Betting on gambling firms’ sponsorship of sport a tricky business

It’s the in-your-face, “ker-chinging” pokie in the room that for now is being steadfastly ignored: gambling sponsorship in sport.

Fags? Way too straight-forward. Booze? Obvious, although we still have to get through the inevitable dying of the lite. Recent research has linked the rise in diabetes to soft-drinks consumption, leading to calls for a ban on advertising of sugary water.

But gambling sponsorship, now there’s a tricky one. Smoking cigarettes is obviously harmful to your health. Throwing back a few pints mightn’t harm you, but it sure isn’t doing you any physical good. And, if nothing else, carbonated water ain’t great for the teeth.

However scribbling out a docket on the 3.15 at the Curragh isn’t harming anyone, is it? Unless of course you’re scribbling out the deeds to your house, but what’s one of them worth these days?

Like it or not, gambling is a fundamental compulsion. When Caveman softened Cavewoman up with a few swift drinks, got her back to her place, and afterwards enjoyed a smug smoke, his next thought probably turned to weighing up the odds of scoring her pal two caves up.

And that was when Caveman had to use his judgement for stuff like killing in order to eat: when weighing up the odds was pretty much life or death. Nowadays, tests of male judgement – and it is mostly men who gamble – revolve around Dominos or Pizza Hut; decaf or skinny. Without bookies, who knows what male hard-wiring might lead to?

Of course, there is the issue of gambling addiction, and to trivialise that, and the reverberations it has on those around the addicted is offside: just as it is offside to sideline the suspicion that anyone who gets their kicks out of placing a bet rather than winning a bet has a psychological kink which suggests if it isn't one form of addiction that fills the lack in their lives, it will be something else.

Gambling firms
Certainly, compared to alcohol, the health questions surrounding the issue of gambling firms associating themselves with sport through sponsorship is a nuanced one.

Now me saying that could easily be a consequence of a job that involves day-to-day familiarity with betting and bookmakers. Everyone’s reality is normal to them. Maybe this corner has become inured to “gamblification”, too accustomed to having even the simplest dilemma reduced to odds.

There will always be the perception too that a racing hack is in the pocket of the big bookmaker chains, bought off with free bets, complimentary tickets and all the buffet lunches we can wade through. To which I can only say, easy on the pate next time, Paddy.

Even so it appears to me the real quandary here will wind up around integrity, and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of advertising by gambling firms.

The forecast revenue from gambling sponsorship in sport worldwide is predicated to hit over $45 billion by 2015. This is a colossal industry, and just as with alcohol, the idea that that level of cash is being flung around without a considerable audience impact is ludicrous.

Just as ludicrous is the idea that with billions floating around in betting markets, dodgy stuff isn’t inevitable.

Just last year, match-fixing within football was described as "endemic". Fifa reckons criminal gangs make almost €12 billion in match-fixing. Even a sideshow like the League of Ireland has seen investigations. And that's just football.

Bookmaker logos
Cricket had the "no-balls" scandal during Pakistan's 2010 tour of England. Snooker has been plagued with match-fixing stories, often accompanied by pictures of players carrying bookmaker logos on their waistcoats. Tennis is similarly plagued. Last year, the Serbian David Savic was banned for life on match-fixing charges.

So it is hard to dismiss public wariness when it now seems possible to bet on two flies going up a wall. The European Commission put it bluntly in March – “Match-fixing and corruption pose the greatest threat to European sport.”

The danger to sport’s credibility if fans are suspicious of what they’re watching isn’t just about doping. Ultimately no one’s going to pony-up to watch a ready-up.

And what is inevitable are more questions about how sport can live with the fundamental contradiction of pledging to face up to gambling corruption – banning its administrators, players, coaches, officials etc, from betting at all – while at the same time benefiting from gambling-related sponsorship.

Right now sport is having it both ways, preaching integrity while profiting from gambling sponsorship. Is that sustainable? Now only the most paranoid can believe having a bookie as an “official betting partner” means a sports organisation is readying up left-right-and-centre.

But when it comes to regulation, perception is everything. Doubt that, and think back to the furore that blew up around Irish sailor Peter O’Leary and his four-year-old bet on a rival at last year’s Olympics. And there is a basic quandary here in terms of perception that eventually will have to be addressed.

Still, perceptions vary: a pal when quizzed about this issue was admirably right-on about the addictive dangers of gambling. But then added - “unless you win, of course: then you’re a shrewdie!”