The ubiquitous problem of betting and the attempts of governing bodies to deal with it
The recent spot fixing scandals have brought the focus back once again onto the massive problem of illegal betting and the corrupt practices that surround gambling in sports. One of the strangest practices which defy logic is the
fact that sports people were actually allowed to bet on themselves. Sporting bodies have started to clamp down on this dodgy practice by banning it completely. The other strange aspect of betting gone haywire is when referees and umpires bet on games that
they are officiating. This again is a very serious conflict of interest. Hopefully betting in sports can be brought to some sort of manageable level in a few years time.
Betting in sports is almost as old as sports itself. As long as people have been able to make more money than they put in, there has always been an allure to betting. With sports, the ease of integrating betting into it was all
too simple. Due to the fact that sports are extremely popular among a huge variety of people, they are a natural environment for betting to take place in. In an ideal situation when two teams play each other, someone betting on a strong team will see less
favourable odds and make less money if the team wins while someone betting on a very weak team will have very good odds because the chances of that team winning are so slim. The problem in sports betting is when people try to manipulate these odds in their
favour. This then becomes the realm of dodgy bookies, the criminal underworld and corrupt sports players all trying to make some ill gotten money.
Cricket has been particularly plagued with betting problems in recent years. The way it works in cricket is that when a strong team loses bookies stand to make a lot of money by betting on the weaker team. They can ensure the strong
team loses by paying off certain players on the team to under perform or get out early. Then in later years when it became harder to pay off entire matches to be fixed, the practice of spot fixing emerged. With gambling crazy individuals betting on every single
aspect of the game, things like no balls, wides, dropped catches and other small events suddenly took on new meaning in betting terms. For example, people would bet on when a no-ball would be thrown, and if they end up being correct the payout becomes substantial.
Corrupt bookies started to doctor no balls in order to increase that payout for their clients and make themselves rich in the process.
Illegal betting practices are not restricted to cricket; many sports these days are in the midst of betting scandals. Snooker is one sport which was recently embroiled in several match fixing scandals and snooker champion John
Higgins was at the centre of a serious match fixing allegation from which he has recently been cleared. Even the beautiful game of football is not free from match fixing and players and referees have been approached by suspicious characters with links to the
criminal underground to try to get them to throw matches or make wrong decisions.
Finally in the light of all these illegal activities going on in the world of sports, several governing bodies have decided to ban players betting on themselves as a first step and then working with anti-corruption agencies in
sports to try and eradicate the problem once and for all.
Hopefully with these new initiatives that sports governing bodies are taking, the problem of illegal betting will lessen to a certain degree. It can never be completely eliminated but it can be lessened and maybe one day sports
fans can enjoy their favourite games knowing that the result has not been fixed and the players are all trying to win.
Tags: