Online bookies

Las Vegas — It's not often the NFL and Las Vegas agree on something. Actually, it's probably never happened before.
This is a league, after all, so afraid of being tainted by the image of sports betting that it didn't want NBC to run promos for its "Las Vegas" series on its Sunday night football telecasts.
Apparently the NFL thought the mere mention of the city was enough to make fans run out and start betting the rent money on the Detroit Lions.
But both the NFL and Las Vegas had to like what they saw coming out of the nation's capital over the weekend. Lawmakers handed a nice present to both in a bill that could emasculate the lucrative online sports betting industry.
It's a bit complicated, but it comes down to this: It will soon be a lot harder — almost impossible — to sit down at your computer and put $100 down on the Steelers, minus seven points, on any given weekend.
That should thrill the NFL, which views betting on its games as an evil second only to running out of chilled shrimp in luxury suites. And it's got to have sports book operators in Las Vegas breaking out the champagne because once again they will be the only game in town.
About the only losers will be the companies that have made a lot of money off of losers — the hundreds of offshore betting operations that in recent years have replaced neighborhood bookies as the place most Americans turn to when they want to place a bet.
"It's certainly devastated the public companies on the stock exchange in London," said Simon Noble, chief executive officer of the privately held Pinnacle Sports UK betting company. "It certainly comes as a surprise to a lot of operators."
The NFL isn't about to say it's glad that Las Vegas will pick up some extra business if the online market collapses because of the new legislation. But it's always nice to know who you are dancing with, and the NFL has always danced an odd waltz with gamblers and bookmakers.
The league's official stance is something like this: It abhors betting on its games, thinks gambling is a sin, and believes that Las Vegas would be better off storing nuclear waste in its casino sports books than using them to take in money on games.
But the NFL also puts out a weekly injury report of interest only to gamblers and fantasy players, and looks the other way when the television companies who pay it billions of dollars post point spreads that serve no other purpose than to get people to gamble their hard earned money on the outcome of a game.
Indeed, a lot of bookmakers will claim — with some justification — that without the invention of the point spread and the popularity of betting on the NFL, the league wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is today.
"It's kind of a love-hate relationship. There is an awful lot of interest in the sport because of the betting aspect," Noble said. "Obviously, the NFL can't publicly state that or encourage that."
The league doesn't seem to be doing a lot to stop it, though, especially among the television networks whose billions of dollars have made owners rich beyond comprehension.
There wasn't a mention of Las Vegas or a point spread on Monday night's ESPN telecast, but go to the worldwide sports leader's own web site and you could find out that the Packers were a 12-point underdog against the Eagles at kickoff.
ESPN.com went so far as to provide the names of a handful of Internet betting sites just in case you wanted to get in a bet.
The network isn't alone among those who pay the NFL billions for the rights to televise its games. CBS and Fox both showcase updated odds on their sports web sites, and one extra click on MSNBC.com takes you to a page where they guarantee winners every week — for a price.
About the only place you won't find it is at the NFL Network, though you can get an update on the NFL Cheerleader's Playoffs (Rams and Titans cheerleaders advanced last week, while the 49ers and Dolphins were eliminated).
If that's not hypocritical, how about this: The NFL actively promotes fantasy football, an activity that not only has broken up marriages across America, but is a form of gambling itself. Is there really a big difference between betting $100 on the Packers or buying a fantasy team full of Packers for that same $100?
The Internet made it easy — perhaps too easy — to bet on NFL games. It couldn't be regulated, and was filled with small operators of questionable integrity with billions of dollars at stake.