Law effects on Gambling

As most of us are aware, there are strict laws on gambling in California and throughout the United States. The only way to start and own a casino within California is to be on an Indian reservation and part of the tribe, otherwise the closest gambling is in Nevada. The reason this is an issue is it limits who can build a casino and since there arn't many casino's within the state, people have to travel farther in order to go have fun and gamble. Although people have no problem traveling from long distances to reach a casino, if that law were changed people would travel less and be able to get where they want faster.

Arrests Made in Soccer Game Fixing.

Admir Suljic a former soccer player from Slovenia was arrested last Thursday. He is believed to be one of the men who was a go between for "the boss"(Tan Seet Eng) and soccer players to get them to manipulate games and illicit gambling . There are currently 150 people being investigated for match fixing. I wonder who else is involved in this. For this operation to be so successful for so long there are sure to be referees, players, coaches, other staff members of organizations involved. Supposedly Tan is cooperating with the Singapore police to help with their investigation. There are several different agencies and governments working together on this scandal, Singapore, Italy, Malaysia, Milan, police departments and Interpol to name a few. I am so glad that I do not bet on sports. It goes to show you cheaters never prosper.

NCAA Contact Rules for Recruiting

I wanted to share this topic with you guys because my family dealt with the recruiting process when my brother was in high school. For years now the NCAA has had several policies and rules in place for coaches and universities when it has come to recruiting. In recent years the NCAA has had some very strict rules on texting and phone calls to recruits. There are differences in the rules each division of the NCAA. For Division 1 these rules seem to change every year.

For phone calls, a college coach can make one call per week starting July 1 after your junior year in high school. For phone calls to basketball and football recruits the rules get even more specific but lucky my brother was being recruited for baseball.

Texting, once it became the new trend it quickly became out of hand for coaches and recruits. In 2007, NCAA banded all texting from coaches to recruits. A recruit could send text to a coach but could not reposed to the recruits text. 

What is interesting is that this year there is legislation that several universities are proposing a new legislation that would remove a lot of the texting and phone rules. The schools proposing the new legislation have the bigger athletic budget and the schools against the new proposals have the smaller athletic budgets. The schools against the new legislation feel they will be at a clear disadvantage in the recruiting process.

John Currie, the AD for Kansas State made a good point stating, "I have 139 staff members, which I believe is the smallest full-time staff in the Big 12, but that does not affect our ability to be successful. If we lose out on somebody because our media guide was only 200 pages and somebody else’s was 400 pages, then so be it. I don’t think every school is going to add 25 new quality control coaches and recruiting coaches, because adding 25 new personalities to your building is not necessarily going to make you better. A text message ban has unintended negative consequences and causes more waste of resources than unlimited texting. If a kid does not want to return a phone call or text, he won't."

HGH Testing In The NFL

   

NFL executives are furious at the NFL Players Association with how long it is taking for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) testing to be implicated during training camps and the regular season practices. The NFLPA agrees that it needs to happen so the NFL can enforce the laws against the use of HGH, but they do not completely agree with the execution of the testing. The NFLPA wants players to appeal the testing if at all possible while the NFL executives agree they do not want to give up too much power, they still want to make nessecary consequences for the players who are using the illegal drugs.

Arrest Suspect in International Soccer Fixing

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/sports/soccer/suspect-in-international-soccer-fixing-arrested-in-italy.html?ref=soccer



With Interpol, Italian, and Singapore authorities working together they were able to make a major arrest. The man arrested is Admir Suljic a former player for a Solvienia team and associate of Mr. Tan who help fix over 680 matches and bribe players in a Finland professional league. Both Mr. Tan and Suljic will be tried in Italian court. It is big break through in the case simply because there has never been a crack down on fixers on this level before. With a crack down on these suspects could lead to more fixer arrests in the future. I also think it is interesting because you have different countries working together and not against each other to catch criminals.

Oscar Pistorius- Murder not Olympic Sprinter

Oscar Pistorius is a well known Olympian who ran in the London Olympics with prosthetic legs. Oscar has been charged with pre meditated murder against his girlfriend in South Africa. South Africa is currently expierencing a lot of violent crimes, and he could face jail time even if the judge believes that the runner shot his girlfriend on accident. Pre meditated murder is a federal law that comes with steep consequences. He is claiming that he thought there was an intruder in his apartment. He shot an killed his girlfriend that was in the bathroom and then carried her upstairs. What is interesting is why would an intruder be in your bathroom? (Which investigators found two boxes of what they believe to be steroids and needles.) And how do you have enough time to put on your legs if you are so worried about an intruder. As of now Pistorius has claimed not guilty of pre meditated murder at his bail hearing. Pisctorius faces a huge up hill battle. In my opinion I think he is guilty and should be sentenced to life in prison.