From a national league perspective, one of the more interesting takeaways from the WaiBop Federation AGM a couple of weeks ago was a throwaway comment from NZ Football CEO Andy Martin.
In an address at the end of a meeting Martin noted 80 per cent of the funding for the national league - across the board - came from community grant funding (pokies to you), and questioned how sustainable that was for the code in the long term.
More interesting still, was his potential solution.
Rather, he said, than rely on a core of problem gamblers in South Auckland and elsewhere, if more people within the game were to have a punt on football matches at the TAB, the code cut might go close to fixing this funding imbalance.
Martin reckoned an upsurge in football betting of just a few percentage points would do wonders for football revenue at national level.
The TAB contributes a share of betting turnover and margin to national sporting organisations for sports on which it takes bets. A minimum of 1 per cent of turnover and five per cent of gross profit from sports betting goes straight back to the sport’s administration. In 2014 the TAB returned over $5 million in commission payments across all sports. Football had the TAB's biggest turnover (23 per cent of $316 million) and gross betting revenue (26 per cent) by code of all sports.
However on this front it's timely also to note that NZ Football has recently circulated a draft of its proposed new "Anti-Match-Fixing and Sports Betting Regulations"
Under these regs NZF will use its betting agreement with the New Zealand Racing Board (TAB) to better manage match-fixing risks.
They not only set out a schedule of "Relevant persons" prohibited from betting (NZF employees, executive commitees of regional associations, match officials, coaches, national league players etc), but will also restrict or prohibit "spot" bets (bets on particular actions within matches or events which are more easily manipulated than, for example, overall match or event results).
They are likely to also set maximum wager amounts for the types of bets for which associated actions are most easily manipulated or have higher risks for match-fixing.
So, in short, at a time when we want to increase football betting, we are better formalising moves to to restrict it. Funny old world.
In an address at the end of a meeting Martin noted 80 per cent of the funding for the national league - across the board - came from community grant funding (pokies to you), and questioned how sustainable that was for the code in the long term.
More interesting still, was his potential solution.
Rather, he said, than rely on a core of problem gamblers in South Auckland and elsewhere, if more people within the game were to have a punt on football matches at the TAB, the code cut might go close to fixing this funding imbalance.
Martin reckoned an upsurge in football betting of just a few percentage points would do wonders for football revenue at national level.
The TAB contributes a share of betting turnover and margin to national sporting organisations for sports on which it takes bets. A minimum of 1 per cent of turnover and five per cent of gross profit from sports betting goes straight back to the sport’s administration. In 2014 the TAB returned over $5 million in commission payments across all sports. Football had the TAB's biggest turnover (23 per cent of $316 million) and gross betting revenue (26 per cent) by code of all sports.
However on this front it's timely also to note that NZ Football has recently circulated a draft of its proposed new "Anti-Match-Fixing and Sports Betting Regulations"
Under these regs NZF will use its betting agreement with the New Zealand Racing Board (TAB) to better manage match-fixing risks.
They not only set out a schedule of "Relevant persons" prohibited from betting (NZF employees, executive commitees of regional associations, match officials, coaches, national league players etc), but will also restrict or prohibit "spot" bets (bets on particular actions within matches or events which are more easily manipulated than, for example, overall match or event results).
They are likely to also set maximum wager amounts for the types of bets for which associated actions are most easily manipulated or have higher risks for match-fixing.
So, in short, at a time when we want to increase football betting, we are better formalising moves to to restrict it. Funny old world.