Six hundred Northwestern students chosen at random received surveys last week for a national study assessing gambling practices on college campuses.
The 21-question survey, conducted by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, questions students’ involvement in a variety of gambling practices such as purchasing lottery tickets, playing casino games and betting on sports.
All responses are confidential.
“We hear a lot about gambling on college campuses,” said Mary Desler, assistant vice president for student affairs, “but no one really knows the extent to which students are gambling.”
Two sports-gambling scandals have rocked NU in recent years.
A fumble by former NU football player Dennis Lundy during a 1994 game aroused suspicions of gambling among players, and federal investigations led to convictions of several players for sports bribery and perjury.
Lundy was among those sentenced for lying about gambling.
In November 1998, two former NU basketball players, Kenneth Dion Lee and Dewey Williams, were convicted of accepting bribes for point shaving. The games took place during the 1994-95 season.
Desler said the study is not affiliated with these incidents, and that she is unsure whether students gamble excessively on campus.
“I can’t say that I personally see gambling as a problem on campus,” Desler said. “Just like the national organization I am operating with, I am really curious to see if gambling is a problem.”
The NU athletic department has coped with gambling problems in the past couple years.
Kyle Coughlin, interim director of media services for the athletic department, said sports-related gambling is not exclusive to NU.
“It’s an epidemic across all collegiate athletics,” Coughlin said. “Obviously, Northwestern has had a dark time with gambling, but we’ve come to accept that and get past it.”
Coughlin said the athletic department holds a mandatory gambling-awareness workshop every year for all student-athletes and also conducts individual awareness orientations for each team. The athletic department staff also receives additional gambling-related training.
Coughlin said the survey results could be beneficial for the athletic department and the university as a whole.
“Anything that draws attention to the problem helps,” Coughlin said. “I think Northwestern is supportive of a survey because gambling is a problem everywhere.”
Some students said assessing college gambling habits through surveys could yield interesting results.
“I think (college gambling) is something of interest,” Speech sophomore Yewande Dawodu said. “I haven’t heard of it being a problem, but if they feel like it’s a problem, then it should be addressed.”
Ten colleges are participating in the survey.
Desler said she hopes more than 50 percent of students will respond by the Feb. 14 deadline.
The national results probably will be released at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators national meeting in March, Desler said.
