NBA fine with casino
MACAO, China – The three NBA referees assigned to officiate the China Games trudged through the massive Venetian Hotel early Thursday morning, looking for an elevator that would take them to their rooms.
An attendant suggested an alternate route to bypass the lengthy lines, but the group of referees recoiled in horror when they saw it – straight through a glittering, active casino.
“It’s the whole casino-phobia thing,” one of the referees’ wives explained. “It’s still very much there.”
That the NBA would use a casino as the headquarters for an event as prestigious as the China Games after one of the darkest summers in league history might come as a shock to some. The memories of the gambling scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy are still fresh in the minds of executives, coaches and players.
The China Games opened in Shanghai, but moved south Thursday to the gambling mecca of Macao. Just a few hundred yards away from where gamblers pressed their luck at baccarat, roulette and Caribbean stud poker, the Orlando Magic played the Team China All-Stars.
Come today, the China Games will close with the Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers also playing in the sparkling Venetian Arena, an arena built primarily for sporting events.
Make no mistake, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill casino. Completed just three months ago, the Venetian has more than 3,000 rooms and the world’s largest casino floor at 430,000 square feet. More than 20,000 workers were needed to build the facility, which could comfortably house 90 jumbo jets.
But NBA executives believe there’s no conflict of interest in holding events in casinos like The Venetian – even with the stench of the Donaghy scandal still polluting the air.
Donaghy, 40, pleaded guilty to two felonies – conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to transmit gambling information across state lines – for taking cash payoffs from gamblers and betting on games he officiated. He has been free on $250,000 bond until his January sentencing. Donaghy has since resigned from the NBA.
Yet the NBA maintained its tight bond with Las Vegas this summer. Team USA trained in Sin City and headquartered at a casino hotel in August. The Vegas Summer League was back in Nevada this past July with more teams. All of this comes, of course, after the league held its midseason All-Star Game in Las Vegas.
“The issues are entirely unrelated because in our eyes Tim Donaghy was a rogue criminal who is out of our league now,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner and COO Adam Silver. “Our experiences with The Venetian and Las Vegas in the past have been stellar and we’re very comfortable with them being hosts to our events.”
As with the All-Star Game in Las Vegas, the NBA insisted that The Venetian remove the Magic-China and Magic-Cavaliers games from the betting line.