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Let me be up front: I can’t stand horseracing. How it can be classified as a sport is beyond me. If gambling were outlawed tomorrow, it would cease to exist, or would attempt to exist as some kind of underground movement.
And let’s forget the past issues of animal cruelty, the dodgy dealings, the whiff of corruption, the way the entire charade is based around fleecing so-called fans of as much money as possible, and the insidious promotion of the “sport” to young women and men as a form of dress-up and get noticed.
Drive past Randwick at the end of a Saturday meeting and you’ll see the very worst of human behaviour; drunken people stumbling along the footpath and urinating on the nearest tree – and that’s just the ‘ladies’. I could almost guarantee that the majority of racegoers would not have a clue which horse they had their money on through the alcohol haze, and would have no hope of naming the jockey and trainer.
Recently, it seems the gambling industry has wrapped its tentacles around rugby league. I’m no naivete, I know betting on a variety of sports has been happening since Homer (not The Simpsons version) was a kid. The English football pools have been around for longer than television.
Back in the late 1970s, a couple of school friends were told to close down a little league betting card operation that had attracted quite a following among the Year 7s who were looking to trade up their canteen money in order to pick six weekend winners with starts. “Footy Tab” is almost 30 years old, and what started as “Pick The Winners”, “Pick The Margins” and “Pick The Score” has multiplied to a plethora of betting options that I couldn’t possibly comprehend.
It became really noticeable to me this year just how often odds and betting options were included in rugby league broadcasts, quoted by the commentary team themselves. This is also now very apparent in A-League broadcasts, with the odds on an outcome assessed and revised at half-time.
Now the Penrith Panthers, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Melbourne Storm NRL clubs have all entered into big sponsorship deals with major gambling institutions. For the Rabbitohs, this comes a few short years after taking the admirable step of banning (or attempting to ban, I’m not quite clear on the outcome) poker machines at their Leagues Club. Yet they will have Star City splashed across their famous jersey this season.
Not to be outdone, the Storm have hooked up with Crown Casino, but the explanation is that this is an “Entertainment Complex” (okay, so take out all the slot machines and card tables and leave the theatres and stage shows and see how it pans out) and that the Storm wanted to give their fans “a home” (perhaps they could start by giving their fans a team this year that is allowed to play for something, but I digress).
These three major deals have all happened as Canterbury player Ryan Tandy was arrested by police and charged with giving false or misleading evidence in the alleged betting scandal arising from the Cowboys-Bulldogs match late last season.
Does this not amount to a rather astronomical mixed message? There are so many ways to bet on a game now, including methods that don’t have anything to do with the final result, and they are designed for one reason; to make as much money for the gambling industry as possible. Give a punter more options and it kind of follows that they will part with more cash.
I don’t want to see sports become beholden to, and vehicles for, gambling. The move to embrace gambling institutions as major sponsors of clubs is not a good one. The reason for sponsorship is very simple – the sponsor wants exposure for their product so more people will buy into it. Does this society want potentially more numbers of gamblers?
I know there are the arguments of personal responsibility and individual choice, and I understand that betting on a sporting outcome “creates interest” for the gambler. However, gambling is almost invariably accessed side-by-side with alcohol and nothing diminishes personal responsibility like too many drinks. You think casinos don’t know that?
I hope we are not starting down a path where rugby league (and not just league but any sport that opens the door to gambling sponsorship) becomes the sideshow and the punt becomes the most important part of the game. That would make it like horseracing, which isn’t a sport.
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