If you are a seasoned fan in Taiwan, you might find the following two news scenarios eerily familiar:
In the English Premier League, Brentford's main striker Ivan Toney has been suspended for eight months for multiple violations of the English Football Association's gambling regulations.
Two weeks before Toney's suspension, a gambling scandal also erupted in the highly commercialized world of American college sports. Brad Bohannon, the coach of the University of Alabama's baseball team, was investigated and quickly fired by the university for allegedly manipulating his team to underperform in a game against Louisiana State University by replacing his ace pitcher, who was originally scheduled to start, with a sophomore pitcher who hadn't started since mid-March.
Gambling Sweeps the Globe, Deepening Ties with the Sports Industry
Taiwan, after experiencing multiple baseball match-fixing incidents, issued sports lottery tickets in 2008 to combat rampant illegal betting, hoping to channel underground betting funds through legal means. Sports lottery remains the only legal betting channel for sports events in Taiwan. In contrast, the UK and the US, where the incidents mentioned above occurred, have a close connection between the gambling and sports industries.
In the Premier League, it's easy to spot the presence of gambling companies. This season, eight of the 20 teams have gambling company logos on their jerseys due to sponsorship deals, including Toney's Brentford. Many teams even collaborate with gambling companies to allow fans to place bets at the games.
For gambling companies, this globally most-watched football league also opens up many overseas markets, including China, where legal gambling is still not allowed.
For a long time, the US sports industry also kept gambling companies at bay, but everything changed in May 2018 when the US Supreme Court declared the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act unconstitutional. Following the legalization of sports betting in the US, the NBA made the first move in August 2018 by signing a partnership with the well-known casino operator MGM Resorts International. Since then, all four major North American professional sports leagues have become commercial partners with large gambling companies.
The Impact of Sports Betting, Mixed Blessings
The collaboration between sports betting and professional sports easily brings to mind the issue of "throwing games." However, it's fair to say that both domestic and international professional sports leagues have regulations to prevent their athletes and staff from engaging in gambling, and legal sports betting indeed helps increase public interest in sports events. The frenzy over the World Cup football matches in Taiwan at the end of last year is a prime example.
However, the excessive development raises concerns about negative impacts. Since the legalization of sports betting in the US in 2018, the revenue from TV advertisements for sports betting has grown more than fifteenfold by last year. The frequent appearance of gambling ads also raises concerns about the potential for widespread gambling addiction.
Furthermore, the development of microbetting, which allows bets on specific actions within a game, lowers the threshold for manipulating matches, potentially controlling just one pitch in a baseball game or one at-bat. This also increases the risk of "throwing games." While these issues may seem distant to sports fans in Taiwan, the impact of past match-fixing incidents is still close at hand, and the development of sports betting and its impact on games deserve our continued attention.
