Another Big Gambling Mess
This time it is cheats in the game of cricket. The latest news is about cheating and betting. That is betting to lose and then trying to lose. This is just one of the latest scandals in the sporting life that is betting and a casino styled life. That the sporting world has, yet again, been rocked to its very foundations is a crying shame. Yes. But let us not pretend that this kind of scandal is either new or special. This kind of gambling mess is intrinsic to casino capitalism itself.
This latest sporting scandal may be based around Pakistan where players deliberately fail in order to lose a game so that the betting syndicates can profit – but both cricket and Pakistan is just the tip of the iceberg. That we know. From football to horse racing through to snooker and tennis such cheating has been found and attached to betting. In fact this kind of cheating in sport has been going since since the 1700s. That we know.
It was also in the 1700s that capitalsm really hit upon Europe. Coincidence? I think not. Although we must remember Jesus getting a little pissed off in the temple where the money-changers had their tables.
We cannot condone this latest betting mess in international cricket but we can avoid total hypocrisy. Cricket is just small game stuff in fact. When we compare gambing and deliberate failures in cricket with banking and finance this small game of cricket is almst insignificant. So without losing our anger over this latest sporting life fiasco let us keep our heads and see this in the rightful wider-picture.
First there is no morality in gambing and there is no morality attached to any sporting life that is ”living off” such casino capitalism games. Let us not pretend here. Let us not fool ourselves.
The main idea is simple in this gambing business. Do not lose and win whatever and whenever as much as possible. This is the gambling crede. Let us not try and pretend that gambing is a nice and clean sport. It is not and never will be.
The gambler will bet on anything at all. There are no limits. All is open for the bet so long as it pays. Anything goes.
This latest cricket scandal is, in fact, just another face of this casino capitalism creed.
Just one example is enough to get this debate going. George Soros bet on failure and made over one billion bucks in 1992. There was no morality in that act. What makes this situation even worse is when people begin to do ”inside-trading” and when people deliberately go to create failures. Hedge funders are good at this and many of the global media help them – even if they help in ”innocent” ways.
Are we really to believe that Wall Street and various international agencies, built upon credit ratings, are innocent in the movement of profits and loss in the finance markets?
Can we ask questions about those big boys like Rupert Murdoch? The Wall Street Journal is linked with Sky TV and betting which is linked with various tabloid newspapers and so on and so on. Other examples are easy enough to find even if we still want to believe in the freedom of the press.
The main point is that this gambling scene is structural and it is institutionalised. Only the strictist of governmental laws and checks can work against this scene. Only State controls can somehow limit this mess. This is not a call for some Stalinist Communism but it is a call to wake up to the institutionalisation of casino capitalism in our culture and in our sporting lives.
My final comment is also a simple one. I hate this mess. I have loved sport. Please let sport alone. Yes I am a little romantic I guess.
Sport has always been something that even the poor can play at and excel at. Today the sporting temples are in the hands of the ”money-lenders” and the ”money-changers”. Those tables need turning over I guess.
Steve Bowles
