NEWS » and obviously I disagree and obvio

Americans remain divided on the issue of expanding legal sports betting, according to a national survey released Wednesday by Fairleigh Dickinson Universitys PublicMind research center.The survey found that 48 percent of respondents favor changing federal law to allow states to offer legal sports betting, while 39 percent are opposed.The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 prohibits state-sponsored sports betting in all but a handful of states. Nevada is the only state allowed to offer wagering on single events, the most popular form of sports betting. Delaware operates a sports-betting parlay scheme through its state lottery.Those in support of expanded legalization reasoned that people are already betting on sports and pointed to potential revenue for states. The survey found that 60 percent of respondents under 35 years old favor changing the federal law. Eighty percent of respondents in that age demographic said they had bet on sports informally in the past 12 months.Betting on sports does not have an access issue for anyone in the United States, Donald Hoover, a senior lecturer at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said in a release coinciding with the survey. Most of the sports betting in U.S. is fairly easy to do but happens in the shadows and in violation of federal law.Opponents were most concerned that legalization would foster gambling and change the perception that the games are fair.The public is divided on this issue, and it looks like the reasons behind the division stem from the age-old difficulty of reconciling the competing pulls of money and morality, Krista Jenkins, a professor of political science and director of PublicMind, added in the release. People are clearly worried about the effects of gambling on individuals and their families, but also aware of the benefits that come from more money for the state from something that people are already doing.Fairleigh Dickinson conducted a similar poll in 2012, when 51 percent of respondents said they believed the federal government should allow more states to offer sports betting.This year, more than 1,000 adults were polled over the phone from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, and results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points, according to PublicMind, the universitys survey research center.Custom Packers Jersey China . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. Authentic Custom Packers Jersey . -- For the first time in two months, an opponent was standing up to Alabama. http://www.custompackersjersey.com/custom-rashan-gary-jersey-large-72r.html . The injury bothered Bledsoe in the Suns victory over the Clippers on Monday and he sat out the teams home loss to Memphis on Thursday night. Cheap Packers Jerseys . The news was first reported on Gonzalezs Twitter account and confirmed by the Rockies. Gonzalez has a six-week window before position players have their first workout at spring training in Arizona. Custom Packers Jerseys . Walcott is available for Saturdays home match against Southampton as Arsenal looks to extend its two-point lead at the top of the Premier League. The Gunners are currently the second highest scorers in the league but Wenger insists Walcott will add something extra to his team.NEW YORK -- NCAA President Mark Emmert says he is pleased to see how well Penn States football team has bounced back from the sanctions the program received in 2012 after the Sandusky scandal.No. 5 Penn State (11-2) is having its best season since Jerry Sandusky, a longtime assistant of late Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno, was arrested in 2011 for sexually abusing boys. The Nittany Lions won their last nine games and the Big Ten title.I think its terrific, said Emmert, who spoke at an intercollegiate athletics forum sponsored by Learfield Communications on Wednesday in Manhattan.I think what Penn State went through is an awful situation and its still playing out sadly. But the football program is still Penn State and they showed it and they did really well. The university has done an amazing job to put in place all of the things their board wanted and our board wanted.The NCAA went outside its usual process to sanction Penn State in 2012. The school was hit with massive scholarship limitations and a four-year bowl ban, along with fines. The school also agreed to enact dozens of reforms recommended in a report by former FBI director Louis Freeh on the scandal.The original scholarship and postseason penalties were eventually rolled back. Emmert said he was pleased the roll back helped Penn State recover more quickly, and that NCAA sanctions are not meant to cripple an athletic program.Ive always said and always believed that Penn State first and foremost is a great university ... and secondly its got wonderful sports traditions. How could you not be pleased that theyre playing good football again? Thats very good stuff, he said.Emmert covered numerous topics in a 30-minute question-and-answer session, and after he spoke with group of reporters for 15 more minutes.- He declined to weigh in on whether the College Football Playoff selection committee made the right decision with the four teams it chose to compete for the national championship, but he did say he would prefer an eight-team playoff that would include automatic bids for the Power Five conference champions.I think a conference championship ought to count for something. I think how you determine your champion is up to somebody else, Emmert said. Id like to see all five of the conference champions get in thhe playoff.dddddddddddd.The NCAA has no authority over the College Football Playoff.Thats why we live in America. Everybody can have an opinion, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany joked, when asked about Emmerts comments. He doesnt have a vote, though.- Emmert said he would like to see the new NCAA football oversight committee better define the purpose of bowl games. There are 40 and some spots are given to teams with sub.-500 records. The NCAA does not run bowl games. It does have a sanctioning process, but mostly it lets conferences decide whether they want to put on games.What do we, the membership of intercollegiate athletics, want bowl games to be? Emmert said. Are they a 13th game thats an exhibition game? Are they a reward for having won something? We have teams in now that can get into a bowl game having won two or three of their conferences games.- The NCAA pulled its championship events out of North Carolina in September because of a state law that limits anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people. The decision was later criticized by Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins in an Wall Street Journal op-ed. Jenkins said the NCAA should not be a moral arbiter.He and I have chatted a lot about that issue, and obviously I disagree and obviously, more importantly the board of governors disagreed, Emmert said.The NCAA will choose sites for future championship events in April and part of that is a fairly complex process, Emmert said, of looking at the local and state laws of potential host locations.One of the considerations we have now as we make those decisions, as the sport committees make decisions about where they go, is going to be LGBT rights, he said. I think and hope and believe, maybe wishfully, that North Carolina will modify their position because citizens want that.- Emmert said the Big 12 deciding not to expand was a good thing for college sports.I think the last round was very disruptive. It had a negative impact on so many schools, even personal relationships. It was hard and Im glad we didnt have to go through that again. Even on a smaller scale, Emmert said.---Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP ' ' '