All right, how did everyone

do on their Super Bowl bets?

It's no secret that, for millions

of people around the world, the action on the field during pro football's

biggest game is secondary to the action elsewhere. Because of legal issues

in various jurisdictions, there's no way anyone can accurately say how

much money changed hands Sunday as a result of the game, although it is

obviously in the billions of dollars.

Sports bookmakers have capitalized

on this obsession for years, to the point that Super Bowl could be as

big in Las Vegas as it is in the host city. And with betting sites all

over the Internet, many of which are based outside the United States,

citizens in every state can legally (for now) enjoy a wager, or several,

on the games of their choice.

In case you are unfamiliar

with this territory, you don't have to bet on the score of the game. For

the Super Bowl, there is a line on just about everything, from the over-under

(based on how many total points will be scored during the game) to who

scores first and how (it was Oakland with a field goal) or even who wins

the pregame coin toss (this year it was Tampa Bay).

Oddsmaker Danny Sheridan has

even taken a look 12 months down the road, listing every NFL team's odds

against winning next year's Super Bowl. At present, the Philadelphia Eagles

stand as the 5-to-1 favorites, while the Houston Texans will entire their

second season in existence at 2 gazillion to 1.

Although I am not a sports

gambler, I was amused last week, as I am sure many other people were,

at the news that a tourism advertisement for the city of Las Vegas was

not allowed to air during the game, apparently at the behest of the National

Football League. Professional sports leagues take, in my view, a curious

public stance with regard to gambling, seeming to ignore its obvious effect

on the popularity of the games themselves and each leagues' very livelihood.

There have been numerous episodes

over the years involving players whose own gambling experiences led to

varying degrees of notoriety. Green Bay Packers running back Paul Hornung

was suspended by the NFL in the 1960s for an entire season, for instance,

and sports fans to this day are continually living with the "will

he or won't he" saga of Pete Rose's possible gambling admissions

so that he can enter baseball's Hall of Fame.

Given the strange reverence

with which pro leagues treat their games where gambling is concerned,

the rejection of the Las Vegas ad reminded of a couple of issues that

stand out in my mind. First of all, gambling has a huge effect on the

revenue of the leagues simply because many people go to the games and

watch them on television solely due to the bets they have riding on those

games.

This is most apparent in the

NFL, where the point spreads for each week's games are printed in nearly

every major newspaper in the country. Of almost equal importance is the

publication each team's injured list, which goes into great detail as

to a player's status (probable, doubtful, out, etc.) for an upcoming game.

Ironically, the league claims to put this list out each week so that underground

information will not be generated by gamblers, all it has done is make

it easier for bettors to get the info they need.

So the NFL acts much like many

municipalities do when they legalize the lottery, which is nothing more

than a state-sanctioned numbers racket, but only allow participation in

their own game. It is the height of hypocrisy to establish a state lottery

but deny anyone the right to organize his own privately-run lottery. The

only thing the states care about is the revenue that comes into their

coffers. The same goes for the NFL, which takes a public stance frowning

on sports gambling while privately enjoying the incredible popularity

it gains from these off-the-field activities.

But an even bigger reason to

laugh at pro sports' holier-than-thou attitude is evidenced by looking

at who legitimately sponsors sports in America. This is easy to do at

Super Bowl time, because the commercials have become as big as the game

itself. Advertisers paid up to $2.2 million for a single 30-second spot

in Sunday's big game, according to published reports.

For several years, USA Today

has tracked each commercial and how well, or poorly, the public responds

to it. This year, out of 55 commercials listed in Monday's edition of

that newspaper, Anheuser-Busch ran 11. That's more than $20 million in

a single game.

It's no surprise to even the

casual sports fan that the alcohol industry is the biggest sponsor of

professional sports in the United States. But it makes one laugh, or cry,

to see how hypocritical the leagues can be regarding their drug policies

when they are subsidized by the most common drug of all, turning a blind

eye so that their wrath can be directed as the people who place bets on

their sacred games.

There is no argument that gambling

has been a scourge of countless American families. But has it been any

more destructive than alcohol? And can professional sports teams justify

giving second, third, and tenth chances to players with criminal records

and substance abuse problems while treating gamblers as the worst kinds

of scum?

What an interesting set of

priorities.

[Monroe Roark's Web address

is www.mroark.com.]