From an NFL player alleged to be so cruel to dogs it should make you cringe, to an NBA referee who went on a sports betting binge, to a Tour de France rider with a syringe, it’s been an interesting few months in the world of sports and sports betting.

To be sure, this stuff matters to both sports bettors and online sportsbooks. Gamblers who bet on the Falcons in a myriad of different future books with their sportsbooks face the realization that their team probably will have to win without quarterback, Michael Vick, who was charged with a federal indictment on dog fighting and dog gambling.

Just how many NBA games were tainted due to the actions of referee Tim Donaghy remains unclear to all those except Tony Soprano.

And if you wagered with your favorite sportsbook on which rider would win the Tour de France, you can rip up your tickets on 5/2 favorite Alexandre Vinokourov and overall leader Michael Rasmussen, 60/1, each of whom was bounced from the event for substance abuse violations.

If there is a silver lining to these abuses it is that these sordid revelations have inspired journalists, athletes, administrators and just plain ordinary folks to be witty, innovative, humorous and, in some cases, just plain silly.

See for yourself…

“Now, granted he (Michael Vick) might have been to a dogfight a time or two, maybe five times, maybe 20 times, may have bet some money, but he’s not the one you’re after. He’s just the one who’s going to take the fall.”

--Former Cowboys great Emmitt Smith, offering his view on the Vick allegations

“If O.J. (Simpson) get can get away with murder, Michael Vick can get away with a few hurt dogs.”

--Maal Clayton, who identified himself as a graduate of the same high school as Vick

“Had the weirdest dream last night. Dreamt that Pacman Jones was bitten by Michael Vick’s dog while trying to steal Tank Johnson’s gun.”

--Greg Cote, the Miami Herald

“Greed is still central to the human condition and legalized gambling now is as close as the corner store or the nearest computer. Our growing cultural tolerance for games of chance has effectively blurred the boundaries separating entertainment from vice and avocation from addiction. In an age when professional sports franchises freely forge sponsorship deals with casinos, and team logos appear on state lottery tickets, it does not require much of a logical leap to wonder whether the games those teams play are completely above board.

“To describe Tim Donaghy as an isolated case, then, is optimism bordering on naivete.”

--Tim Sullivan, The San Diego Union-Tribune

“By trying to sneak doping practices past cycling officials, the riders are playing Russian roulette.”

--Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France after Vinokorouv and Rasmussen were eliminated from the race. For the record, neither Vinokorouv (Kazakhstan) nor Rasmussen (Denmark), are from Russia.

Speaking of syringes…

“He’s a little midget man who absolutely knows jack shit about baseball, who never played the game before.”

--SF slugger Barry Bonds, after broadcaster Bob Costas raised suspicions that Bonds had used steroids

“As anyone can plainly see, I’m 5-6½ and a strapping 150, and unlike some people, I came by all of it naturally. I regard Barry as one of the greatest players of all time who got an inauthentic boost and then became a superhuman player.”

--Costas, answering Bonds

“How do you know?”

Bonds, demonstrating why you should never argue with people who buy ink by the barrel, responding to Costas saying that he came by his physique naturally.

“On at least three occasions (in strip clubs), fights have broken out with other patrons and employees, and on two of those occasions the end result has been gunfire. All I know is what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, sometimes for several years in a prison cell.”

--Scott Ostler, the San Francisco Chronicle, on the possible fate of Titans cornerback Pacman Jones

“The weirdest part is probably that they were back-to-back-to back. I mean, there was a distinct time between all of them but there wasn’t a musician thrown in there.”

--Actress Alyssa Milano, telling SI.com about her one-time dating rotation of pitchers Carl Pavano, Barry Zito and Brad Penny

Most unsophisticated sports bettors hit the gridiron running, with little or no concern for whether their best chance for success rests with college football betting, NFL betting or a combination of both.  To be sure, while the NCAA and NFL games fundamentally are the same, subtle dissimilarities between the Saturday and Sunday products, as they relate to a player’s ability to digest and understand data, can make the difference between winning and losing:

Gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931 but it took until the 1940s that the pointspread came into being. Charles McNeil, a Connecticut bettor and bookmaker, generally is credited with the invention of the pointspread though, like so much in the history of wagering, the facts are murky at best and open to interpretation. At any rate, sports betting still was in its infancy, barely able to take its first baby steps before the federal government applied its heavy handed child rearing tactics.

In 1951, Congress imposed a 10 percent tax on sports wagering, all but stuffing the sports betting baby back in the womb. Then, in 1974, largely through the efforts of Senator Howard Cannon (D-Nev.), the tax was dropped to two percent. Nine years later it was cut again, to .025 percent, effectively launching the now burgeoning era of sports betting.

Indeed, in 1973, the year before the federal tax was dropped from 10 percent to two percent, there were 10 sportsbooks in Nevada and the handle was a paltry $2.8 million.

“There was one black-and-white TV set at the old Churchill Downs book, and if the picture fluttered, a guy would whack it with a broom,” remembered oddsmaker Roxy Roxborough, the seminal figure in the rapid growth of the sports betting industry.

Twenty years later, Nevada boasted over 100 sportsbook outlets with a handle of over $2 billion. The numbers in the Silver State have tailed off a bit since the mid-nineties, Nevada’s loss the result of the proliferation of off-shore and Internet wagering outlets. The overall growth of sports betting remains staggering, with ESPN the Magazine estimating in a 2003 article that $63 billion is wagered annually on sports over the Internet. Other estimates run as high as $200 billion annually.

The explosion of sports betting in the mid-eighties largely was the result of a daily double of good fortune; the lowering of the federal tax and the emergence of Roxborough, who everyone calls “Roxy,” as the face of sports betting.

Roxy got his wagering feet wet betting baseball totals. In fact, he may have been the first player to regularly check local weather reports, chronicling the velocity and direction of the wind, a factor which influenced how many balls left the ballpark and, by extension, game totals.

Lured to the other side of the counter by management at the Club Cal-Neva in Reno, it wasn’t long before Roxy, armed with little more than a few hundred dollars and an idea, founded his then fledgling company, Las Vegas Sports Consultants, on his kitchen table. In time, LVSC’s client list grew to include 90 percent of Nevada’s licensed casino sportsbooks.

With a boost from Vic Salerno, the owner of dozens of wagering outlets under the Leroy’s banner and the man who developed the computer system now de rigueur in the industry, LVSC effectively helped transport sportsbooks from the hand-written betting slip Stone Age into the technologically savvy modern sports betting era.

Roxy’s company not only supplied odds, but information on injuries and weather conditions as well. Later, the service added data that tracked line movements, including unusual wagers, alerting sportsbooks to possible betting anomalies that had the potential to devastate their bottom lines.

Well-dressed and well-spoken, Roxy was equally influential in helping to obliterate the pejorative image of the oddsmaker/bookmaker as some sleazy, poorly educated garish figure in a hound’s tooth jacket with a diamond pinky ring and a cigar. Appearing on television shout-fests such as “Crossfire,” Roxy would vanquish the opposition, which included now NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, with a series of well-argued points.

Roxborough has retired from the business of pluses and minuses and no one knows for sure what the coming years will bring, but if the future of sports betting is only half as imaginative and innovative as its glorious past, neither bet makers nor bet takers have reason for concern.

This article was written by Luken Karel for <a href=http://www.thegreek.com>http://www.thegreek.com</a>

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