The N.C.A.A. Once Eschewed Las Vegas. Times, and Prospects, Have Changed.

The N.C.A.A. found in a 2016 survey, before the spread of sports betting nationwide, that 24 percent of men’s athletes and 5 percent of women’s athletes had bet on sports, “violating N.C.A.A. bylaws,” the study said. There can be severe consequences for violating the N.C.A.A.’s ban on sports betting. Last year, the N.C.A.A. suspended Virginia Tech linebacker Alan Tisdale for six games after he legally bet $400 on N.B.A. games, which he told his coach about following a presentation on N.C.A.A. rules.

This week, all four teams are staying at MGM properties that have casinos, according to a tournament official.

The softening of the N.C.A.A.’s hard line began about 15 years ago, when a team of Las Vegas business leaders traveled to Indianapolis to meet with N.C.A.A. officials. Corporate casinos wanted to be taken seriously on Wall Street — and sports was viewed as a way to do win over skeptics, who might have been uneasy that the mayor at the time was Oscar Goodman, who made his name as a mob lawyer and had represented Richie Perry, the gambler nicknamed The Fixer who had been in the hot tub with the U.N.L.V. players.

The group’s message to N.C.A.A. officials: we’re on the same side.

“Integrity of the games is our product,” said Jay Kornegay, the executive vice president of race and sports book operations at the Westgate, who was among the executives who traveled to Indianapolis. “If we don’t have the integrity of the product, our product goes down the drain. If there’s a game that’s compromised somehow, some way, it’s not only the bettor that gets shortchanged, it’s the operator.”

By then, basketball and Las Vegas were deeply intertwined, beginning with the grass-roots basketball world, whose capital might as well have been Las Vegas.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/sports/ncaabasketball/ncaa-tournament-las-vegas.html