Darrell Davis: Sport sold its soul to gambling, what did it expect?

Article content

Here’s a safe bet:

More athletes are going to get sucked into the gambling vortex.

Article content

If 700-million-dollar-man Shohei Ohtani can be linked to an illegal bookmaker, what are the odds of college basketball players shaving points during March Madness, CFL players intentionally fumbling footballs or boxers being paid to take dives?

Did those ever happen in real-life or just to Bruce Willis in “Pulp Fiction”? Truth being stranger than fiction, the sports world is already rife with athletes — and at least one NBA referee — being suspended or investigated because of gambling.

Article content

Toronto Raptors centre Jontay Porter is being investigated by the NBA for pulling himself prematurely out of two games in which larger-than-normal amounts of money had been legally wagered on him underperforming. Porter has been suspended.

Someone profited from those prop bets. Because gambling sites don’t like losing money, they tend to co-operate with the leagues if they spot something suspicious in betting patterns.

Nobody likes losing money, which explains why athletes and coaches are now talking openly about anonymous threats they receive from bettors unhappy with their teams’ results.

Players say they’re feeling more and more like props themselves, useful only for over/under wagers. Everyone they know — almost everyone you know! — is engrossed in sports betting. Odds have become more important than batting averages.

Here’s a laugh: Because of unrelenting pressure from friends/bettors/websites on their athletes, the NCAA wants legal gambling sites to eliminate prop bets on college games. They don’t want a point guard being scrutinized for a missed three-pointer that would have won the game, or at least beat the spread.

Article content

Article content

Suddenly the NCAA is concerned about its athletes’ well-being? Ha!

The NFL and NHL have already suspended players for gambling infractions. Pro leagues insist they have set-in-stone rules regarding how, when and why their players/administrators can place wagers. Evidently athletes are just like real people, some of whom have gambling addictions.

Addiction is a disease, which is why Gamblers Anonymous exists alongside Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. GA meetings must be swelling these days.

So many leagues have sold their souls to gambling, what did they expect would happen?

They wanted more money, which doesn’t seem to be rolling in. Just the problems: Addictions, bought-and-paid-for athletes, illegal wagering and underworld connections, interminable advertising that appears during telecasts, broadcasts and in written articles, plus site logos adorning players’ jerseys and helmets. Stop!

Ohtani was “shocked” to learn he had been bilked of $4.5 million by his interpreter, a dear friend who initially said the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar had paid off his bookmaker. That story was quickly changed to say there had been no contact between the bookie and the ball player.

Article content

Ohtani finally held a media conference to explain his situation, insisting the interpreter stole from him. To keep the “facts” straight, no questions were allowed from the gathered reporters.

Believe Ohtani if you want. Anyone who doesn’t realize he’s missing $4.5 million is probably too stupid to lie. Or else he’s also got a crooked banker, agent or accountant to go along with his criminal interpreter.

Or else Ohtani was betting.

Pete Rose, who has more hits than any Major League Baseball player, has been banned from the Hall of Fame for wagering, including bets placed with bookies when he managed the Cincinnati Reds. Baseball has been especially wary of any link to gamblers since the Chicago White Sox were bribed to throw the 1919 World Series, earning lifetime bans for eight players involved in the “Black Sox Scandal.”

It’s going to happen again. It already is.

Article content