01:00 AM EST on Thursday, February 9, 2006

Let's see:

We have a state lottery.

We have Keno in every convenience store.

We have Powerball, for which winners get TV time as if they are instant celebrities.

We have poker all over television.

We have off-shore gambling, which is as easy as a couple of clicks on a laptop.

We have every other Indian tribe in the country with a casino, and all the rest wanting one.

There are daily gambling lines on sports events in many newspapers around the country, including this one.

Oh yeah, right beneath yesterday's story about the NHL gambling scandal was a smaller one about record betting in Las Vegas on the the Super Bowl.

But people are not supposed to bet on sports.

Right.

So the surprising thing is not that people bet on sports. The surprising thing is that there isn't more of it.

Betting on sports is as American as mom's apple pie, and over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. A good percentage of the NFL's vast appeal is directly related to gambling. Everyone and his brother fills out the brackets in the NCAA Tournament. To believe people don't bet on sports is to be delusional.

So pardon me if I don't get all that shocked at the news that a dozen or so NHL players are allegedly supposed to have placed bets -- but not on hockey -- with a nationwide sports gambling ring financed by Coyotes' assistant coach Rick Tocchet. Pardon me that I'm not surprised that a percentage of professional athletes -- wealthy, competitive people who have come of age in a gambling-crazed society -- actually gamble every once in a while.

But I'm not naive, either.

After being out of business last year, and in danger of being marginalized as a major sport, the last thing the NHL needs right now is a gambling scandal.

Especially when it involves Wayne Gretzky, arguably the biggest name in the history of the sport.

Talk about a slap shot between the eyes.

Because this has become the biggest story in sports. The Super Bowl is over, spring training hasn't started yet, and the NCAA Tournament is still more than a month away. Take away the Winter Olympics, and this is a downtime in sports.

And everyone loves a good scandal, right? Complete with the alleged involvement of a Philadelphia crime family, more than 1,000 wagers supposedly totaling close to $2 million, a state cop who allegedly was the ringleader, and professional hockey players. It all seems stranger than fiction, just the kind of story America loves.

Picture the Sopranos on skates.

Gretsky is involved because his wife, Janet Jones, is one of the people implicated. According to an Associated Press article, Gretsky laughed when told of his wife's involvement.

"Oh really?" he said. "I don't know. You'd have to ask her that."

I suspect Gretzky will end up being a little less cavalier about this as this story starts to play itself out. Or are we really supposed to believe that Gretzky's wife was getting down on football games and the "Great One" was oblivious? Yeah, right. Gretzky came across yesterday like Mark McGwire during the congressional hearings on steroids: disengenuous at best.

Regardless, it's the kind of publicity no sport needs. We may be hypocritical about gambling, but nothing makes the poobahs of sports more nervous than gambling's stench. Sports need the perception that they're pure, inviolate. It's bad enough we think referees are incompetent. But to think the actual game might be tainted? Sports can't survive that.

So expect the NHL to come down hard on the people involved. Also expect this investigation to roll along with all the force of a power play. It's already too high-profile not to.

"It's not a hockey-related issue; it's a football thing," Tocchet said Tuesday.

Sorry.

Tocchet is deluding himself if he thinks this is going away just because it was betting on football games. It's not a football thing. When you're an assistant NHL coach, Gretzky is your boss, and his wife is implicated, it's very hockey related, very much a hockey thing.

And Gretzky is deluding himself if he doesn't think there are potential ramifications to this. Ultimately, it doesn't matter that gambling became mass entertainment a long time ago, or that grandmothers flock to casinos as if there's salvation on a roulette wheel. It even doesn't matter that so much of much of of this seems hypocritical.

This is a mess.

The last thing the NHL needs.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340