Altering Sports Stats p.

By: by Mark Fitzgerald

Police say gambling ring may have altered sports statistics published by Houston dailies sp.

HOUSTON POLICE SAY a recently busted big-money gambling ring may have altered sports statistics publish-
ed by the city's two major daily newspapers.
Vice squad investigators say they suspect ? but have not been able to prove ? that someone was able to change obscure football stats at the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post in a scheme to fix the results of high-stakes betting pools.
The allegations have given the rivals something new to fight about in their bitter newspaper war.
The Chronicle concedes that in two incidents last season football agate was altered.
However, the Post insists that no one messed with their numbers and that the only instance of an inaccurate statistic was simply a typographical error.
To tweak the Chronicle after the gambling ring story broke, the Post rushed out newsrack ad cards that crowed "Post Sports/Always the Right Score."
For its part, Chronicle coverage of the gambling ring bust noted that police telephone taps showed that calls were made between the suspects and two people with connections to the Houston Post.
One was a mailroom employee and the other works at the Post but for the custodial service that contracts with the newspaper, said Post vice president and editor Gerald Garcia.
No charges have been brought against the two.
"My understanding is that these are people who were placing bets," Garcia said.
For its part, the Chronicle discovered the two irregularities in its sports agate well before the paper was notified of police suspicions, Chronicle executive vice president and editor Jack Loftis said.
"I will confirm that during the past football season we know of two incidents of statistics that were altered after the stories were released by the sports department," Loftis said.
The first incorrect statistic ? Houston quarterback Warren Moon's passing yardage for the Oiler-Pittsburgh Steeler home opener on Sept. 6, 1992 ? was discovered when a number of readers complained that the stat differed from other accounts.
"We were baffled. We didn't know what had happened, and we weren't suspecting gambling," he said.
The second apparently tampered stat ? total passing yardage by Dallas in a Dec. 6 game against Denver ? was caught on page proofs before publication, Loftis said.
Tampering might have been possible through a single "unsecured" terminal in the composing room, Loftis said.
Unlike all other terminals throughout the newspaper, this one allowed access without requiring a name and password or providing a record of its user, he said.
The terminal has since been secured, but there is no evidence it was used to change agate, Loftis said.
"I am not making any accusations about anybody in the pressroom," Loftis said. "Anybody who was in the building could have access to that terminal."
Loftis said technical experts have assured him that computer "hackers," who delight in breaching system security from outside terminals, would be unable to reach the newspaper's editorial system.
A Post internal investigation found no evidence of tampering, editor Garcia said.
Post systems operators cooperated with police investigating the ring and found no inaccuracies in sports statistics the police were checking, Garcia said.
"The information we were asked to check was constant and consistent [with the actual statistic] and not altered in any way," Garcia said.
The busted five-person gambling ring took bets on football pools, which are sometimes called "boards" or "squares" in other parts of the country.
Betters would buy a square ? at prices ranging from $80 to $1,100 ? that would later be assigned two numbers at random. Payoffs would be made based on final and quarterly scores and on a number of other statistics, such as total yardage. Some obscure stats were apparently used as tiebreakers.
Organizers of the pool took a cut of the total bet and apparently also secretly bought squares for themselves. The ring manipulated statistics to produce winners, police said.
Each of the boards included instructions that winning numbers would be based on statistics published in a specific edition of the Chronicle or Post.