“Weet Bix”

AussieRulesBlog wonders if Heath Shaw’s teammates will provide a new nickname for him in the wake of his betting suspension. We suggest “Weet Bix”, since he is a serial idiot!

 

Seen from a more macro perspective, the AFL, through its clubs and broadcasters, has no-one to blame but itself for this situation. If you lay down with dogs, the likelihood is you’ll wake up with fleas.

 

The exponential growth of advertising for gambling on AFL has been a useful source of revenue for clubs, but it flies in the face of their repeated claims of “community” involvement to be promoting and advertising not only large betting agencies, but their own outlets.

 

AussieRulesBlog has been aghast, from the very start, that our own club advertises its Donsbet agency on its website and on the scoreboard during games.

 

There’s no doubt that smoking has overwhelmingly negative health effects. The game weaned itself off tobacco sponsorship some time ago.

 

There’s also no doubt that problem gambling has overwhelmingly negative effects on families and businesses. The big difference is that you can see and smell cigarette smoke. Problem gambling is silent and invisible.

 

It’s one thing for clubs to host poker machines, and we’d much prefer that they weren’t there, but the proliferation of advertising and the unfettered expansion of game betting options takes clubs into murky and dangerous waters.

 

In this environment, it can hardly be surprising that dimmer bulbs among the playing lists and club environments are persuaded that winning a few dollars on the basis of inside information isn’t going to hurt anyone. And Shaw’s small bet or Maxwell’s family members’ bets aren’t dangerous in themselves. The danger, if you haven’t worked it out for yourself, is that unsavoury elements in the community will see opportunities to ‘lean’ on players for inside information and then artificially tilt the betting market to their financial gain — or in the extreme, persuade players to intentionally throw games.

 

We wonder how prevalent Nick Maxwell’s habit of relating team strategies to family members in the days leading up to a game is. We wonder just how delighted Mick and Bucks would be about that. It’s safe to assume that neither Maxwell nor Shaw are going to be fielding recruiting calls from Mensa.

 

We think the AFL has hit just the right note on this. The Federal Government’s ‘encouragement’ for codes to wean themselves off the gambling teat seems to have come a just about the right time too.