Sam Brownback: “today I introduce a bill along with Senators Leahy, Cochran, Jeffords, Helms, Durbin, Lugar, Edwards, Voinovich, McCain…”

“today I introduce a bill along with Senators Leahy, Cochran, Jeffords, Helms, Durbin, Lugar, Edwards, Voinovich, McCain, and Feinstein, which seeks to protect the integrity of high school and college sports and reduce the unseemly influences that gambling has on our student athletes. I think you can tell by the coalition of people putting in this bill we are introducing today that this is a bipartisan issue that crosses virtually all ideological lines but is deeply concerned about the integrity of intercollegiate athletics and amateur sports. What we are seeking to do by this bill is to make it clear that it is illegal to wager on intercollegiate athletics, to wager on the Olympics. The High School and College Gambling Prohibition Act is in direct response to recommendations made by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), which last year concluded a 2-year study on the impact of legalized gambling on our country. The recommendation called for a ban on all legalized gambling on amateur sports and is supported by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which represents more than 1,000 colleges and universities nationwide. This bipartisan bill will prohibit all legalized gambling on high school and college sports, as well as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Gambling on college games and student athletes is not only inappropriate, it can be disastrous.”