<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> NEW YORK -- Technically, it turns out every single NBA referee was crooked, after all -- although none of them are going to be punished for it.</p> And, strange as it may seem, those very same referees will now be permitted to gamble in a multitude of ways.</p> That development, along with a reduction in duties for league executives Stu Jackson and Ronnie Nunn, were revealed Thursday by NBA commissioner David Stern following the league's Board of Governors meeting.</p> Stern said an internal review had found that all of the league's 56 referees violated the contractual prohibition against engaging in gambling, with more than half of them admitting to placing wagers in casinos. But Stern said none of the violations was major, and no referees had admitted to wagering in a sports book or with a bookie.</p> "Our ban on gambling is absolute, and in my view it is too absolute, too harsh and was not particularly well-enforced over the years," Stern said. "We're going to come up with a new set of rules that make sense."</p> "It's too easy to issue rules that are on their faith violated by $5 Nassau, sitting at a poker table, buying a lottery ticket and then we can move along," Stern said. "And by the time I got through and I determined going into a casino isn't a capital offense ... I'm the CEO of the NBA and I'll take responsibility."</div></p> http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3079309</p> </p>
This sounds good, that he's changing the rules. IMO they should only be that gambling on sports is against the rules, and the punishment is suspension/firing.</p>
