For the great, great percentage of the American people who gamble, it's a recreation. And it's a recreation that they have under control. |
Legalized sports gambling in Nevada serves a very important function of providing a watch over fixed games. There's no question about that. |
The people who want to push for the end of legalized sports gambling in Nevada would be encouraging the crooks. And they would be counterproductive to what they want to accomplish. |
We know that 'Monday Night Football' is really popular out here because people bet on it. People who lose on the college games on Saturday and the pro games on Sunday try to make it all up on Monday night. That's a major factor in the popularity of 'Monday Night Football' across the country. People who have lost over the weekend try to get back to even. Whether they do or not is another story. |
You go back to the creation of organized sports in the United States before the Civil War, and you see a very close relationship between sports and gambling. Baseball really got going as a professional sport because gamblers really found it to be an attractive venue as an alternative to betting on the ponies. |