- Joined
- Feb 14, 2014
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- Carlton
It's probably not in their charter (or achievable), but enacting social change by their actions would be a pretty cool thing for the AFL and its clubs to do.
Forgive me for simplfying it, but is it fair to say your view of what the AFL's perspective on this should be is, "someone will profit from this, might as well be us"?
Forgive me for simplfying it, but is it fair to say your view of what the AFL's perspective on this should be is, "someone will profit from this, might as well be us"?
the funny thing about gambling is that all of the top 10 biggest gambling nations rank in the top 30 of human development index, 4 of these are in the top 10: australia, norway, canada and singapore. and that doesn't account for countries where gambling isn't strictly speaking legal like USA, germany etc. the conclusion from that when people's lives are relatively comfortable and they have excess money, they will gamble. could they be doing better things with their money? sure. but it's their excess money to spend as they wish. you will get people that misuse it but that's the same with fast food, credit cards, alcohol, plastic surgery or anything else.
the other elephant in the room is sports betting which is of significant benefit to the AFL as a whole. someone who wouldn't care about carlton vs brisbane can put a $20 bet on and all of a sudden the game becomes exciting. kind of like fantasy football. the AFL knows this that's why the endorse sportsbet, ladbrokes etc. they can't condemn pokies and be okay with sports betting as that would be hypocritical.

