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Fantasy Football Giants backup quarterback Tim Hasselbeck remembers all too well the dark cloud that descended over the Boston College football program a decade ago. And it had nothing to do with the fickle New England weather."I was in the locker room with guys betting against our team. It's not pretty," says Hasselbeck, who with his older brother Matt, was a member of the 1996 Eagles squad enveloped in the biggest gambling scandal in college football history. "It's an ugly, ugly situation." Thirteen Boston College players were suspended for gambling infractions including two players - Jamall Anderson and Marcus Bembry - who bet against BC in a lopsided loss to Syracuse that season. The Eagles finished 5-7, while the school suffered a year-long backlash of negative attention - everything from revelations of BC student bookies to ties with organized crime. "An ugly situation," Hasselbeck repeats.
But Hasselbeck has a different take on the fantasy football craze in America, where an estimated 15 to 20 million sports fans - including Colts linebacker Cato June and Redskins tight end Chris Cooley - get to act as faux general managers, create their own teams, draft and trade real players and try to accumulate the most points each week based upon different statistical categories. Participants scrutinize NFL game stats with the intensity of a pro football general manager.
When asked if players participating in fantasy leagues could lead to another gambling scandal like the one he experienced as a BC undergraduate, Hasselbeck smiles.
"I know a lot of (football players) do play. And a lot of these fantasy football leagues are based on points and not necessarily money," Hasselbeck says. "But I'm sure there are plenty of them that revolve around money, which is essentially gambling. Anybody that I know who plays is playing for fun. But there's some criticism of the dangerous, slippery slope that it could possibly lead down."
The NFL may already be heading down that precarious path. June and Cooley went on the record about their fantasy football passion, with June boasting about his fantasy "Juneimus D" team featuring starting QB Tom Brady. "Playing New England, I can't be happy with him throwing a TD pass, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, 'Yeah, I just got six points in my fantasy league,'" June told ESPN a couple of weeks ago.
If it sounds like the NFL and its new commissioner Roger Goodell should be alarmed at comparisons that may be drawn between fantasy football and illegal gambling, think again.
Not only is the league not preaching concern about its players' fantasy league participation, the NFL itself promotes fantasy leagues through its own Web site - an estimated 1.3 million fans play via NFL.com - complete with grand prizes and runner-up gifts for the winners.
"It is not gambling and it is ludicrous to suggest an NFL player would give his fantasy team a higher priority than his NFL job," says NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.
Goodell, who has been on the job just over three months, echoed Aiello's remarks in a recent interview with the Daily News.
"We've been talking about that a little bit," Goodell said when asked about NFL players, fantasy leagues and possible fears of gambling. "They're not wagering on them. They're paying a fee to participate. At this point, no, it doesn't concern me, but I think it's something we'll keep an eye on - that if any way it even leads to a perception that it should concern us, we will address it."
Las Vegas gambling experts, however, see fantasy leagues in the same vein as your everyday casino patron placing a bet at the blackjack table. It's gambling, pure and simple.
"I do have a problem when the league sees gambling as this terrible thing and then they say fantasy football is this wonderful thing," says Wayne Allyn Root, the chairman and CEO of Winning Edge International, a publicly traded sports handicapping Web site. "It's the same thing. You're betting money, you're gambling, wagering, investing on the performance of players and teams, not whether they win or lose.
"If I bet on the Redskins plus-3 or plus-8, then I'm not betting on them to win. I'm betting on them to cover the point spread and the league frowns upon that. But if I'm betting on a certain Redskins player to gain 100 yards today and that's my wish in the fantasy football league, it's the same thing. I don't care if the Redskins win. I'm cheering for that one player to get yards and whether the team wins or loses means nothing to me. There's no question in my mind it's a hypocritical stance on the part of the NFL."
Adds Ed Looney of New Jersey's Council on Compulsive Gambling: "Fantasy football is like an interlude, like a stepping stone to sports betting."
Jimmy Vaccaro, a Vegas veteran who has run sports rooms for several hot spots over the last few decades and now does public relations for American Wagering, a company that owns and operates over 50 race and sports wagering locations throughout Nevada, says flatly that there is no difference in playing fantasy football and laying down a bet.
"Fantasy football is gambling," Vaccaro says. "The IRS expects you to report the money you win, end of (f------) story. I'd like to see how many IRS 1029 forms are filled out when fantasy football winners pick up their cash winnings. ... Pete Rozelle is probably turning over in his grave."
Giants running back Tiki Barber doesn't see it that way.
"I don't see anything wrong with it because most people do it for fun," Barber says. "I'm sure some people would construe it as a form of gambling, but again, since most of the fantasy leagues are friends playing together I don't see why it's a big issue.
"Unless they're putting money on it. But I don't think that's happening."
The NFL is not alone in condoning fantasy football. Both Major League Baseball and the NBA say they have no issue with their athletes morphing into mock GMs and playing with fantasy sports teams.
"We have no problem with players participating," MLB spokesman Rich Levin says. "We're not concerned."
A Division I football coach who bet with friends in an NCAA basketball pool three years ago wasn't as lucky. Rick Neuheisel, then the University of Washington football coach, was fired for participating in the pool (the NCAA prohibits betting on illegal activity). Neuheisel later won a $4.5 million settlement in his lawsuit against the NCAA and the university, when it was revealed that a university compliance officer had E-mailed Neuheisel and permitted the coach to participate in the pool.
"I understand the reasoning behind (Neuheisel's dismissal)," says Tim Hasselbeck. "But, I mean, if you could really tell me that Rick Neuheisel being in an office pool with the NCAA basketball tournament - how that affects him coaching the Huskies... Really, let's be honest. Was anything wrong really going on there?"
At least the NFL and gambling experts seem to agree on one aspect of fantasy leagues: With teams providing up-to-date injury reports throughout the week, every week, there is little chance that fantasy league enthusiasts would be able to glean insider information ahead of someone else.
"Injuries don't mean a thing," says Vaccaro. "You're better off making one straight bet on that team for the weekend. There are 10 other players on that fantasy team that can score or not score."
That doesn't stop fantasy fans from trying to get a step ahead of their competitors when the opportunity presents itself. Hasselbeck says he thought there was something unusual about the number of Seahawks fans suddenly popping up in New York City earlier this fall. Following Seattle's Oct. 22 loss to Minnesota, Hasselbeck was deluged with inquiries about his brother Matt, who had sprained his right MCL and had to leave the game.
"A lot of people asked me, 'How's your brother doing?' And I'm thinking, 'Gee, that's nice of them,'" Hasselback says. "Then as the conversation goes along, I realize, 'You know what? They're not asking me because they actually care.' They want to know because they're trying to figure out, 'Is (Matt) playing next week or do I have to draft someone else?'" The Invisible Social Cost of Problem Gambling
The National Center for Responsible Gaming, the industry's research arm, sponsors an annual convention to counter negative publicity. Last year, a discussion about "Junk Science and Conventional Wisdom" concluded that "it's a myth problem gambling is widespread. It's a myth stats on problem gambling are readily available. It's a myth the known number of problem gamblers is just the tip of the iceberg." But there was no talk about the problems created by encouraging gambling through casino atmospherics, neighborhood lottery outlets, slick TV and Internet advertising, and other types of promotion. “All you need is a dollar and a dream .... Hey, you never know,” goes the jingle in New York.
Casinos thrive on frequent gamblers and they use sophisticated technogy to identify them, tracking transactions in much the same way retail outlets detect shopping preferences. They issue special credit cards and monitor the use of those cards at slot and video poker machines. If you play often and fast, you are considered a high roller, entitled to enticements such as free dining, hotel rooms and other largess.
They also want gamblers to lose track of time and reality. That's why there are no windows or clocks in most casinos, and why drinks are free 24 hours a day from cocktail waitresses who flit about the gaming tables and slot machines.
Bartholomew, the New Hampshire nurse, remembers a time when the excitement of gambling drew her into a dark cycle. She found herself playing keno and buying scratch tickets six days a week, lying to her husband about what she had been doing, and losing too much money. But it wasn't until she dropped $4,000 in one sitting at the slot machines at Connecticut's Foxwoods Casino that she finally realized she had a problem.
"It was so addicting," she said.
Researchers are still studying why people are compelled to gamble to the point that it disrupts their lives, but they see similarities to drug addiction, including the need to increase the risk through larger bets to get high.
Dr. Jon Grant, a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who studies addictive behaviors, said brain images of compulsive gamblers revved up to bet have shown activity similar to that of cocaine users - receptors in the brain looking for reward.
“These give us bits of information that this is not simply an issue with people with poor moral character, but that this is an addiction,” said Grant.
The American Psychiatric Association classifies pathological gambling as a “social impulse disorder,” a category of disease that also includes kleptomania and pyromania. And the impulse is not always about the cash payoff.
“Compulsive gamblers do not gamble for the money. They gamble to get the adrenaline rush - it’s about reaching that high,” said Jim Chesser, a Louisville, Ky., businessman who has spent eight years recovering from the addiction. “You might as well grind the money up and put it in a syringe and put it in our arm. It has the same effect.”
Realtor Michael Osborne of Baltimore is an example of that rush - and the consequence. He tapped into a client’s escrow account to bet $25,000 that the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves would score more than seven runs in a National League Championship series game in October 1999, and lost.
Osborne, 34, had no reason to make the bet. He was happily married with three children and earning a decent salary in a legitimate business. But there was something else driving him to gamble - a conviction that he could always win the next bet.
“I went to get help a lot of times. It just was never for me. It was for her and the kids. It was for my grandmother who was dying of cancer,” said Osborne, who estimated he lost more than $3 million in two years of gambling. “In my mind I couldn’t come to fathom that something was beating me. I had to get it back.”
Osborne said he was arrested 12 times and went through four unsuccessful rehabilitation programs before he got the will to change. Even after a stint in prison, he said, he continued to gamble.
“The gambler is not going to realize or accept or even want to ask others around him for help until every last bit of his resources are tapped out,” said Osborne, now executive director of the Habour Pointe Center for Compulsive Gambling in Baltimore. “As long as a gambler has a dollar in his pocket, there is a flicker of hope he can either hit the big lottery, hit the 16 parlay that will pay $1,200 or some other fantasy illusion.”
After hitting bottom and working his way back, Osborne has been pushing to change the way people perceive the disorder.
“I’m not against gambling. I’m here to say society, unfortunately, ignores the other side of the coin: prevention and treatment,” Osborne said. “When you live in a society where most states are balancing their budgets off legalized gambling revenue, they’re not addressing this adequately because they’d look like hypocrites.”
Instead, states are spending liberally to promote gambling and grow state revenue. Gambling addicts are not deliberate targets, but they are the class of gamblers most seduced by the message, addiction experts report.
New York state is a good example. It spent nearly $71 million on advertising state lottery games in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005. That yielded $6.27 billion in lottery sales, the highest in the nation. Addictive gambling, which is rising exponentially with revenue, got only $3 million for prevention and treatment.
Credit counselor Thomas Coates of Des Moines, Iowa, said an often overlooked aspect of problem gambling is the easy availability of money at gambling outlets. In addition to issuing special credit cards, casinos and race tracks install ATM machines and often provide check-cashing services. Some extend generous lines of credit to regular customers.
Coates said gamblers who seek help from his company, Consumer Credit of Des Moines, have 50 percent more unsecured debt than the average customer. He said they also have higher rates of bankruptcy - a problem he says will only get worse without more dollars going to prevention and treatment.
Coates said Iowa takes in $1 billion a year in gambling revenue and "we give back five-tenths of 1 percent for a problem that we created. We're going to make ourselves feel better by giving a pittance back?"
In testimony before the national gambling commission, Coates shared an insightful suicide note from a gambler who ran up $60,000 in credit card debt at a local casino. The note read:
"I never thought of gambling prior to two or three years ago. I really can't blame anyone but myself but I sincerely hope that restrictions are placed upon credit card cash availability at casinos. The money is too easy to access and goes in no time. My situation is now one of complete despair, isolation and constant anxiety." Trend Story
The sun sits high at 11 a.m. as Andy, a 59-year-old man from New Jersey, signs on to the Internet. He plans to gamble a little while to pass the time. He chooses slots and hits big early but his luck soon runs out. He continues to play, desperately trying to regain his losses. He fails to notice the setting sun or rising moon. By 3 a.m., he’s down four grand. Exhausted, he logs off. He rubs his stiff neck and sore wrists. His stomach aches after 16 hours without food. It has been two-thirds of a day without any personal interaction or physical movement. He feels disgusted with himself. Welcome to gambling in the 21st century.
"After playing all that time, I felt drained emotionally," Andy, who cannot reveal his last name as a member of Gamblers Anonymous, said. "I was tired and just asked myself, ‘why do I continue to do this?’"
Andy still could not find an answer. In his mind, he was not an addict. The Internet was only a game, wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t: before attending his first Gamblers Anonymous meeting, Andy amassed over $350 thousand debt online.
Andy is just one of the millions shifting from traditional betting arenas to illegal Internet casinos that escape federal laws by moving offshore. In 2003 at least 1,800 online gambling sites raked in more than $5 billion, a 30 percent increase from 2002 and nearly double the total from 2001 that makes online gambling the fastest growing gambling venue, according to gambling research firm Christiansen Capital Advisers.
The firm expects online gambling revenues to swell to over $18 billion by 2010.Clever advertising and promotions are major stimuli for the growth in online gambling. Mass emails alert thousands of surfers of special deals at their web sites. As Andy knows, these promotions aren’t always sincere.
"I got an email for a casino and when I signed up, they gave me $5 to play for free," he said. "I played and won $5 thousand off Keno. When I went to cash it in, they wouldn’t let me. They said it was their money and I couldn’t cash out."
Andy began playing his own money. His luck continued and was up $20 thousand before the odds caught up with him. He began to lose. A lot.
He would still receive monthly gifts and "kickbacks" from the online casino but these gifts—valuing under a couple hundred dollars—hardly covered the thousands he was losing each week.
Gambling sites have methods other than promotions to draw interest. Almost all the online sites boast play money tables where players can hone their skills for free. Play money is often a springboard to real money, though. Mike King, a manager for TridentPoker.com, said if players were only to play free games, the company would not benefit. He added that "a lot of the time" players make the jump from free games to real money gambling.
While online gambling targets all age groups, the younger generation is especially prone to addiction because they have grown up with the Internet. Edward Looney, Executive Director of Council of Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said calls to his hotline regarding online gambling have increased over 600 percent since 1999 and the majority of these calls—roughly 90 percent—were from college students.
"Students now have access to credit cards and the Internet 24 hours a day," he said. "[With Internet gambling] they don’t have to worry about bookies or deadlines. They just make their bets and go right to class."
Because of this constant accessibility, players often don’t know when to stop and accept their losses. Rob, a 30-year-old gambler from Philadelphia, said this was just how he got hooked.
"I was always chasing," he said referring to the gambling term that he was losing money and trying to gamble more to get it back. "I was living from paycheck to paycheck and I ended up $20 thousand to $30 thousand in debt.
"I basically shut out the outside world. I’d start playing at one in the afternoon and get so caught up that I’d blow off plans I had with my friends and family at five."
The speed of the online realm often attracts older players. Andy immediately noticed play was faster online and estimated that for every roll on a slot machine in a real casino, you could play five online. As speed increases, so does the debt.
"I’d get online and deposit $500 and lose it all in ten minutes," Andy said. "I’d do it again, trying to win some back and then I’d lose $1,000 in twenty minutes."
It took Andy five years to face his addiction. On a Wednesday in late June, he decided he would stop gambling and go to the Gamblers Anonymous meeting that Friday. He promised himself he’d quit but continued to gamble all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, losing thousands more. His problem was real and he needed help.
Andy is not alone. The relative ease and availability of online gambling has caused a dramatic increase in gambling addictions.
The Compulsive Gambling Center, a 28-day program for addicted gamblers in Baltimore, has seen the number of patients addicted to online gambling triple in the last three years, director Mike Osborne said.
Osborne said online gambling addicts tend to be younger males from working class backgrounds with little emotional attachment to their family. Financial pressures, past home-life, or pressures to be successful are the main causes of gambling addictions, he said.
The center prohibits patients from using the Internet and limits phone calls to prevent contacting bookies. Analysts then examine the patients to find the root of the addiction and then through various forms of therapy help them overcome it.
Aside from the financial effects, online gambling addictions also carry severe physical and mental consequences.
"Patients come here with extreme exhaustion after spending literally days online at a time," Osborne said. "They begin getting stress headaches and wrist, neck, and back pain from all the hours at the computer. Once they lose their money and can’t repay their debt, depression often develops."
Despite the staggering increase in online gambling, there is little talk about federal regulation. In 2003, Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, proposed a bill to prohibit gambling sites from accepting credit cards or other forms of payment within the United States. That bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, is not presently a political priority and is yet to move past committee.
Rep. Leach’s press secretary Jeremy Morrison, said opponents to the bill feel it unjustly denies people the right to choose what to do with their money, but he thinks online gambling is a serious problem and calls for regulation.
"Gambling as it is traditionally thought of involves an entertainment and social element and many families travel to Las Vegas or to other gambling centers for the overall experience," Morrison said. "Internet gambling offers none of those elements."
Regardless, many parties involved feel that, while at least half of the online gambling revenues come from the United States, the effects of an Internet gambling ban would be minimal as most of the sites are based outside America’s borders.
"It’s very difficult to stop someone from gambling online, especially if the host is in another country," Director of Problem Gambling Services of Connecticut Chris Armentano said. "A ban might stop the online gambling companies in America but not overseas."
David Carruthers, CEO of Costa Rican-based site BetOnSports.com, urged Congress to regulate, not ban, online gambling in a January press release. BetOnSports.com has since stopped speaking with American media as it focuses on becoming a publicly listed company in Great Britain.
King said the issue is out of his hands but added that TridentPoker.com has taken "adequate" measures to prevent online gambling addictions.
Rob feels they need to do more, suggesting the sites host a hotline to provide proper channels for addicts to seek help.
With politics delaying both Rep. Leach’s bill and a similar one proposed by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., educating the younger generation appears the best way to stifle the increase in online gambling addictions.
Dr. Ed Federman, co-author of "Don’t Leave It To Chance: A Guide for Families of Problem Gamblers" feels colleges are not taking a strong enough stance against all forms of gambling.
"Colleges could be helped in prevention and intervention services by gambling councils in their state," he said. "Colleges can also call on consultants who are experts in gambling problems and prevention programs to teach the college’s counseling staff on how to treat a gambling problem."
Others have suggested D.A.R.E.-type programs to educate youngsters about the problems of gambling but states, with large financial dependencies on lotteries and other forms of gambling, are reluctant to provide the funding. New Jersey, for example, received 5.4 percent—roughly $1.2 billion—of its total revenues from casinos and lotteries in 2003.
With the lack of state funds, gambling sites’ advertising greatly overshadows educational efforts. Armentano said his organization tries to educate kids but has not received proper funding.
"We have $100,000 when gambling sites have in the millions for advertising," he said. "Funding has been stagnant for the last four years. It is not a priority to the government right now."
Osborne agrees.
"Education is the clear resolution but there is simply no initiative to increase gambling awareness funding," he said.
Louisiana and other states have tested experimental anti-gambling educational programs, but so far have not implemented any permanent policy.
Andy doesn’t need any lectures to know the perils of Internet gambling. He has received a six-month moratorium on all payments from the IRS and has to develop a plan to begin paying his debt and getting his life back together.
One thing that won’t be part of his life anymore is online gambling. He recently installed GamBlock, a software program that blocks access to Internet gambling sites, even causing irreparable damage to the computer if the owner attempts to remove the program.
As for Andy’s future, he still has dreams of a happy ending.
"I hope to get things back together and hopefully have a nice retirement," he said.
He paused for a moment as if he was forgetting something, then added: "Gambling free."