Punters fume at the herd instinct of zebras

AMERICA AT LARGE:Officials in San Diego not only ruined the spread on Sunday, they may well have affected which teams will make the play-offs, writes George Kimball

"I'm shocked, shocked,

to find out that there's

gambling going on in here!"

- Captain Louis Renault (Claude Raines), Casablanca

ROGER GOODELL would probably suffer through an entire soccer game before he'd acknowledge the symbiotic relationship of gambling and the sport he oversees.

Mention point-spreads, two-team parlays or three-team teasers around the National Football League commissioner and you're apt to get a blank stare in return.

For official consumption, the NFL doesn't even admit that people bet on its games. At the same time, the league maintains an investigative staff, composed, in many cases, of former federal agents, and the barest hint of an unusual wagering pattern on a particular contest is apt to find them sifting through the trash baskets and confiscating laptops at the practice facility of the team in question.

Under the guise of "protecting the integrity of the game", the NFL requires its member clubs to file daily injury reports, detailing the aches, pains and availability status of every player on the roster.

Although football coaches despise the notion of making such disclosures available to the enemy, the league is protecting its backside. Making the inside information universally available tends to discourage sports gamblers from cultivating their own sources inside the locker-room.

A player whose random drug test reveals a body teeming with anabolic steroids can expect, at worst, a four-game suspension, and if he's a first-time offender represented by a competent attorney his punishment might be a stern lecture.

On the other hand, a player caught making a small wager on an NFL game (even one not involving his team) is almost guaranteed to be taken out of circulation for a year.

In his public utterances, Goodell, as did his predecessors Paul Tagliabue and Alvin (Pete) Rozelle, steadfastly defends the level of expertise of his officiating crews, but from time to time there crops up an occasion - and last Sunday's game in Pittsburgh is a case in point - where the league is forced to publicly acknowledge their incompetence.

When an entire seven-man crew, abetted by an NFL observer and a replay official, makes a mistake that costs football punters €80 million, you'd far rather have people think them stupid than crooked.

A botched call in Pittsburgh on Sunday didn't affect the outcome of the game, but it directly affected the point spread, touching off a near-riot at the betting windows in Las Vegas casinos.

With five seconds remaining in the game, the Steelers led San Diego 11-10. With barely enough time for one last play, the Chargers had the ball on their 21-yard line. Quarterback Phillip Rivers dumped a short pass to LaDanian Tomlinson, who pitched it back to receiver Chris Chambers, who, as a clutch of Steelers honed in on him, desperately heaved the ball up for grabs again.

Chambers' errant toss wound up in the arms of Steelers safety Troy Polamalu, who ran it into the end zone for a touchdown.

As the 17-10 score went up on the scoreboard, Heinz Field exploded in celebration. There were similar demonstrations of glee in living rooms all across America, all of them enacted by people who had bet on Pittsburgh, spotting the Chargers five points.

Although time had expired, the Steelers' and Chargers' special teams units had assembled for the perfunctory extra-point try. But, before it could be attempted, the buzzer in referee Scott Green's pocket went off, alerting him to the fact that the official up in the replay booth wanted to review the play. The spy in the sky suspected that Chambers' final toss had been a second, and hence illegal, forward pass.

Replays confirmed this, but since the ball had never touched the ground the finding should have been immaterial. The Steelers had the option of simply declining the penalty, in which case the game would have been over. Case closed.

Instead, there ensued an on-field zebra conference in which Green and his crew, having gotten the call right in the first place, began to second-guess themselves. Armed with the additional information from the replay booth, they voided the final touchdown on the grounds that there had been an illegal forward pass.

The score reverted to 11-10, precipitating anguished wails at sports books all over Las Vegas, where the Steelers backers had already queued up in anticipation of collecting on their wagers.

In Nevada, the only state in which football betting is legal, an estimated €8 million changed hands on the NFL officials' mistake, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Between man-to-man wagers, bets with the friendly neighbourhood bookie and offshore internet gambling sites, the swing on the Steelers-Chargers outcome was a lot closer to €80 million.

A day later the NFL admitted that the zebras had acted in error.

The original ruling had been a touchdown, "and that's where we should have remained", Mike Pereira, the NFL's vice president in charge of officiating, acknowledged on Monday. Pereira blamed "confusion" in the last-second maelstrom of events.

"That led to the misinterpretation and taking away the points, which they shouldn't have," he said.

For now it's only the bettors who are upset, but consider: with their record now at 7-3, the Steelers are tied with the New York Jets for the AFC's second-best. Five other teams are breathing down their necks at 6-4, and just three of those will make the play-offs.

Should two or more AFC teams wind up with the same records when the season ends on December 28th, Sunday's non-touchdown could come into play in at least five of the first 11 steps in the NFL's tie-breaking system - a procedure that would consider points scored, points allowed, net points in conference games and net touchdowns in all games.

The bookies, who paid off based on the announced score, aren't about to grant refunds, but this is an episode that could have even more embarrassing consequences six weeks down the road.

These issues are usually determined by the first few tie-breaking criteria, but back in 1977-79 teams were twice eliminated from play-off berths based on net points.

Ironically, Jack Pardee coached the teams involved in both tie-breakers.

Tracked down by the New York Post after Sunday's fiasco in Pittsburgh, the 72-year-old Pardee noted that "if it was a coach making a mistake like that he'd be fired".

"(Scott Green) should never call another game," Pardee told the Post's Steve Serby. "If (NFL football) isn't on the up-and-up, you've got pro wrestling. And who's going to bet on that?"