These are troubling times for the deeply embedded relationship between betting and football.
Paddy Power released financial returns this week which showed underlying operating profits jumping by 114% to £91m in the first three months of 2017 from £42m the same time last year.
Doing very nicely then, but the story was jostling for space with news of an 18 month ban for betting and stories of addiction relating to high profile player Joey Barton.
He is not the first, will not be the last and we are not immune from problems of integrity here as stories stack up around unusual betting patterns in a game featuring Athlone Town.
That centres on the odds against another goal being scored in the closing minutes as being shorter than would be expected and for that goal to arrive in the 87th minute making it 3-1 rather than 2-1. We will look at the detail behind these betting patterns in closer detail next week but the problems remain that betting is seen as a major challenge to the integrity of the sport at a time when its promotion within has never been higher.
Ladbrokes and William Hill are partners of the Scottish and English FA. Over half of the clubs in the Premier League have betting companies on their shirts and the TV advertising landscape around live matches is festooned with offers and attractive calls to have a flutter.
Three years ago we wrote on Sport for Business that
“Sports betting is not illegal in the UK, but it is now prohibited for those involved in the game. There is little or no precedent for such a ban, with the possible exception of over the counter drugs that have performance enhancing elements.”
“A question of whether then there is a long term realistic way in which the sport can commercially take money from an industry it is uncomfortable with will be faced up to this morning in many board rooms of sporting and business organisations.”
That facing up to the issue has not happened yet but every story that emerges, every fear that is expressed makes every euro that is taken a little less comfortable to bank.
The betting companies do good work in terms of warning on the dangers of betting. Bookmaker advertising is removed form the shirts of children. Nobody is to fully blame as such but damage is being done and when that is the case some form of action needs to happen.
