The number one issue for thousands of punters right now is the fact that betting firms can restrict and ban punters pretty much with impunityAhead of one of the best weekends of racing all year, most punters can be forgiven for having better things to do on Monday than digest a 32-page missive from the Gambling Commission on the subject of ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Gambling Industry.’Fortunately, there are indefatigable campaigners like Brian Chappell, from justiceforpunters.org, who make it their business, and the positive news for backers is that Chappell gives a guarded welcome to the latest move by the Commission which aims to ensure that gambling is “open and fair”. Related: Bryony Frost ‘pumped’ for comeback at scene...
The Premier League is huge in Asia but there is often a high price to pay for betting on its matchesThere is a scene in an early episode of The Simpsons that says quite a lot about sports fans in general, and fans who gamble on sport in particular. Krusty the Clown and his accountant are watching a basketball game on TV. “Let me get this straight,” the accountant says. “You took all the money you made franchising your name and bet it against the Harlem Globetrotters?” To which Krusty wails: “But I thought the Generals were due.”The Globetrotters crossed the line between a spectator sport and scripted entertainment. Outside Springfield – where it was the local Mafia don who...
A society’s century-long distrust of sports betting can be traced to the night of 21 September 1919, when the Black Sox went nationalAmerica’s century-long distrust of sports betting can be traced to the night of 21 September 1919. That’s when several members of baseball’s Chicago White Sox met with gambling boss Arnold Rothstein in a New York hotel room to throw the following month’s World Series. Related: UK bookmaker values rise by over £1.5bn as sports betting to be legal in US Continue reading...
Chucking out press releases about ending the practices of grid girls and swimsuit-wearing promotions workers to claim some sort of moral high ground should ring a few alarm bellsTo the list of Great Woke‑ings of our time, we must formally add the gambling industry. This year has seen the disbandment of the Presidents’ Club, Formula One’s pious announcement that it was ending the practice of grid girls and now the Gambling Commission demanding the industry’s biggest conference stops expecting female promotions workers to wear swimsuits on the basis that it is “a significant stain on the industry’s reputation”.Can you imagine how disgusting and depraved the practice must have been to significantly stain the gambling industry’s “reputation”? This is a business...
DCMS suggestion to cut the stake limits on fixed-odds betting terminals may see some of the more urban bookies close, but the firms will still prosper without their easy moneyWhen the department for digital, culture, media and sport finally announced a range of options for the new maximum stake in fixed odds betting terminals on Tuesday, the most interesting alternative was arguably the one that wasn’t there.The stake limit could be halved to £50, cut to £30 or £20, or even right down to the £2 maximum that was in the last Labour manifesto, but there is no mention of the £10 limit which no less a figure than Breon Corcoran, the departing chief executive of Paddy Power Betfair, suggested...