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Dont bet on the AFL to stop Bock

Roar Pro
14th December, 2011
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Roar Pro
14th December, 2011
23
2252 Reads

Everyone is happy to sit and chastise AFL players who continue to engage in forbidden betting activity. However, little thought is given to what must actually be occurring in the player’s mind when making such a decision.

How many of us would actually pass up the opportunity to make an extra few hundred bucks for our friends or ourselves? The conduct of Heath Shaw, Nick Maxwell and Nathan Bock is not criminally illegal but is outlawed within the jurisdiction of the AFL.

Critics bemoan the stupidity of their actions, asking in bewilderment how they can think they won’t get caught.

I don’t deal in clairvoyance, nor do I claim to be a prophet, but when judging these players we should do so by attempting to gauge their state of mind. Would the player decide to get involved in illegal betting activity if they did not believe that the chances of being caught were much lower than getting away with it? I believe they would not.

Somehow, whether it is through knowledge of teammates being successful in similar matters or thinking they can beat the league’s restrictive measures, players continue to feel that the odds are in their favour.

The aforementioned hypothesis, if in fact true, is something that the AFL cannot police any better than they are already doing. It is time that the government became involved.

This week, officials from 13 of Australia’s top sports met with politicians to strategise ways to maintain their competitions’ integrity in relation to betting. While the AFL, NRL and Cricket Australia are all organisations of considerable volume, the issue of problem gambling and illegal betting is one I believe to be beyond their reach.

Therefore such steps are ones that will eventually see Shaw, Maxwell and Bock’s kind of scenario eradicated. Betting has become a vice too prevalent in sport and in society.

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During coverage, when airtime is given to discussion about betting, the game sells itself in a shameful way. Similarly, sports reliance on betting revenue should’ve been outlawed years ago. While a much larger scale example, Formula 1 has survived without the need for tobacco backing like it had from Marlboro.

Ultimately, criminalising is the way to stop this behaviour. Bock misses two matches and is fined $10,000 but I am sure an impending jail term would’ve made him apprehensive about the information he divulged.

Incarceration is the correct and appropriate punishment. It goes without saying the ramifications Bock’s actions can have.

No sport should be manipulated by the actions of one, unless it is through their spontaneous exploits on the field.

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