The gambling footballers problem

[Guybrush]

Ok, Tonali, amongst probably countless others have broken the rules regarding betting in football.

I’m not a gambler, I’m not particularly familiar with the the odds and evens of it.

But, these young guys have money to burn and time to waste. In a world where they have everything they want, where do they get their thrill?

The gambling addiction breeds from there. And The thrill of gambling, coupled with the gamble of getting away with something they know is wrong - it’s clearly going to cause problems.

Anyway, putting the circumstances to one side, and I’m not trying to absolve these players of blame for their own actions here… And player punishments are deserved and needed.

But, gambling addiction is a known problem. With gambleaware on all these adverts, and apparently Safety limits and all that jazz, surely they’re a ‘code of practice’ these bookies must sign up to.

Can it not be seen that these guys are feeding off someone’s addiction? Where’s the safeguarding? Where the checks, validating new accounts etc that would surely alert the bookies of the fact this guy can’t be placing bets?

Are these bookies not breaking their own rules allowing what is clearly considered ‘inside betting’ from the football authorities? Why, as a business, would you allow an inside bet to be placed?

Surely it’s destroying your businesses integrity? Should this not be brought to the attention of the authorities and fines and punishments put in place for the bookies too?

Like I say, I’ve no idea of how it all works so I may be completely rambling here

[ex_pat_magpie]

Good post Guy. The problem with the situation is simply money. The whole betting industry relies 99% on obviously sporting events.

Just take Sky for instance. They couldn't exist commercially without their betting connections and neither could the Premier League without the money which comes into the industry via betting.

A typical example of this is proven by the fact that almost 90% of horseracing meetings could not take place had they not had their returns from the gambling industry.

I don't know how strict the regulations are on professional footballers betting, but I can't see a problem with them having a punt on their own team to win. Doing the opposite and betting on them to lose would obviously be corrupt but from what I've heard, the regulations are a bit too strict.

One way to control it would be for EUFA to take out a Betting Licence and any pro player could only bet through them, then the profits would go back into the sport, the authorities would have control of what was going on and the player/punters would have guidance of their habits.

[Jammy89]

Issue with companies seeing who is joining and validating accounts in that way is that it would be impossible.

I have 3 accounts, I set them up in different places and at diffferent times. On a quick validation you'd have no idea that all 3 were mine. Even less so on a young footballer who will have someone set it all up for him.

I agree with main thrust of your point, as I said, I have 3 accounts and there are times that I've made loss after loss, and I've thought one more bet - then i'll break even if it comes in. If it doesn't though. . . at that point, I think of the fact I have a family etc.

When you make the money some of these young footballers do, who also don't have the family or the normalacy of life to fall back on. . . .