Betting in sport has existed for well over a century. In fact in the 1800’s many sporting contests existed purely because of the opportunity to have a wager on the two opponents.
Sometimes these events threw up some very odd match-ups. For example in 1796 in the parish of Bury Common in Suffolk in the East of England a team of married women – yes women were playing cricket as far back as then – played the ‘maidens’ for a wager and beat them. As unpolitically correct as this may sound today, a maiden in the 1700’s was “a young, unmarried woman, frequently emphasizing her status as a virgin or a person of innocence.”
Following that victory the married women apparently threw down a challenge to play any village side in Suffolk for any stakes; but no team took up their challenge.
In the same year 11 Greenwich pensioners, each with only one leg played a two-day match against an 11 who each only had one arm. A thousand guineas is said to have rested on the result. Trying to establish the worth of this today we were stymied slightly as apparently it depends on which economic metric you use, however we have been advised that it would be a sum between £197,000 and £2.1 million!
Believe it or not the game attracted so much attention that not all of the spectators could gain access to the Walworth ground where it was played.
For the record, the one-legged men won by 111 runs, and so the report claims there were five broken legs, all wooden ones!
In the early 20th century in the United Kingdom betting on football matches began to gain popularity among fans. Informal betting on football matches was common there as it was in Australia, with people placing wagers among friends or through local bookmakers operating outside the law.
In the 1920’s in the UK they introduced the Football Pools to try and contain betting on games.
In 1960, the British government took the significant step by legalising betting shops. This was done through the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960. This transformed the betting industry and brought it into a legal and regulated framework.
Since then thanks to modern technology the whole betting landscape has evolved. Now the ease with which people can place bets and the range of bets available has made this a very profitable outlet for millions of people around the world.
Today betting has become far more sophisticated, and as we have seen those running the books for bets have been known to influence the participants of games at all levels. Not The Footy Show has broached this subject many times over the past twenty years, as our concerns on the impact it has started to have on what are supposed to be genuine contests has led to many questioning the outcomes of games, in addition to the number of children who know the odds rather than the players playing. (Rolling the Dice, and from 2016 A Change of Tack Needed – You Can Bet On It)
It was therefore refreshing, irrespective of which party it was making the announcement, that the Australian Government is finally taking a stance on betting. Many feared that this would never happen. Why? Simply due to the revenue generated for the State and Federal Governments in gambling taxes, with wagering (betting on racing and sports) contributing significantly along with electronic gaming machines (pokies) and lotteries. The Australian state and territory governments collect over $9 billion annually from these taxes! The total gambling taxes for state governments reached approximately $9.4 billion in 2023/24.
From a state perspective the New South Wales government received $343 million from wagering in 2023/24, while Queensland received $299.5 million. So these are huge sums of money. It is not just the betting companies who are reaping the benefits of a culture that has a hold on many.
In 2023–24 there was a decline in overall wagering revenue in Australia as the total figure dropped to $22.3 billion.
Clearly the Government is looking to protect the next generation from the perils of gambling, as much of what was announced was targeted at the youth. This includes capping television gambling adverts to three per hour between 6am and 8.30pm, and a total ban on radio advertising during school pick-up and drop-off times.
In addition Gambling advertisements would also be banned on social media and streaming platforms unless the users are logged in, over 18, and have the option to opt out. While using celebrities or athletes to advertise, odds-style advertisements targeting sports fans, and advertisements inside sports venues or on players’ uniforms are to be outlawed.
The big question being asked is have these measures gone far enough? Will it simply mean that the advertisements will pop up elsewhere and there will be more of them?
The reforms, announced come more than three years after the landmark Murphy review into gambling advertising was handed down. The “You Win Some, You Lose More” report from a parliamentary inquiry into the harm online gambling can cause was led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy. That inquiry made 31 recommendations, including a phased total ban on online gambling advertising as well as TV, radio and in stadia and on sports team shirts.
There were other recommendations such as creating a new independent online gambling ombudsman, as well as introducing a harm-reduction levy on betting companies which would fund research, education and support services.
Understandably the betting companies are upset. So too are many politicians who feel that the measures announced do not go far enough.
One area that many at the coalface in sport would like to see policed is the live-streaming market. So many organisations have entered this space but are in fact a front for betting organisations obtaining data which enables them to work out odds on semi-professional and even amateur sports.
Most sports administrators lack any knowledge in this space, so simply look at what they believe is the best deal for their sport. Few take the time to delve into who is behind offering them such a deal. One recent example was a sport stating that they had been offered AI cameras “at an incredible rate” and that the company supplying them advised that there would be staff in the Phillipines collating statistical data on these games for them. The obvious question is why would someone in the Phillipines be doing this, why would they be offering such a service? The only reason this data is being collected is for betting purposes!
Another example was a sport that signed up to such a service only to find out that there was a clause in the contract which stated that all of that data did not belong to them, but to their service provider.
This is an area that needs to be monitored very closely, as now these AI cameras are showing junior matches as well as adult games and it has been alleged that in some sports bets can be placed on these junior matches. Have these parents given permission for their children to be filmed and that data to be used for betting purposes? How easy would it be to influence a child to let in a goal? The risks far outweigh the benefits.
Sometimes it is not just the companies themselves who are linked to the betting companies. Sometimes the company staff are in fact sending data to them while employed to cover matches. Which highlights that just like in tennis the levels below the professional ranks have already been infiltrated by the betting companies, and it is going to be very hard to reverse that trend.
Then there is the matter of players involved at this level of the sport actually betting on the competitions that they are playing in. While almost every competition makes this illegal and threatens severe penalties, why is it still happening? Often players are quite brazen about their bets. Team mates know about these goings on, even clubs, so how come those in charge don’t appear to, or choose to turn a blind eye?
If the Government and the other political parties are serious about getting on top of this problem they must pay closer attention to many of these companies and what they are doing with the data supplied by their cameras.
The sad truth is that those involved in this space are extremely clever, and far too cunning for many sports administrators.
An example of this is the company Dream11 who In 2018 announced partnerships with the International Cricket Council (ICC), the Pro Kabaddi League, the International Hockey Federation (FIH), the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) and the Big Bash League (BBL).
Dream11 is an Indian fantasy sports platform that allowed its users to play daily fantasy sports contests, primarily in cricket. The platform gave users the option to take part in paid and/or free contests by assembling a virtual team of real-life players, and then they scored points based on those players’ actual statistical performances during games. In 2025 it was reported that paid contests on its platform, accounted for over 90% of its revenue.
In 2018, through their newly signed partnerships, Dream11 introduced two new games on their platform kabaddi and hockey. In October 2019, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) announced Dream11 as the title sponsor for the Super Smash domestic Twenty20 competition. In January 2021, the partnership was extended for another six years.
In April 2019, Dream11 became the first Indian fantasy sport company startup company valued at over US$1 billion. It is privately owned and not listed on a share market. In November 2021, Dream11 was valued at USD$8 billion, and claimed to have over 200 million users.
Again these are astronomical numbers, so how much were the sports benefitting from their association?
On 30 June 2023, Dream11 acquired the sponsorship rights of the Indian National Cricket Team for a reported INR358 crore; over USD 2billion.
Dream11 discontinued its paid contests option in August 2025 after the Parliament of India passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025. Since then there have been a number of court cases trying to ascertain if this company is a gambling platform. Dream11 has claimed that it is “a game of skill” while legal experts believe it is in fact operating in a regulatory “grey area.”
Despite the implications that this has been viewed as a gambling platform how many of the aforementioned sporting organisations have come out with a statement or even distanced themselves from the company? Could it be that their silence has been bought?
As some cynics of the company in India have pointed out, if profits are truly as high as those that have appeared in the media, could players in this competition be open to bribes to affect the outcomes of teams online? With so much geared around T20 Cricket competitions, a format of the game rife with allegations of max-fixing one would think that this would certainly need closer attention. Should players be permitted to be ambassadors for such an organisation?
Depending on your answer, the follow up question may well be, should sporting associations and competitions really be partnering such a company?
Certainly there can be no doubt that Dream11 saw an opportunity and grabbed it. However, did those who partnered them understand the true implications of such a marriage when they signed up?
How many of these sporting organisations actually have written into their constitutions that their member associations and teams should have absolutely no links to betting companies? So why is no one questioning their involvement? Why are revenues from these arrangements not publicly available? Surely these should be out in the open for all to see, and there should be no hiding behind commercial confidences. To do so just raises even more suspicion.
Governments can step in as we saw in India and here in Australia, even if they have been slow to react. However, there needs to be far greater transparency when it comes to the revenues earned from companies associated with or totally involved in wagering and betting. What has been put at risk by those national and international bodies signing such agreements is not only the integrity of the sport, but more importantly the integrity of the various competitions.
Can we truly trust the outcomes of the games we are watching today?
Without that integrity competitive sport as we know it will die.
