Say It Ain't So, Wayne!

It's too bad Gretzky might take some heat for his old lady's gambling problem. Janet Jones has no excuse. She was in POLICE ACADEMY 5, she knows the law.

Truer words have never been said.

it's funny how the media are trying their damn hardest to make gretzky look bad. all the big headlines i've been reading would say something along the lines of 'gretzky lied about his knowledge of gambling ring'. meanwhile his quote was "my love for her is deeper than anything. the reality is, i'm not involved, i wasn't involved and i'm not going to be involved". so where does that say he never knew about the gambling ring? he never said he had no knowledge about it, he said he wasn't involved in it. two totally different things.

Except he was involved, atleast in a cover up. And if his wife is betting $500,000 I find it hard to believe he didn't know. I find it hard to believe his wife and one of his best friends are doing that much business together and he didn't know anything.

Wayne isn't on the level of Pete Rose or Micheal Jordan and he probably won't be tarnished from it. But he did knows something.

he never said he didn't know about it. my point is the media is lying in headlines about what he said. it would be pretty naive to think he didn't know about it anyways. gretzky said he wasn't involved in it. how is that saying he had no knowledge about it? it doesn't. they're twisting his words into a big high profile headline.

Bottom line is, there was no way The Great One was coming out of this looking good. If he knew, he was a crook, and if he did not relise what was going on, he was a idiot.
Maybe John Sayles will get the film rights....

So, what's with people's sudden problem with gambling? I don't even get why this is a story. Who doesn't know at least one bookie?

Me. But I still have no problem with gambling. I can kinda understand why you wouldn't want athletes gambling on the sport that they play but who cares if a hockey player bets on a football game? It's all ridiculous. Definitely a non-story.

I must be the only one who thinks that Wayne's going to be pretty tarnished, if not ruined, when all is said and done.

How does he not know that Tocchett, one of his best friends and one of his coaches, is running a multi-million dollar gambling organization? His claimed ignorance is particularly ludicrous given the scope of his "wife's" gambling habit and the fact that other NHL players were involved.

How does he not know about his wife's gambling habit? What, they just have 500K sitting around in a cookie jar?

Recent stories indicate that Wayne himself has lost 1-2 million over the last four or five years in Vega$.....is it likely that his wife was doing all the betting, or was she the proxy for Wayne?

If Wayne and his close friends/wife are involved with an organized gambling ring that took bets from hockey players and that may have had ties to the mob, it is a big deal; particularly for a sport that continues to reel from a serious image problem.

Wayne's laughing and shaking of his head at the Olympic press conference didn't help matters. These are serious concerns he needs to address, and pretending it's a "non-issue" is completely bogus. Even if he is telling the truth (which, frankly, I find implausible) he then has valid questions to answer about his fitness to run a hockey franchise given that he couldn't discern a huge problem that is going on right under his nose.


I haven't even talked about what will happen if we find out that Tocchett took bets on hockey, or that hockey players bet on hockey, or that Wayne and his wife bet on hockey; any of those three circumstances turn out to have occurred, Wayne will probably be finished.

GFC: gambling is fine. Participating in or organizing an international gambling cartel is the problem (again, I don't know if betting on hockey was involved...if so, this problem becomes much worse). Having any involvement whatsoever in gambling on a sport you're participating in is another, much larger, problem that may have occurred here.

First off, Gretzky's been open and honest about his involvement. He said he hasn't been involved. So, again, what's the big deal? His wife bet 500K...as if that money means something to people with the net worth of the Gretzky's. He had a friend who turned out to be a bookie to the wealthy. Oh no! Let's turn down our righteous indignation on this one (which really, I think most everyone has. It's the media that is trying to make this a terrible story).

Illegal gambling cartel? Why am I supposed to give a shit whether or not rich people gamble with Vegas or just some other rich guy? Because the government doesn't get a cut?

Well I don't believe Gretzky. I think he's either lying or obfuscating his knowledge and/or involvement. I think he's lying because at this point I tend to disbelieve professional athletes as a matter of course.

It's not a friend, it's an employee! One of the coaches on his team! Not some buddy he drinks with. He either has terrible judgment in who his friends/coaches are, or he is lying about his knowledge of the guy's activities.

Why are you supposed to "give a shit" about organized crime? I don't know how to explain it to you, if you don't already understand it.

What does it matter to me that one of Gretzky's friends/coaches is into gambling? You're not explaining why this is a big deal, and just making a crapload of assumptions). People gamble with bookies all of the time. We don't know if anyone bet on hockey, but that would certainly change the nature of this. However, it would change the nature of how we look at Tocchett, not Gretzky. I know lots of people who break laws, as do you. That doesn't say anything about anyone but those breaking the law.

And quit pretending to be upset about organized crime making money off of gambling. This is gambling. Not drug-running or killing. It matters not at all to me whether the people making money are mob crooks or corporation crooks.

I shouldn't have to explain to you why coaches (and players, even more importantly) should not be involved with sports gambling, and particularly with bookies (because of the stigma that can attach to the sport). Gretzky's relationship with Tocchet taints him by affiliation, and if he was involved in illegal gambling transactions, I think he'll be just about finished.

I have no problem with legalized gambling being more widespread, or even with the local, independent bookie, but I have a big problem with tax-free entities with dubious connections to underworld profiting by millions, if not billions, of dollars. If you don't think drug-running and/or gambling syndicates don't occasionally turn ugly or violent, you're naive.

I once organized a March Madness Basketball pool at work. Is that considered a cartel?

Guilt by association is bullshit. It's just another example of trying our hardest to knock down celebrities. Because he's friends with someone involved in illegal activity, somehow Gretzky is the bad guy? The whole media focus on this matter is about the guy who hasn't been shown to be personally involved in it. That's why the whole thing is a joke.