Penn State President Graham B. Spanier today (June 13) testified about sports gambling before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., and called for the adoption of legislation to close a loophole in federal law that allows legalized gambling on college sports to continue in Nevada.

Spanier, chair of the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors, said he has never heard genuine fans of intercollegiate athletics suggest that they support collegiate contests because they can bet on the outcome of the games.

"Gambling on college student athletes and the games they play, whether done legally in the sports books of Nevada or illegally in any other state, or on the Internet is a problem," said Spanier. "Gambling on high school, college and Olympic sporting events should be prohibited in all states and greater efforts should be taken to enforce existing laws that ban gambling on the athletics success of our young people."

Among those joining Spanier in supporting the legislation were former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith, Kentucky's men's basketball coach Tubby Smith and South Carolina's football coach Lou Holtz.

The bill to close the sports gambling loophole, strongly supported by the NCAA and its more than 1,000 college and university members, has bipartisan cosponsorship by more than 70 House members. Called the Student Athlete Protection Act (H.R. 3575), the bill would remove the grandfather clause from the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The law prohibited gambling on amateur and professional sporting events with an exemption for those states that already conducted sports gambling or had enacted legislation to do so. Nevada was the only state at that time and continues to be the only state to allow gambling on college sporting events.

For the story by Alan Janesch, and photos of today's testimony go to www.psu.edu/ur/2000/OPED/spanier4.html. For the full text of Dr. Spanier's testimony, go to www.psu.edu/ur/oped/.