Jim Armstrong Out at Denver Post

Those are all legit questions.

It's funny. On the March Madness one, a newsroom I worked in at a fairly large daily didn't allow us to do an office bracket for money for just that reason. But we could do one with newspaper merchandise as the prizes.

Of course it's not like there weren't any rouge brackets, especially in sports, that weren't hard to find out about and fantasy sports ran rampant. Not sure what management would have done if it decided to crack down on any of it. I guess they had their clean pool and then it was OK to turn a blind eye.

 

Were they red? Maybe the prizes were cosmetics?

 

And in those old school newsrooms, the writers and editors were probably placing wagers on games/horse races/fights that would be covered in tomorrow's edition...

 

If you've ever covered horse racing, or been in a track press box, that window in the back wasn't for the beautiful view.

 

AMEN!

Anyone ever read an Andy Beyer column? If so, are your shocked to learn that he bets on the races he writes about? Does that make him "unclean" in some way as a racing writer?

 

If you are a Patriots beat writer and you find out Belachick is covering up Tom Brady's injury do you call the desk or your bookie first? And is it really a good idea to have a financial interest in the game you are covering?

And for that matter would it then be ethical to sell the information of Brady's injury? If you are dealing with an illegal bookies that guy probably has connections to organized crimes. If the bookie lays off some of his action to a clearing house then the bookie does have ties, because those are controlled by organized crime. There are people at the clearing house who would probably pay for knowledge of the Tom Brady injury. Is that ethical?

In horse racing gambling is legal which I think provides some justification for a writer to participate.

 

In this day and age, I would argue that it is a rare, rare instance where a beat writer has better access to injury news that the oddsmakers.

 

Agreed. I've seen lines come off the board and wonder why, only to see injury or other news released later. Some of these oddsmakers apparently are great at digging up news. Of course, they have to in order to protect themselves.

 

A few years ago, the RB on the team I covered dinged his knee in a game. He said it was nothing and that he would play. The coaching staff said he would absolutely play. Based on what we were allowed to see in practice, he looked fine.

On Wednesday they went from being favored by 7 to favored by 3. It might not sound like much, but that's a pretty significant drop from one day to another without any announcements.

The RB didn't play. If any of the beat writers knew about it (highly doubtful) nobody wrote about it. I have no doubt in my mind that the oddsmakers knew about the seriousness of the injury.

I don't think this was the case 15 years ago.

 

http://www.covers.com/articles/columns/articles.aspx?theArt=253505#.TsMvc6CDrhM.twitter

 

That certainly looks authoritative and credible.