Some additional thoughts:
1) Gambling.
Leaving aside horse racing, where everybody knows questionable things have been going on since the eighteenth century. There is the old chestnut of bookmakers leaving the luxury saloon in valet parking while punters take the train to the racecourse. However, everybody knows the score, so while things may be dishonest, the dishonesty is at least up front. If I back a 33/1 shot, I know it's 33/1. I may thnk it should realistically be 20/1 and back it accordingly, but the market says 33/1 and I know going in what the probability is of my bet being successful. Also, as far as I know, you cannot yet bet on which horse will be in the lead at the furlong, or who will finish seventh, or whether or not the jockey falls off the horse.
Other sports are more than happy to have "exotic" bets about little instances within the contest. This is exactly how you end up with Pakistan bowling deliberate no-balls at Lord's, or Ryan Tandy giving away a deliberate penalty in rugby league. These are seen by the perpetrators as "harmless", and they can argue the rest of the time they are going all out to win. Sports governing bodies are completely complicit in allowing these things to happen, because they are more than happy to sign licensing agreements with betting agencies and take the huge sums on offer. Of course the money disappears straight into the bottomless pit but nonetheless, hurrah, revenues are up and let's all congratulate ourselves on what a success we are.
I'm not against gambling in sport, but sporting bodies should not have direct links to betting agencies. Of course there will always be illegal gambling, but if someone is running illegal sports betting, or an SP operation (does this still go on?), it's the same as if someone is running an illegal card school in a room out the back of a restaurant: a matter for the police.
Perhaps betting agencies should all be licensed by the federal government, and all the monies from these deals then taken and distributed back to the sports via a transparent formula. If you were being idealistic you could even mandate that the money went on sport in schools and at the local club level instead of into the bottomless pit.
Maybe it's just me, but I struggle to understand how people HAVE to have a bet on sport, and can't just sit back and relax and enjoy it? Of course, this may that I'm getting older, and don't understand modern society, and be an anachronistic view from a time shortly after the invention of the wheel and when dinosaurs roamed the earth etc. etc.
ld
:cutelaugh
