All right, all you sports trivia guys out there, here’s one that I believe will stump most of you.
Who was Charles McNeil?
He lived from 1903 to 1981. He wasn’t an athlete, coach, or sports entrepreneur. He didn’t write about sports; he wasn’t an author or historian; he wasn’t directly involved in sports in any way.
But, he had an enormous influence on one of the most popular activities in the world today – sports betting.
Probably because of the obscure and mysterious nature of gambling on sports events, information on McNeil himself is sketchy. He was a math whiz at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, and there he befriended Amos Alonzo Stagg, one of the most famous football coaches and sports spokesmen of that time. Historians disagree on the details, but they do agree that McNeil was brilliant with numbers and fascinated by athletic competition. The combination defined his future.
He became one of the earliest bookmaker-gamblers. He bet on anything and everything during a time when he taught math in secondary schools and worked as a securities analyst at a bank. While sources don’t agree that he actually invented the point spread, he is generally credited with perfecting it and using it to level the playing field among sports gamblers by the time of World War II.
Consider the following scenario: One football team is an 18-point favorite over the other in a prominent game. In the final minute, the favored team leads the other 30-10. The game was long since decided, but millions of viewers are on the edge of their seats as the losing team gets set to try a “Hail Mary” pass for one final score. If it works, the TD would cut the victory margin to less than 18 points. Millions of betters have wagered more than $1 billion on the “point spread.”
The point spread has influenced sports in both positive and negative ways. It has created more interest in sports, more betting on the games (especially pro football) and created more opportunities for scandals, such as point-shaving.
The point spread helps betters and bookies deal with events in which one competitor is far superior to another. It is used primarily in football and basketball. It offers points instead of odds. Oddsmakers estimate by how many points one competitor will win a contest. If one team is a 10-point favorite, wagers are placed at even money, with the bettor simply staking $11 to win $10. The $1 difference is a bookie’s commission.
By the 1950s, interest in sports in general, and in football and basketball in particular, was soaring. And sure enough, scandals emerged. In the 1940s, point-shaving scandals occurred in both pro football and college basketball.
McNeil himself eventually turned to gambling full-time and became one of four partners that owned the Gym Club, which became one of Chicago’s favorite bookmaking establishments. Later, he decided to concentrate only on making, instead of taking, bets.
Many decry sports betting and say it has sullied sports. But all agree that gambling, and the point spread, have had an undeniable impact on the games and on the millions who watch them.
