Sport is made for betting

After a few attempted rorts in rugby league and a few plunges based on leaked team information, the major Australian sports, backed by a few clueless politicians and media desperate for a story, have proposed clampdowns on exotic bet types. Now we all hate match-fixing in sport, don't get me wrong there, but invariably these shenanigans are restricted to betting via illegal bookies, where there is no audit trail for investigators to pick up. Legal betting outlets don't drop the ball very often. At the first sign of suspicious betting, alarm bells go off and word spreads like wildfire. The accounts in question are marked forever and the total exposure involved is usually only a few grand - less than they'll get out of the PR value of the ensuing story! Andrew Twaits says tighter controls on online poker is necessary *snipped* Sportingbet Australia chief executive, Michael Sullivan, called yesterday on professional sports under the Coalition of Major Professional and...

A blow to keeping corruption out of racing, or vindication for a jockey who did nothing more than discuss his rides with blokes who punt, and then made their own independent decisions? Leading Australian jockey Danny Nikolic was charged over several races where his rides were unplaced and the horses in question were laid for substantial amounts by punters he regularly spoke to. Nikolic cleared of serious charges In dismissing the four charges, RADB chairman Judge Russell Lewis said the board was not satisfied that Nikolic had communicated with the associates or some of them about the chances of his mounts resulting in the associates making lay bets outside their normal betting parameters. "The evidence relied upon by the stewards as a basis for drawing an inference that Nikolic communicated the chances of his mounts raises suspicions about what transpired," Judge Lewis said. "But harbouring suspicions about his conduct is not sufficient to prove the charges." One th...