.

"If you're going to cheat and alter the records of the game, that's worse than betting on your team to win," Pete Rose told the Las Vegas Sun.

Even though steroid usage is far more harmful to public perception, as shown by the poll, baseball executives as high up as Commissioner Bud Selig are accused of having, at best, turned a blind eye to activity that produced massive home runs and a flourishing fan base. NFL officials who constantly preach integrity are thought to have many skeletons in the closet from which comes 350 pound linemen.