There's A Place In The World For A Gambler

In 2007, Novak Djokovic earned US$3,920,000 playing tennis. That same year, he alleges, someone offered him US$200,000 to lose a first-round match at a tournament in St. Petersburg, Russia, a tournament in which he did not, in the end, take part. A player ranked as highly as Djokovic, earning the sort of money that a top tennis professional can earn, is unlikely to risk his (or her) career even for a not insignificant amount like $200,000. But lower down the rankings, the temptation to throw a match for a sum that may exceed a player's earnings from not just one tournament, but several, must be huge. When you consider tennis, it is a game ripe for match fixing. Young, up and coming players, or older, journeymen players have to find the money to travel round the world, or at least across continents, to take part in tournaments they have little chance of winning and where the earnings barely cover their outgoings. To have someone offer you a large wad of cash to lose a match has to be extremely tempting.

Novak Djokovic says he refused to take a bribe in 2007. Picture: Sky Sports

Tennis is just the latest sport to find itself involved in scandal. Most recently we saw the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) embroiled in allegations of not just doping, but of covering up doping. This has resulted in Russia being banned from all athletics competitions, putting their participation at this summer's Rio Olympics in doubt, and three senior IAAF officials have been banned for life. A report by the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) independent commission heavily criticised IAAF president Lamine Diack, whose 16-year tenure ended in August 2015 when he was replaced by Lord Coe, who had been vice-president since 2007. Lord Coe has denied knowledge of the corruption that WADA has said was "embedded" within the organisation, and while former WADA president Dick Pound views Coe as the best person to clean up the IAAF, one has to look at that with a certain amount of scepticism, especially when Pound's own report says, "The IAAF council could not have been unaware of doping and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules," given that Coe was on that council.

Is Lord Coe the right man to restore the IAAF's image?

The four time Olympic gold medallist and now broadcaster Michael Johnson believes that the IAAF scandal surpasses that which has engulfed football's governing body, FIFA, in recent years and the goings on at FIFA have generated enough column inches and involved more high ranking officials than any sporting scandal of previous years. Add to football and athletics the spot fixing scandal that cricket found itself in during the 2010 England - Pakistan test series, and the frequent resurfacing of similar allegations, the scandal involving cyclist Lance Armstrong and the widespread belief that doping is endemic in that sport, and it begins to become increasingly difficult to believe that any sport is completely clean. Indeed, who would believe that sports in which huge sums of money can be won, either by participation or, more significantly, through gambling, could be anything other than tainted?

Personally, I have little interest in gambling, the odd flutter on the Lottery or the Grand National aside, but even if I did, I am now effectively barred from gambling on football matches or football related events anyway. In my capacity as a (very) part-time  and voluntary official of Romford FC, a club currently playing in the eighth tier of English football, I am technically prohibited by the Football Association (FA) from placing a bet with conventional bookmakers, spread betting companies, on betting exchanges or even with friends, on the outcome of any match, or any event during a match, or on any other football related matter (for example, the identity of the next manager of Leyton Orient), anywhere in the world. Yes, the FA actually prohibit a player or official of a football club playing at the eighth level of English football from placing a small wager on the outcome of the World Cup Final. You may consider this disproportionate, a very large hammer wielded at a very small nut, but it leaves no room for doubt, no capacity for interpretation, and for that reason, it is difficult to argue with.

All sporting bodies have uneasy relationships with bookmakers. There can be no doubt that the amounts of money that can be made by organised gambling syndicates through the manipulation of events leave all sports open to corruption. Long gone are the days when gambling was by and large limited to the actual outcome of a race or match, now there is so much in game betting on the next corner, the number of red or yellow cards, the next no ball, the next double fault, that bets can be fixed with no one the wiser. One might think that given the vast number of opportunities for manipulation of events that bodies like FIFA or the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) would lobby for greater controls to limit the spread of gambling within their sports. The truth is far removed. Sporting bodies seem to have adopted an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy, even if like the English FA, they frown on their members participating in the bookmaker's activities. So while a footballer with Stoke City or West Ham United may be prohibited from placing a bet on any football match, his clubs are allowed to be sponsored by bookmakers, (Bet365 and Betway respectively). The Championship and Leagues One and Two are sponsored by Sky Bet and in 2012 the FA made bookmakers William Hill the "official betting partner" of the England team and the FA Cup while Norwich City have one stand sponsored by Coral, who offer fans mobile betting and at kiosks in the ground during matches. It may be hypocritical for an organisation to bar many of its members from gambling with a firm that it has as an official betting partner, but I suppose they are simply accepting the reality of the situation, that the bookies would exist and would make money from them anyway, so they may as well get some of it back in sponsorship.

 

Football fans can now place bets in grounds during games.

But what could sporting bodies do anyway? Back in 2013 more than £1 million was staked on Asian betting exchanges on a non-League game between Welling United and Billericay Town and while there was never any indication of wrong doing by players of either club, it just goes to show that any sporting event, anywhere in the world, will be gambled on by someone, somewhere else in the world. Any rules put in place by the FA to stop players or officials with English clubs gambling on games are not going to stop the gambling going on in the Far East or other parts of Europe and by extension, risking players being approached with financial inducements to influence events on the pitch.

Welling United's game with Billericay Town attracted more wagers than a Champions League game involving Barcelona played the same day.

To quote Dan Fogelberg, " There's a place in the world for a gambler" but increasingly it is looking like sport is not that place, well not if we want to maintain the illusion of integrity anyway. We all want to watch sports and believe that they are straight, that the outcome has not been fixed in advance either because an athlete has taken drugs or a tennis player has taken a bribe, but while there is money to be made from gambling on sport, I wouldn't bet on it.