Three UTEP Miners basketball players happen suspended following allegations of illegal sports wagering
If you are a college sports fan, you probably don’t think much about the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) when considering to groups. Sure, you might have heard about UTEP, but you’re not too worried when your favorite group suits up to play them, and you won’t be choosing them to win a national championship in basketball or football anytime soon. Of course their basketball team is in the headlines, you know it’s most likely not for anything they will have done on the court.
Three Players Accused of Betting on Games
And that’s precisely true for the headlines coming out of UTEP this week. Three players had been kicked off of the UTEP men’s baseball team after allegations had been made against them linked to gambling on sports. Those allegations finally caused the school to report the gambling to the FBI that is local field, and then take away the players from their team.
For those searching for something such as the 1994 Arizona State point shaving scandal, however, it doesn’t appear that things went quite that far in this case. According to the college, none of the three UTEP players involved are accused of shaving points or games that are throwing and there is no evidence that any one of them bet on games played by UTEP. Mentor Tim Floyd stated that the evidence he’s seen backs up this belief.
‘We evaluate every film after every ball game and I had not been suspicious of any behavior which they had been betting on any UTEP event,’ Floyd said.
The three players involved with the wagering had been McKenzie Moore, Jalen Ragland and Justin Crosgile. Moore is the absolute most prominent associated with the three: he was a 6’6′ guard whom led the united group in scoring at 13.1 points per game. Crosgile and Ragland had been both regular components associated with UTEP rotation as well, with Crosgile playing 21 minutes per game and Ragland over 15 minutes each night.
Moore and Ragland had been initially suspended from the team on December 28 after ‘a resident of [the UTEP] community’ provided the UTEP athletic department a tip about their alleged gambling. Crosgile’s involvement came to recently light more.
UTEP Games Not Especially Involved
While UTEP executive vice president Ricardo Adauto reiterated that the college understands the players were not betting on UTEP games, that won’t stop the players from facing some penalties that are harsh.
School officials haven’t yet said exactly what forms of bets the players made. Nonetheless, if the allegations are accurate, each player will have to be suspended for at least a year under ncaa guidelines. Those rules that are same then require the players to lose a year of their eligibility after their suspensions end. Since all three players are in at the very least their junior year of college, that effectively means that their college basketball careers are over.
Having said that, the college itself is not most likely to face any penalties, and with the dismissal of the players, the school’s participation in the event is likely over.
Trinidad and Tobago Betting Shops Decry 10 % Betting Tax
Tale since old as time: Trinidad and Tobago’s government claims sports books are underpaying, while neighborhood organizations say taxes hurt their profits.
An dispute that is ongoing Trinidad and Tobago’s federal government and gambling shops regarding tax percentages is due to what business owners claim is ‘hurting racing’ by making punters angry and causing a significant decline in bets being put. The island nation that sits north of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles is facing the classic battle of what the government desires versus what the actual market will keep.
Taxing Face Off
One local business owner on the tourist destination Peter George, owner of Fairchance Racing provider in Port of Spain, the island’s capital town says his very own company is now closed because for the tax issues, resulting in 300 people losing their jobs. George claims his business has been siphoned so poorly over the course regarding the previous 36 months using the 10 % tax levy on every horse racing bet, that he just decided to shut straight down.
‘We have lost in the last two to 3 years 40 per cent of our volume. We are hoping the government gets our attention and calls us and says what is the issue and so what can we do to help,’ George said.
‘ The legislation that is existing not workable, it is obsolete and no good to your racing fraternity. The Betting Levy Board (BLB) is requesting more and more taxes from the pools and this is burdensome,’ explained George, whoever shop that is betting located on Queen Street. ‘We even get threats from the BLB, but the long and short of it is we cannot pay a lot more than we are gathering.
‘Everyone understands we must have this legislation changed immediately,’ George added. ‘The racing pools are not making the money they used to make in years gone by and within the final decade we have observed the closure of at the very least ten pools. We cannot go on using the 10 % return income tax. It really is hurting racing.’
George says that because clients must fork on the that tax straight at the time a bet is placed then leaving the betting shops accountable for turning those into the State since it was first implemented that it has had a ‘punitive’ effect of driving customers away more and more in the decade. He added that as more options have been introduced over the past 10 years for alternative ways to place wagers that do not cost customers that taxation, they have simply taken their company elsewhere, including to unregulated and therefore ‘tax-free’ underground bookmaking operators.
These operators have actually become brazen enough to source, in search of new customers, George added.
‘They are getting into our establishment and soliciting the no tax initiative to our clients. We would like the betting shops to survive while the unlawful move of refunding the punters turnover tax must stop. It is unlawful.
‘[The customer] has the ability to do betting that is online calling anywhere in the world and obtain a tax-free bet, [so] there clearly was no basis for him to spend 10 free online pokies indian dreaming percent tax on a bet,’ the frustrated betting store owner noted. ‘ Nowhere in the global world is here a turnover taxation. [Only] in the Caribbean, Jamaica, Barbados or Guyana does such a tax exist. This will be impacting negatively on the industry.’
Needless to say, George isn’t alone in his displeasure within the levy that is disincentivizing the Bookmakers Association in that region is pushing for a flat yearly licensing cost to change it.
Evidently underground operators aren’t the threat that is only Trinidad and Tobago’s local sportsbooks; George noted that since 2011, betting volume in the outlets has dropped by as much as 40 % due mostly to competition from area casinos, who lure punters with their slot machines.
‘They have actually free drinks and free meals to entice the punter and he can sit and have fun with the slots all the time,’ explained George. ‘ For the industry to survive we have to meet with the government and work out something which is amicable to all and certainly will make certain that additional employees will be employed rather than sent home.’
In 2012, the now-former chairman for the Betting Levy Board, Kama Maharaj, claimed the recreations book industry really took in billions, but had only paid some $15 million in taxes. Maharaj said that figure should have been closer to $100 million.
Looks like somewhat of a standoff in the OK Corral for the present time, however for George, your choice now rests firmly with changing the existing legislation to be friendlier to his business.
Anti-Online Gambling Group Says Kids, Terrorists Will Be Next to relax and Play
Sometimes when hard and cold facts elude you, just simple ol’ fear-mongering appears like a path that is good trot down. At least, that seems become the thinking behind the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling (CSIG) and a recent Facebook post, depicting a young boy of possibly 9 or 10, who appears to be immersed within an online poker game.
Kids as Future Gambling Addicts
The post went on December 27, 2013 and remains on the Facebook page as with this writing. Accompanying the photo runs the copy:
‘If we have discovered anything concerning the Internet, it is that kids will find techniques to outsmart their parents. Gaming experts state that Internet gambling is in part meant to draw the younger generation into gambling.’
Needless to say, they don’t tell you who these obvious harbingers into the future could be, but vagueness is the weapon that is best when you’re pretty much pulling ‘facts’ out of your derrière.
Not surprisingly, seasoned gaming that is pro-Internet such as the longstanding Poker Players Alliance are firing back at these posts, and others that also feature stories about impending terrorist operations that could infiltrate online gaming web sites, move cash around, and generally cause the end of the world as we understand it.
We couldn’t help but stop by the ‘Recent Posts by Others’ box and chuckle at some of the comments while we realize this is somewhat off the beaten path of hard news. a sampling that is small your entertainment, with all their unedited sentence structure and poorly conjugated thought streams:
‘wow you sure are a greedy pig . and you are saying to want to protect kids from on line gambling , What a tale you have a app to gamble on your web site . so the Coalition against online gambling is such a bloody joke , you are a piece of work .’
‘A gaming expert claims that more folks that treat this page are up against the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling and wish you would focus your massive amount of money and obviously time to good factors instead of wanting to take away peoples choices. It is a New Mr. Adelson make use of your time and money for one thing more productive. year’
‘This site is a joke. I love to gamble but i’ve never lost any plain thing due to gambling to much. If any thing it has helped me out of some spots that are tough. It sucks that Alabama does not have a casino that is real play poker in only slots that are a guarantee lose for far more people. Poker is a way more skill game than slots will ever be. Plus folks are going to gamble and spend money .’
We need to admit, with the budget available to Sheldon Adelson the Las vegas, nevada Sands CEO whose vehement stance that is anti-Internet sense only to him and his lackeys we think the writing and talking points on this page could possibly be made at least a tad bit more believable and compelling. Perhaps next, the page will have a post claiming that all the planet’s poverty and hunger can also be attributed to online play; it could make about as much feeling.
Other Billionaires Disagree
Regardless and despite Adelson’s virtually limitless budget to throw more hysteria on this matter he’s getting some of his own medicine with a few heavy hitters which can be fighting straight back. Fellow billlionaires George Soros, John Paulson and Leon Cooperman have actually all invested heavily in online’s success via the Caesars Entertainment subsidiary that is running the company’s WSOP-branded Internet sites.
It seems pretty apparent that CSIG is fighting a fire that’s long since changed into a blaze beyond control. With three U.S. states already legally functional and California a feasible fourth in the future we are not sure how Adelson and their crew think they are going to turn back the hands of time. And, in reality, well-known irony of it all is that illegal operations are much more likely to be subject to illicit infiltration than legal ones that have numerous watchdog features built into the whole regulatory put up of the sites.
Add to all this ammo the American Gaming Association which, once we recently reported, has taken in five new heavy-hitters to get their message away and we are pretty sure that won’t be to kick online gambling in the kishkes. Besides the five we already reported on, it appears that AGA CEO Geoff Freeman has recruited Jim Messina Obama’s 2012 campaign manager ‘to work on grassroots initiatives.’
In terms of the CSIG Twitter page which as of this writing features a pretty paltry 960 ‘Likes’ and far more derisive comments from visitors than not apart from giving some just-out-school interns a work credit, we’re not entirely certain what they’re trying to accomplish along with it.