The sad failure at the heart of the Iowa/Iowa State Sports Gambling Scandal It is a sports scandal that reveals much about America. The state of Iowa is an icon. It is an agricultural place at the center of the country that has a far larger influence than its relatively small population. Iowa is the purported home of honest, decent folk who work hard all day in farms, fields and barns. The men are supposed to wear baseball caps and be good...
If you are a sports fan, you are probably slightly obsessed with the Tim Donaghy case. Donaghy was one of the highest ranked referees in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was also a gambling addict. For four years, he worked with illegal gamblers and bookmakers betting on his own games. The betting industry either never caught him or the few that did notice the strange odds movements, like the Gambino-connected bookmakers in New York, bet on his games for their...
There are two events occurring in Asia that show the close links between organized crime and top government officials. The first is in Hong Kong. The territory - nominally, an independent part of China under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ agreement hammered out with the departing Brits in 1997, is in the grip of a series of demonstrations protesting new legislation allowing the extradition of criminal suspects to China. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful until organized crime (the Triads) got...
