NFL commissioner Roger Goodell listens to a question during a news conference Friday at Miami. Photo by The Associated Press

MIAMI

In the spirit of Super Bowl prop bets, ponder this one: An NFL team will one day make Las Vegas home vs. the likelihood of hell freezing over.

Sadly, you'd still be smart to take the side of unusual weather patterns.

Hypocrisy continues to be as much a part of the NFL as its players' fascination with arrest warrants, and nowhere is the blatant insincerity more evident than on the topic of sports gambling.

Hand it to league officials: They have perfected the art of spewing their self-righteous views without passing out from laughter.

"I feel strongly about keeping a very strong line between the NFL and sports gambling," a straight-faced Roger Goodell said Friday during his first Super Bowl address as commissioner. "I think it's a real issue. I have my personal views about gambling and I don't think it's in the best interest of the NFL to have any association with sports betting."

Funny, considering his league would be a mere shadow of its gigantic self without it.

Nothing has really changed. The odds of an NFL owner ever seriously pursuing relocation to Las Vegas remains 10 or more times a long shot than the Bears find themselves against the Colts on Sunday. It would take one serious maverick -- how is the Raiders' Al Davis, anyway? -- to do so, but it's not as though anyone could stop the process, something Davis already has proven in court.

A powerful empire such as the NFL might be able to bully small churches across America into not showing the Super Bowl on big screen televisions (tell me that doesn't have everything to do with continuing to regulate casino parties), but it can't supersede restraint of trade laws.

"The league's position on Las Vegas is hypocritical and disingenuous," said that epitome of bluntness, Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman. "If I weren't mayor, it would be humorous. You're talking about the most dysfunctional group of athletes in the world and they find fault with us because of (gambling)."

It's ridiculous. On one hand, the league speaks pompously of maintaining the integrity of the game by not exposing it to wagering. On the other, do you know what the NFL would be without gambling? The NBA. Professional football's popularity (see those massive television ratings) is directly attached to billions of dollars in betting.

On one hand, the NFL gives its implied endorsement to fantasy sports (you can wager on those, right?). On the other hand, it refuses to accept Super Bowl ads from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, ones that include no mention of gambling.

Goodman at times is completely nuts -- I mean that in the absolute best way possible -- but he's entirely correct on this issue. It's not that the NFL is misinformed; it definitely understands gambling in Las Vegas is the most regulated of its kind on the planet. The league is just so darn sanctimonious in this regard. There are fewer pious attitudes in Vatican City than with the NFL on sports gambling.

"These (professional leagues) and the NCAA and the gaming industry are all on the same side," said Jay Kornegay, race and sports book director for the Hilton. "We want integrity in the games. We want true games. The last person who wants a crooked game is the bookmaker. We're all on the same side."

Still, the NFL looks down its nose at Nevada. While the state might see record action of more than $100 million on Sunday's game, it takes in less than 2 percent of all Super Bowl bets. Goodell reiterates the league's negative stance on Nevada and Las Vegas, in particular, on the same day it announces a regular-season game between Miami and the New York Giants in London's Wembley Stadium, which -- oh, by the way -- houses its own sports book in a town with as many betting shops as pubs.

So we sit and wait and wonder what Goodman meant in his State of the City address about an announcement in the spring concerning Las Vegas taking a huge step closer to landing a professional franchise. We sit and wait and know that while he isn't talking about Major League Soccer -- "Please, I have no interest in that," Goodman thankfully said -- he also isn't talking about the other form of football. Maybe the NBA. Maybe the NHL. Not the NFL. Never, probably.

"I can't believe it's going to be never," Goodman said. "Las Vegas is becoming a world-class city. There will come a time when (NFL) owners are going to insist we have a team."

If so, this might be the only chance: Al Davis lives forever.

Ed Graney's column is published Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.