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Australia Looks to Keep Sports Betting Activities Healthy But Still in Check

Posted on April 3rd, 2011

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Sports is fast catching traction Down Under as patrons start to appreciate the value of a good wager on a favorite team. The game at Hawthorn-Melbourne on Sunday, for example, raised more than $25 million in AFL bets, something that cannot be said of any professional sport long ago. Now, bookies are front and center as they establish partnerships with leading clubs to take bets on almost every AFL match. Consider, the TAB Sportsbet sheet offers up to 140 betting options on just one match that range from picking the winner to determining how the first goal will be scored. But while the benefits are more than welcome, there’s also added concern on the rate at which growth can fuel people to circumvent the system through game fixes and corruption. The AFL only has to look at tennis to know that there are big risks with sports betting. Tennis authorities have even reached out to the AFL on multiple occasions to let them know those risks and it’s going to take a lot to make sure organized crime syndicates and corrupt bookies do not find their way into the game.

Federal Sports Minister mark Arbib believes that there is evidence to support that organized crime syndicates are raising and training young athletes for illegal betting and fixing activities in the future. ”These groups are so well organized that they target vulnerable athletes when they’re young; they groom them with cash payments, with gifts, compromise them – and we have seen this in the United States – then use them for criminal activity later on,” he says. Meanwhile, the International Cricket Council has ruled to ban Twitter for the World Cup because it can lead to inside information that can affect the result of bets. Australia is also starting to see a rapid increase in the number of investigations to help curb the risks of sports betting. Currently, there are four high profile cases that seek to examine the susceptibility of the industry to corruption and threatening the integrity of the sport so laws can be formulated to inflict harsher penalties and plug holes in the system.

The International Olympic Committee has acted to create a task force to exclusively look into potential problems in its ranks. Sports betting in Australia is a large industry comprising professional leagues like AFL, rugby, cricket, basketball and 17 others. There are also bets for American football, cycling, golf, darts, athletics, triathlon events, netball and Olympic and Commonwealth games results such as those for surfing, yachting and motor sports. The list is almost endless. With the industry growing at such a fast pace, up to $20 billion in wagers are placed every year based on data from the Productivity Commission. Turnover from sports betting accounts for only 1.2% of the industry’s total but it is not surprising to assume that the number could be higher in a few years time. With the further growth of technology, this is all the more likely. Smartphones, high-speed internet connection, even television are all avenues to place sports bets and the TAB Sportsbet through Gary Davies estimates the growth at 10 percent per year.

Even new advertising strategies are so effective at marketing the industry that advertising is now a ubiquitous fixture on many media. Scoreboards, club websites, even via commentaries by sports commentators contain references to sports betting, it not an outright endorsement of the practice. Davies asserts that there is no doubt sports betting is ballooning at a faster rate than any other form of gaming. With the variety present in sports, there is almost no limit to what one can bet on and therefore the cycle for betting is much more dynamic. According to data from the Productivity Commission, 424,000 online accounts used for sports betting were active in Australia in 2008. Of that, $391 million was the estimated total bet amount constituting a 73 percent increase in betting money compared to 2004 figures. Even that number excludes cash wagering and phone betting which are also gaining popularity among patrons.

Australia needs new measures to keep systems healthy and in check, and it has to do it fast enough to keep the industry humming.