Saturday, March 03, 2007

The AFL has vowed to do "everything in its power" to detect and punish
players who gamble on football matches and warned that any future breaches
of its anti-gambling rules will trigger automatic suspension. But in
revealing the penalties for four players caught betting on games last
season, league football operations manager Adrian Anderson admitted
investigators did not have access to all the information they needed from
Australia's sports betting industry.
Confronted with the first examples of players who had flouted the AFL's
anti-gambling code framed after the Shane Warne-Mark Waugh bookie scandal,
the league resisted the temptation to suspend the players, settling for
mandatory counselling sessions and a sliding scale of financial penalties
according to the size and number of bets placed, and earnings of the
players. The most severe penalty was handed to Adelaide midfielder Simon
Goodwin, who was discovered by UK agency Betfair to have placed four bets
connected to football games totally $16,024.58. One of those bets was pound
stg. 2000 (about $4600) on the West Coast Eagles to win last year's grand
final. Goodwin was fined $40,000, $20,000, of which was suspended. Goodwin
placed two of the bets himself and said two were placed by an unnamed
"friend" with access to his Betfair account. "The fact is I've gambled most
of my life on horses, and late last season I had two bets on AFL matches," a
contrite Goodwin said. "I did not bet against Adelaide Football Club or in
matches that involved my club. Nor did I bet using inside information or
knowledge and no other player was involved." Next in line was Melbourne's
Daniel Ward, another problem gambler who placed 18 multi-bets totalling
$3705 which all involved a football match. Ward twice backed his own team to
win. Ward was fined $5000, with a further $5000 suspended and ordered to
attend counselling "for as long as deemed appropriate by the counsellor and
the player in consultation with the Melbourne Football Club and the AFL".
Ward also volunteered to perform 100 hours of community work with Berry
Street, a shelter for children at risk of domestic violence. Kangaroos
ruckman David Hale, whose mother Yvonne made a heartfelt, public
intervention in the gambling debate when she accused the club of hanging her
son out to dry, was given a suspended fine of $5000 for placing four bets
totalling $100. He was ordered to undergo counselling. Sydney rookie player
Kieren Jack was given a reprimand for placing two bets totalling $10, and
will also be meeting a counsellor. Anderson said none of the four players
had denied knowledge of the AFL anti-gambling rules, but according to Jack's
explanation, the prohibition against betting on football games was not well
known. "I now fully understand the rules and regulations pertaining to
betting on AFL matches and accept the sanctions imposed by the AFL," Jack
said in a statement released by the Swans. "I have made an honest mistake
and assure it will not happen again." Anderson said the need to issue a
general deterrent to all players was mitigated by the fact the players had
admitted their bets and co-operated with the AFL investigators. There was
also no evidence that any player had bet against his own team. In echoes of
the Warne-Waugh fiasco, in which they accepted money from an illegal
bookmaker for providing information on weather and pitch conditions, the
four players described their actions to investigators as "an oversight,
naivety, stupidity". Anderson said there would be no leniency for any
players and officials caught betting on AFL matches in the future. "In
announcing the sanctions the AFL wants everyone to be quite clear of our
attitude towards any further breaches of this rule: if a player faces a bet
on an AFL match from today he will face suspension," Anderson said. "Players
and officials have been put on notice: gamble on AFL football and you will
face suspension." The AFL investigation was triggered by Betfair, which
entered into a contractual arrangement with the league in 2005 giving the
AFL a share of its revenue and access to betting records.
When Goodwin was identified in an "integrity check" in November last year,
the AFL instructed Tabcorp, the other betting agency with which it has an
information-sharing agreement, to cross-check its records against all
AFL-listed players. Ward, Hale and Jack were all found to have placed bets
on football matches through Tabcorp. Despite subsequent inquiries by the
AFL's investigators and requests to Australia's state-based gambling
regulators to audit the records of other betting agencies, no other examples
of players betting on matches were found. Pressed on what the AFL would do
to scrutinise the sports betting industry, Anderson said the league
investigators could use "other means" than bookmaker records to catch
players betting on football. The AFL considered a moratorium to encourage
other players who had bet on games to come clean but eventually decided it
was unlikely to provide "extra information." "Our agreements with Tabcorp
and Betfair are the start but there are any numbers of means by which
investigators can gather facts which prove evidence of a bet on a match," he
said.