In the wake of the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal and resulting FBI investigation, NBA commissioner David Stern has made the decision to change official league policy and will now allow NBA Referees to participate in most forms of gambling.
"Our ban on gambling is absolute, and in my view it is too absolute, too harsh and was not particularly well-enforced over the years," Stern said. "We're going to come up with a new set of rules that make sense."
NBA officials will now be permitted to gamble in casinos and bet on horse races. State Lottery tickets are also exempt from the NBA gambling prohibitions. League officials are still prohibited from betting on professional sports or placing any bets with a sports booking agent.
Nobody knows just how deep the Donaghy scandal goes. And nobody knows just how many, if any, game results were impacted thru the actions of referees who may have placed bets on games they officiated themselves. And the league has not yet stated how they will adress that issue if/when investigators determine that the outcomes of games were deliberately manipulated by a referee.
With all this in mind, we are left with a huge question: Is the new NBA policy (which permits gambling among officials but not players) the result of the officiating scandal, or is it the result of the NBA's desire to do business in Las Vegas on a full-time basis? The NBA All-Star game has been held in the city, but the league has stuck to its anti-gambling policy. And there has long been talk of the Maluff brothers trying to move the Kings to Las Vegas, or simply sell the team and get an expansion team placed there.
There is a lot of money in Las Vegas. The NBA knows that. There is a lot of headaches associated with gambling, and the NBA knows that also.
David Stern is now between a rock and a hard place. With the start of the NBA season just hours away, the FBI investigation will certainly be brought up during every telecast this season. The subject is not going away anytime soon, but Tim Donaghy just might be going away soon for a very long time.
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