As the
Chicago Crime Commission plans yet another Gambling Conference at the
University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, The Chief Investigator presents the
following article as reprinted with the Permission of the Northern Star, a
college newspaper of Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois,
celebrating 100 years, 1899-1999. This article was written by Brian Schaumburg,
Assistant Sports Editor.
Headline:
Seminar puts bets on table
Byline: Fight
against gambling starts with discussion
Date: January
26, 1999
Volume 99,
Number 11
The old cliche goes, “If you’re not part of
the solution, you are part of the problem.”
By hosting an all-day conference on the
subject, NIU is on the solution side of gambling issues, said Wayne Johnson,
chief investigator of the Chicago Crime Commission.
Johnson said by making people aware of the
problem of gambling, NIU is helping fight it.
“If you don’t teach (gambling), you should
be fighting it,” said Tom Grey of the National Coalition Against Gambling
Expansion.
NIU took a step in fighting the problem with
a seminar Monday, which helped educate and inform people of the effects of
sports gambling.
Numerous speakers were able to verbalize
their messages.
Kevin Pendergast, who was convicted in the
1995 Northwestern University point-shaving scandal, talked to the audience
about his gambling addiction and what it did to his life.
Pendergast will be going to prison in five
days for his part in the NU scandal.
However, Pendergast knows what he did and
how his life has changed because of his gambling, is his own fault.
“Life with and life without (gambling) are
worlds apart,” Pendergast said. “There is not a gambling game that you can
continually win at.”
The Norte Dame graduate has been going
around to college campuses for the last six months to talk to student athletes.
The 27-year-old knows that he will be known
more for his part in the NU scandal than for kicking the game-winning field
goal in the 1994 Cotton Bowl.
Pendergast was not the only seminar speaker
to be convicted of sports gambling.
Arthur Hicks, convicted in 1961 at Seton
Hall, told the audience more about the consequences of gambling.
“The people who bet big money on you will
kill you,” Hicks said.
The seminar even had a surprise guest.
Bill Jahoda, a former mobster, talked to the
audience.
Jahoda was released from his life of crime
in 1989, when he went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jahoda has testified against his former
associates and now takes a negative stance toward gambling by speaking at
seminars.
“If you’re dumb enough to gamble, be smart
enough to know that the odds are against you,” Jahoda said. “It’s the athlete
that doesn’t care about academics that cause the problems.”
Pat Collins, one of the Assistant United
States Attorneys, had a serious message for the student athletes.
“It just takes one bet against your team,”
Collins said. “It’s one bet that could change your life forever.”
Collins told the people how a small gambling
habit can start and grow into a big problem.
“It could start with a simple question by a
person on our floor,” he said. “Having someone ask who’s hurt, who’s not
playing well, can start it.”
Craig Henderson, an FBI special agent, let
the audience know people who gamble suffer physically, emotionally and
financially.
A gambler who owes money may meet physical
suffering in the form of an assault or even murder.
Emotional suffering may come from the need
to continue to gamble, said Henderson, who believes gambling is an addiction.
The financial suffering happens to those who
fall into bankruptcy from bets that do not pay off.
Henderson told the crowd not to gamble, get
involved in gambling to lie about gambling if approached by law enforcement.
Ten people have been indicted in the
Northwestern scandal, some for lying to law enforcement officials.