Sports & Gambling - Where Is Sportsmanship?

It was a couple of thousand years ago that sports was culminated by the Romans when they'd what they called their particular version of the Olympic games. The progress of these games saw what we will have as the present day day Olympics.

Since then, many other sports have risen in popularity in modern times with the biggest being football which can be followed by almost 2 billion followers around the world. Several sports have made millionaires of the players who excel and represent their sports in the international arena.

The absolute most famous being Tiger Woods (#1 ranked golfer in the world) who has been proclaimed as the 1st billionaire sportsman since the beginning of sports.

There is also Michael Jordan (rated by many as the maximum basketball player of all times) who's a hundred or so million in short supply of being a billionaire himself.

With your players one cannot easily say they've not performed 100% each time they're going out and play. Considering their performance record it would be more easy to say they've excelled 90% of the changing times they've played. Being humans we all have our bad days because of illness, stress, family issues etc. Thus, the few substandard performances.
But you will find sports that is so glaringly transparent that gambling has a store in their hallowed halls of management. The activity that I am talking about is FOOTBALL.

Take the recent World Cup for example. There were a lot more than 20 incidences where a wrong call or no call by the referee or linesman made a critical difference 안전놀이터 to the results of the match. This would seem insignificant to most viewers except people who had bets on the results of the game.

And it is the belief that at the least 5% of viewers bet on the matches around the world. This would amount to 100 million viewers globally. If the worth of every bet was $10 that would make the worth of every match a very good $1 billion. There were more than 30 matches throughout the tournament. That's a lot more than $30 billion at stake. Astounding isn't it. Just over a period of about 30 days.

You see, the mistakes that have been created by the referee or linesmen might have been avoided if FIFA (world governing body for football) had agreed to set up the video playback which can be currently utilized by other sports like tennis and badminton. It requires just a few seconds for the playback verification.

In addition it removes the 'unfair play 'factor. Joseph Blatter (FIFA chairman) has made a statement on fair play and respect '. What fair play? Millions were lost to syndicates. So just why the indifference by FIFA? Could it be that the gambling syndicates have their support even within FIFA???

This means that past history on football could well have changed if video playback technology was implemented and I wish to recall that most famous incident involving Diego Maradona and his hand of god incident against England. He scored together with his hand which can be in effect a foul. Not a goal.

Let's take a peek at one example, a premier team playing with a group ranked in the 70s. The odds of the very best team going right through would probably be 3 or less to 1.

That means whoever betted on the top team stands to win $30 or less if they'd betted $10. If 10 million viewers did the same then the stake of the match would be about $300 million. It's super easy to BUY someone for let's say $1 million once the stake is $300 million wouldn't you agree? It's quite difficult as an individual to ignore this sort of temptation whenever you earn about $100 to $200 per game (as in case of the linesmen and referees and not to create a call at a critical stage during the match).

Let's have a look at the same example but with an alternative betting stake. Most bets are on a variable stake. That means that the bet is broken down into several stakes. Take team A (top team) and team X (ranked 70s). The bet would look something similar to this:

Team A defeat Team X = Odds are 3 to 1
Team A defeat Team X by 1 goal = Odds are 3 to 1
Team A defeat Team X by 2 goals = Odds are 5 to 1
Team A draws with Team X (90 minutes) = Odds are 10 to 1
So if there is a result where Team X beats Team A or draws with Team A (full match including overtime), it's all profits for the syndicates.

There has been recorded incidences in the past about referees and linesmen being involved in match fixing. There were also recorded incidences in the past about football players being involved in match fixing. So with all this sordid history, wouldn't you believe FIFA would wish to implement video playback technology? If they've not done so and are postponing this glaring truth technology you have to think about why? WHY?