Lately, everyone’s talking about gambling in sport. Live odds, sponsorship, stadium naming rights, exotic bets, relentless advertising… it’s in the news, on TV and radio, they’re even arguing about it in Canberra.
Love it or hate it, there’s the real potential for trouble when betting companies sink their hooks into the teams we follow and begin the media coverage that goes with it.
But what about footy tipping? If there was ever a national Australian gambling pastime, this is it. Forget two-up, forget the annual flutter on the Melbourne Cup. As far as being part of the national identity, footy tipping stands alone.
Even now, with the recent upsurge in popularity of fantasy football, there’s still a place for the tipping competition in our homes, our workplaces, our sporting clubs.
Me? I love footy tipping. Kick in your $10 or $20 at the start of the season and you’ve got months of banter and friendly competition to look forward to.
It doesn’t even matter if you don’t follow AFL or NRL. Some of the best tipsters I’ve known have had absolutely no clue about the game. That’s the beauty of it; it’s a great leveller and brings people together who would otherwise have nothing in common.
Sadly, the betting companies have noticed this. In the last year or so there’s been an explosion in ‘free’ tipping competitions with huge prizes from the likes of Sportsbet and Centrebet.
Costs you nothing, they say. Thousands of dollars in prizes, compete against your friends, have a ball. They’ve even enlisted household sporting names such as Shane Crawford and Trent Barrett to help flog the message.
Problem is, they have an ulterior motive. Don’t they always? These tipping competitions aren’t being run just for fun; the goal is to get people to open betting accounts, especially people who wouldn’t normally be interested in online sports betting.
Because once you’re on their books, accessing their websites to place your tips, they can swamp you with offers and odds until you decide, just maybe, to try having a punt.
Think I’m overstating the situation? Let’s take a look at four tipping competitions currently being offered by betting companies in Australia.
Sportsbet
Sportsbet run the Million Dollar Tipping competition; that’s the one with Crawford and Barrett doing the promotion. It’s a standard tipping comp where you pick the winners for each round, and score a point for each tip you get right. The top prize is $200,000 in both the AFL and NRL competitions.
The Catch
You can’t enter Million Dollar Tipping without opening a full betting account with Sportsbet. Most other betting agencies have tipping memberships, but not Sportsbet. No account, no play.
When you enter your tips, the Sportbet website displays the appropriate odds for your selection and gives you the opportunity to place a multi-bet based on your tips.
And if you tip all the winners in any given round? Your prize is a $50 free bet with Sportsbet.
TAB Sportsbet
As the official betting agency of both the AFL and the NRL, TAB Sportsbet are understandably a little careful with their tactics.
You can join their tipping competitions with a tipping membership; there’s no need to open a betting account to play. TAB Sportsbet also offer a standard tipping competition, but instead of a point for each correct tip, you score points based on the odds of your tips winning. The odds are ‘helpfully’ displayed for every game.
The top prize for both the AFL and NRL competitions is $25,000 and a corporate box at the grand final, with the opportunity to increase the payout to $250,000.
The Catch
Apart from educating tipsters in the way odds work (which is the goal of this competition), the major catch is the provision of prizes at the end of the season. The top ten tipsters get cash prizes, while the prizes for 11th to 50th place are $100 TAB Sportsbet vouchers.
Centrebet
Centrebet run a PYOL (‘pick your own line’) tipping competition. Their offering is similar to TAB Sportsbet, in as much as you accumulate points depending on the odds of your selections.
The difference is that you also pick your own line for each game. This changes the odds, which in turn changes the number of points you stand to win. Again, this is a thinly disguised attempt to teach people how to gamble on sport.
The top prize for the AFL and NRL Centrebet competitions is a $15,000 overseas sporting trip.
The Catch
While you don’t need a Centrebet betting account to play, you do need one if you’re interested in winning any of the prizes.
All of the weekly prizes are in the form of bonus bets; you cannot claim a weekly prize without a Centrebet account. And without an account, you are also ineligible for the main prize (the overseas trip).
Betstar
Betstar’s Hot Streak tipping competition is a little different. The one competition covers AFL, NRL and Super Rugby, and the aim is to get the most consecutive correct tips (the hot streak). You can tip on one game per round or all of them; it’s up to you.
There are monthly prizes of Apple products, and the overall prize is a sports tour package and $10,000 cash. There are also bonus monthly prizes and a bonus overall prize of $100,000.
The Catch
While you don’t need a Betstar account to take part in their tipping competition, you do need an account to claim bonus prizes. The monthly bonus prizes are $500 free bets with Betstar, and cannot be claimed without an active account.
The ‘active’ part is the second catch. It isn’t enough to simply open a Betstar account and not use it; you must have placed at least three separate bets with Betstar to be eligible for a bonus prize. Same goes for the overall bonus prize; without an active account, you can’t win it.
The trend is pretty obvious. All four of these betting agencies, under the auspices of offering free tipping competitions, are giving away betting vouchers or bonus bets that can only be used with them. In most cases you need to open a full account to claim prizes, or in some cases even to take part.
Now, I know there are a lot of sports fans out there who love to bet on the game, and wouldn’t be fazed by any of this. But these fans are not the ones these companies are targeting. It is a sneaky, underhanded grab for the wallets of those who normally wouldn’t consider betting on sport, and that’s a problem.
My advice? If you’re not a sports gambler and you’re looking for an online tipping competition, ignore the hype and glamour of the betting companies and consider Roar Tipping (of course!) or footytips.com.au. The prizes may not be as enormous, but then again, that’s not what footy tipping is all about.
Fooz
Guest
Hey Tangles, What you said made a lot of sense. Its unfortunate that the refs may feel are timid because of any media scrutiny. In any case the commission needs to address these issues amongst others.
Tangles
Guest
Fooz - as a pretty keen follower of European soccer, in partciular EPL, i have to disagree that refs arent sending people off because it may change the prices too much. The refs in soccer have no qualms in issuing red cards/sending people off and causing the market prices to fluctuate wildly. I would suggest the refs in RL are too timid because of the amount of media scrutiny showing their mistakes and the invariable "it changed the game - whoever would have won had they a full team.. "etc.. on the ohter hand, they can safely utilise the 'report' system as their get out of jail free' card and be seen to have taken action. fundamentallly i think your assertion that betting agencies pressure refs is wrong, because they would actually stand to benefit from refs sending people off because it would provide more upsets and volatile results.
Bayman
Guest
johno, I like your idea. Of course, there will be some who will think "Thank God I wasn't betting real money" after losing their imaginary shirt and others who will be thinking, "If only I had the nerve to bet real money I would have made a fortune". I guess the only guide is to think why there are betting agencies in the first place? The answer, presumably, is because there's money in it. In short, punters lose more often than they win. It is a sobering thought that every winning punter is taking home the dollars that the previous day belonged to someone else. However, at some point we must accept that we are not our brother's keeper and that the responsibility to retain one's money lies with the individual. Human nature is, after all, human nature. We cannot protect people from themselves and I'm not sure we should even try. As a concept survival of the fittest works perfectly well with any number of species except humans. We accept the truth of the adage except where it concerns us. In truth, we think too much. We see too much and we feel too much. We understand consequence. So some of us are running around saving people - from others and themselves. Some are being self destructive and the others couldn't give a toss. Not my problem. Others still are trying to take advantage. Humans are their own worst enemy. It has never been any different and it will never be any different. It is the nature of the beast. The massive change from days of old to the present day is the acceptance of self responsibilty. Today, nothing is my fault. If I use my credit card too much the retail outlets, and the banks, are to blame. If I drink too much the hotels and clubs are to blame for continuing to serve me. If I trip over the kerb in the street the council is to blame for making it too high. It is never, however, my fault. We even have the "ambulance chaser" lawyers who tell us, "You're entitled - sue them and if we don't win you don't pay any fees". No wonder we have become soft. Gambling may well be a problem - but only for the gamblers. Still, I guess the motivation to save people from themselves in this current day is largely because, if we don't, they become a massive financial burden on society. So, are we trying to protect them - or us?
AndyMack
Guest
Chop, i guess he was just pointing out the fact that even a bit of harmless fun tipping using an online tipping site is subject to the gambling companies reach. I ran a work tipping comp a few years back using something like oztips or the like, and seemed very good, but then started noticing odds and links to websites etc.
AndyMack
Guest
Good article. I read the headline and was about to say you are kidding, but the article turned out to be about "the insidious creep of betting agencies", to borrow a line from Apaway above. Couldn't agree more. The govt put a stop to tobacco advertising through sport, think its about time they did the same with gambling. BTW, i love a punt, but will seek it out if i want to, don't need it pushed down my throat.
Dingo
Guest
Gambling is one of those things that just fails to interest me in the slightest. If I go to the races, for example, sure I'll set aside however much I want to spend, usually that amount gets topped up as the inevitable losses begin to mount. After that I don't have 1 nanogram of desire to continue betting in the hope of recouping my losses. I once joined an online poker website, because I thought, "geez this poker sounds like fun". When you join, there is the option to play with "real" or "play" money, being a novice I opted for play money. I played on and off for months, got ok at it, but learnt that "shite hands" are much more common than good ones. Again no desire in using my hard earned to gamble with. Eventually uninstalled the programme. Same goes for tipping, I and everyone in our tipping comp are in it for bragging rights over the pool of prize money. I don't get how people become addicted to gambling, but I do find it disturbing that the betting agencies and betting odds are so heavily promoted in sport these days.
apaway
Guest
Brilliant article. The insidious creep of betting agencies into the good old workplace tipping competition is as disgusting as naming your stadium after a gambling company. Conflict of interest? Never!
Fooz
Guest
I like having a punt now and again as much as the next person but I also feel uncomfortable with the influence of the gambling industry in sport. In League especially, I can't help but think that refs do not send players off these days as they are pressured not to because of the gambling impact it could potentially have. Having 1 less player on the field instantly changes the game and therefore the odds. They don't invest all that money into a sport without having some control over it.
johno
Guest
I have oftened wondered if a "fantasy gambling" site would be of benefit to problem gamblers? allow them to bet fantasy money on real events (horse racing / footy / stock markets etc) and then see exactly what they would lose if it was real? Maybe this would be more of a gateway into true problem gambling ....
Chop
Guest
I don't understand the point of the article, if you run your tipping comp on a betting site, surely that would mean you expect to see some betting promotions? They are a business providing a service when they offer you a place to host your tipping comp. If you don't want to see it then run your competition on a spreadsheet. I agree the live odds during the games are really annoying, but if they are contributing to the game for the right it's not going to change anytime soon.
Kasey
Guest
It annoys me no end that the odds are being plugged all the damned time, not only on the telecast but over the loudspeaker (on constant loop it seems) at the ground. I'm not against betting like I am smoking, but there has to be a limit surely and I reckon we jumped over it years ago. time to dial it back please!
DMR
Guest
Footytips.com.au is not immune from the creep of betting companies. The screen where you submit tips has the odds for each team and their sponsor (can't remember which betting agency) then tells you how much you could win with a multi of your tips with a helpful link to their site. They also have a 'Flexi' comp which is basically betting $100 of play money each round. I like the occasional flutter on the footy but even I'm sick of the constant in-your-face betting adverts and I think it's disgraceful that children can't watch footy live or on TV without being bombarded by it.
Simmo
Guest
Tipping is keeping me well away from gambling
Bondy
Guest
What these companies want us to do is eventually understand the correlation of what is and isn't value in relation to punting on sports with the occasional tipping types being ultimately lured in by the value on offer, as the author suggests some of the best tipsters I've ever come across dont even gamble ironically and that is a target market. Another statergy these companies use is to get people betting with multi's across all sports and have them continually stimulated by gambling .