By Bruce DeSilva
Release Date: April 7th, 2015
2015 Forge Books
ISBN: 978-0765374318
ASIN: B00NKB9RSC
Genre: Fiction / Thriller
Summary:
To solve Rhode Island's
budget crisis, the state's colorful governor, Attila the Nun, wants to
legalize sports gambling; but her plan has unexpected consequences.
Organized crime, professional sports leagues, and others who have a lot
to lose-or gain-if gambling is made legal flood the state with money to
buy the votes of state legislators.
Liam Mulligan, investigative reporter for The Providence Dispatch,
wants to investigate, but his bottom-feeding corporate bosses at the
dying newspaper have no interest in serious reporting. So Mulligan goes
rogue, digging into the story on his own time. When a powerful state
legislator turns up dead, an out-of-state bag man gets shot, and his
cash-stuffed briefcase goes missing, Mulligan finds himself the target
of shadowy forces who seek to derail his investigation by destroying his
career, his reputation, and perhaps even his life.
Illegal Sports Gambling
I was first introduced to illegal sports
gambling by a scruffy guy who made the rounds of the University of
Massachusetts dormitories every Thursday and Friday during the football season,
handing out crudely-printed cards with the point-spreads for the week’s NFL
games.
I’d circle my picks and return my card
to him each Saturday, along with one dollar to cover each game I was betting
on. You had to bet on at least three games, but if you wished, you could bet on
them all. To collect, all of your picks had to be winners. The more games you
picked, the greater the risk and the greater the potential reward.
I was cautious, usually betting on just
three games and never more than six, but I seldom won anything. By the end of
each season, my losses always totaled several times more than I’d won.
This was a long time ago, back when the
New England Patriots were still the Boston Patriots—so long ago that the first
Super Bowl, in which the Green Bay Packers trounced the Kansas City Chiefs,
wasn’t held until my junior year of college.
Back then, I didn’t give much thought to
where the money I lost was going. I know now that the scruffy dude was a runner
who turned the betting cards and cash over to a Western Massachusetts bookie
every week. From there, some of the money was passed on to the powerful Angiulo
crime family in Boston; and quite likely, a share was paid in tribute to
Raymond L.S. Patriarca, the ruthless New England crime boss who ran his
regional empire from a little vending machine company office on Atwells Avenue
in Providence, R.I.
A few years later, when I found myself
writing about Patriarca for The
Providence Journal, I didn’t feel all that good about the tiny contribution
I’d made to his wealth and power. From then on, I limited my sports gambling to
small, friendly wagers with friends.
But I always paid close attention to
illegal sports gambling and the game-fixing and point-shaving scandals it
occasionally generated. So when I decided to make this the subject of A Scourge of Vipers, the fourth book in
my Edgar Award-winning series of crime novels, I thought I knew a lot about the
subject.
A little research told me there was a
lot I hadn’t known.
I’d understood that a lot of Americans
gamble on sporting events, but I’d had no idea how many. According to surveys,
I discovered, about eighty-five percent of us bet on sports at least
occasionally, much of it on the annual March Madness basketball tournament.
I’d known that sports gambling was big
business, but I’d had no idea how big.
Experts estimate that Americans bet three hundred and eight billion dollars a
year on sporting events. That’s six times greater than the annual budget of the
sprawling U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In other words, most of us are involved
in it, and the stakes are astronomically high.
I got the idea for the new novel a few
years ago when Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, already contemplating a
run for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, proposed
legalizing sports betting in his state so he could tax the profits. I saw
immediately that his plan would face enormous obstacles.
For one thing, a federal law makes
sports gambling illegal everywhere but in Nevada and three other states where
it was grandfathered in. So Christie either needed to persuade the paralyzed
U.S. Congress to repeal the law or successfully challenge it in court.
For another thing, legalization had
powerful enemies, and those enemies had deep pockets. The NCAA, the governing
body of inter-collegiate sports, was dead-set against it, threatening to ban
New Jersey arenas from its annual basketball tournament unless the governor
backed down. The four major professional sports leagues were adamantly opposed,
too (although the NBA commissioner recently softened his position), claiming
legalization would damage the integrity of their games.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas casinos were eager
to hold on to their near-monopoly on legal sports gambling, and organized crime
organizations were aghast at the prospect of seeing their bookmaking business
wiped out.
But legalization also had powerful
friends. Some public-employee unions saw it as a way to save their endangered
pension plans. Some casino owners outside of Nevada salivated at the chance to dive
into the lucrative sports-betting business.
Hard-pressed governors of other states, desperate
for a way to balance their budgets without raising taxes, began following the
unfolding New Jersey drama with great interest.
So I asked myself, “What if?”—the question
that has launched every novel that I’ve written.
What if Fiona McNerney, the fictional
governor of Rhode Island whom I’d introduced in an earlier novel, proposed legalizing
sports gambling in her state? McNerney, a former religious sister nicknamed
Attila the Nun because of her take-no-prisoners style of politics, isn’t much
like Christie, but they do have one thing in common. Both are combative
personalities who aren’t given to backing down from a fight.
The novel’s action explodes when
powerful forces with a lot to gain—or lose—if sports gambling became legal,
flood Rhode Island with money to buy the votes of politicians. Much of the
money is delivered in the form of legal campaign contributions, but some of the
special interests aren’t above slipping cash-stuffed envelopes into
politicians’ pockets. Just picture all of that money pouring into a tiny,
economically-depressed state where the average campaign for the state
legislature costs just ten thousand dollars.
Naturally, all hell breaks loose. Before
long, a powerful state legislator turns up dead, a mobbed-up bagman gets shot down,
and his cash-filled briefcase goes missing.
Liam Mulligan, an investigative reporter
for a dying Providence, R.I., newspaper (and the protagonist of my three
earlier novels) wants to dig into the story, but the bottom-feeding
conglomerate that recently bought the once proud daily has no interest in serious
public-interest reporting. So Mulligan, who’s never been inclined to follow
orders, goes rogue, investigating on his own.
Soon, he finds himself the target of
shadowy forces that seek to derail him by threatening his reputation, his
career, and even his life.
The result is at once a suspenseful
murder mystery and a serious examination of one of the major issues of our
times—the influence of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and
the corrupting influence of big money on politics.
The story also allowed me to explore the
blatant hypocrisy that surrounds illegal sports gambling.
Should it be illegal when almost
everyone takes part in it? Why does nearly every state have its own vice laws
against it while, at the same time, their official lotteries rake in billions
of dollars from chump scratch tickets and numbers games?
Why do the NCAA and the major sports
leagues repeatedly claim that legalization will increase the temptation for
criminals to fix games? Isn’t the three-hundred-and-eight billion dollars
Americans gamble on sports every year, most of it bet illegally, incentive
enough? Actually, legalization would probably reduce the risk, because the
amount wagered would be public knowledge. An Arizona point-shaving scandal was
exposed some years back only because a red flag went up when an obscene amount
of money was bet legally in Las Vegas.
Gambling is one
of the main reasons a lot of people follow sports. The NCAA and the
professional sports leagues know this, and they profit handsomely from the
filled arenas and the massive TV contracts all that interest generates. Isn’t
that why they don’t protest when sports writers cite point spreads?
Like any vice, gambling is harmful to
individuals who engage in it to excess, but is sports gambling any more immoral
than state lotteries and Indian casinos? And illegal or not, most Americans bet
on sports anyway. Keeping it illegal does little more than help mobbed-up
bookies stay in business.
As I was finishing my novel,
Governor Christie pressed forward with his plan, pushing his legalization bill
through the state legislature in defiance of the federal law. He announced that
the sports betting would begin first at the Monmouth Park racetrack and that it
would soon spread to the Atlantic City casinos.
So, of course, the major professional
sports leagues sued to stop him.
Last fall, a federal judge
blocked Christie’s plan. Now the issue is headed to the 3rd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia—and quite likely, eventually to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Short
bio:
Bruce
DeSilva’s crime fiction has won the Edgar and Macavity Awards; has been listed
as a finalist for the Shamus, Anthony, and Barry Awards; and has been published
in ten foreign languages. His short stories have appeared in Akashic Press's
award-winning noir anthologies. He has reviewed books for The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and The Associated Press. Previously, he was a
journalist for forty years, most recently as writing coach world-wide for the
AP, editing stories that won every major journalism prize including the
Pulitzer. His fourth novel, A Scourge of
Vipers, has just been published in hardcover and e-book editions.
