Managing players in todays era and betting odds

[demondavey]

No they weren't indeed. Even things like footy cards were sort of gambling - you bought a pack, uncertain if you'd get good ones.

And it has always had appeal because the uncertainty of the outcome has innate connections to dopamine.

Experiments on rats: I can't remember the specifics but they found rats were more likely to push a level with an uncertain outcome (food, no food, random delay of getting food) than a lever with certain food. Similar to a hunter-gatherer: why check a tree for fruit that you know always has fruit? Better to explore uncertain areas and get REWARDED (dopamine) when you find something.

And the time delay is the interesting part with dopamine. Facebook learned that delaying, or specifically, VARYING THE DELAY of your friend 'liking' a post and you seeing that 'like' really ****ed with your dopamine, enhancing addiction.

What makes this interesting is the parallel with poker machines. We have legislated to slow down how many spins per minute can happen, with absolute rate of lost money over time in mind. But rapid spinning like this could actually be less addictive than if they varied the time it took with each spin. (But it is the variability in the outcome that drives the dopamine issues and addiction here mostly anyway)

Footy cards in the early to mid nineties. You were always hoping to get a ‘foil’. For me it was always the elusive Brisbane bears logo. The bear.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Why should Chris Scott care? The AFL has backed itself into a corner by relying heavily on gambling, that shouldn’t impact the way a club organises its team on game day. If they’ve got up until an hour to go then bad luck, put your bet on an hour before. It’s all on your phone anyway.

What’s the big sook?

Chris Scott’s words were “I couldn’t care less about people who bet on football”

Chris, they are funding your salary and industry.

It’s the same as a restauranteur saying “I couldn’t care less about the people who eat here”.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

The answer is, of course, don't gamble on AFL markets and it will go away.

If you know AFL is a second-rate market, you know that any bet isn't done under the same conditions as horse racing, then don't partake.


Yes.

Yes.

I don't know about that - can you explain?

And if they do it badly, don't use their product.

There’s a difference between not informing your customers and actively lying to them.

Many AFL clubs partake in the latter by naming players who they know are not going to play.

As for “just don’t partake” - you can’t blatantly market something and chase the money and then just misinform your customers and say “well, you shouldn’t have bought it”. That’s not how ethical business works.

Unforeseen changes will always happen. Players get injured up until the warmup half an hour before the game. That can’t be helped.

Actively misinforming customers for days on end is very different to that.

For a major figure in the game to be challenged on this behaviour and to literally say “I don’t care about our customers” is absurd.

 

[demondavey]

There’s a difference between not informing your customers and actively lying to them.

Many AFL clubs partake in the latter by naming players who they know are not going to play.

As for “just don’t partake” - you can’t blatantly market something and chase the money and then just misinform your customers and say “well, you shouldn’t have bought it”. That’s not how ethical business works.

Unforeseen changes will always happen. Players get injured up until the warmup half an hour before the game. That can’t be helped.

Actively misinforming customers for days on end is very different to that.

For a major figure in the game to be challenged on this behaviour and to literally say “I don’t care about our customers” is absurd.

I think you’re missing the fact that you have until one hour before the game commences to name your team. So if you’re so desperate to bet you actually can’t do it knowing you the starting 22 are.

You can literally do it in about 30 seconds on your phone.

What’s the issue?

 

[Chief]

As for “just don’t partake” - you can’t blatantly market something and chase the money and then just misinform your customers and say “well, you shouldn’t have bought it”. That’s not how ethical business works.

So now you know.

 

[RCAB]

I think you’re missing the fact that you have until one hour before the game commences to name your team. So if you’re so desperate to bet you actually can’t do it knowing you the starting 22 are.

You can literally do it in about 30 seconds on your phone.

What’s the issue?

Multis.

 

[PizzaPie]

In NBA you have teams having to announce OUTS before the betting odds come out basically to avoid collusion and market manipulation. IMHO the AFL after this week needs to take the same stance. Quite a few people would have bet on Hawthorn not knowing the full information required to make a informed decision and quite a few also would have bet knowing all the information at hand.

So far the media has been dead silent on this out of well fear it is fair to say. Perhaps one of them can read this and call it out ? Have a bit of courage for a change. Even in the absence of any outside noise the AFL still need to address this as it hurts the integrity of the game... just like it did for the NBA

In the NBA, teams stop trying once the margin is big enough. Both the team that is winning and the team that's behind. Sometimes this happens during the 3rd quarter. Zero incentives to play a game out. The last 30s of any game that isn't close is a joke, one player just standing on the spot bouncing the ball while his opponent checks out and the clock runs down.
Could you imagine an AFL game where one team is up by ten goals, and with a minute or so to go the player with the ball just walked in small circles bouncing it to themselves while an opponent stood watching and everyone else started walking off the ground/shaking hands etc.?

It's such an ugly look imo. Not even considering the gambling side of things... I mean, too bad if a punter needed another point to clear a line or something... quite often you're not only 'gambling on the game' but gambling on whether there will even be a whole game at all or everyone will pack up shop at 3/4 time.

And isn't it much easier to manipulate results in a sport where you're allowed to deliberately field your least competitive side and give up trying to extend a lead / catch up if behind with as much as a quarter to go, and literally just stop competing in the last 30s or so?

 

[Cmarsh]

People that are serious about betting (so-called 'professional punters') are the type of people who would definitely have access to information about likely changes well before they are announced to the 'public'.
Hell, all you needed to do was jump on the Hawks board here on BigFooty and you would have known about 4 of the 5 guaranteed changes on Monday.

Sports betting is a scourge anyway. I can't wait for the government to get off their ass and legislate against the overwhelming amount of betting advertising we have to sit through.

If you want to gamble... fine, I don't care. But don't make me sit though hours and hours of content made only to entice people (usually dumb those of lower education and socio-economic status) to throw their money away.

Chances are you're about to lose.

Are you implying the sports betting is mainly engaged in by people with little or no disposable income?

Are you having a laugh?

 

[demondavey]

Multis.

I don’t even know what that is…

 

[RCAB]

I don’t even know what that is…

Most people don't bet on head-to-head games straight up. They usually combine multiple games to increase their odds. Shocking, right? They would rather make their chances of winning less likely than taking the easier single head-to-head market.

 

[PhatBoy]

There’s absolutely no question that clubs and the league need to be far more transparent.

The way they treat punters is a disgrace.

Some will not have a problem with that. Chris Scott said he didn’t, in what was really an outrageous statement.

If you don’t care about the betting markets then fine - stop accepting the money.

In terms of direct revenue from betting companies, as well as indirect revenue through TV rights, The Age conservatively estimated that betting is worth over $150 million per year to the AFL.

In short, it’s the league’s #1 meal ticket.

In the same breath an incredibly ignorant Scott started wailing about needing more money for football departments. Slap him across the cheek, because he needs to wake up.

If a horse trainer or jockey stated they didn’t care about betting markets and made late changes (for example, to riding gear) they would be absolutely clobbered and rightly so. You can’t treat your customers like shit.

The AFL has chosen to make itself a major betting product and accept hundreds of millions of dollars per year in return.

You don’t get to take the money without any of the responsibilities.

Time for the AFL to decide what it wants to be.

People got paid before gambling, they will get paid without it.

His own club survived with poker machine revenue before, it no longer has any.

F**k gamblers.

His purpose is to try and win games, not to appease the d**khead that lives or dies by the result of 36 blokes kicking a ball around.

 

[PhatBoy]

Chris Scott’s words were “I couldn’t care less about people who bet on football”

Chris, they are funding your salary and industry.

It’s the same as a restauranteur saying “I couldn’t care less about the people who eat here”.

No, TV networks are doing a great deal more of that I’d imagine.

Based on a quick search, the AFL makes about $40 million from gambling company fees.

They make $650 million a year from their TV deal. Yes, a lot of advertising actually comes from gambling companies too, that isn’t lost on me. But those spots would be filled by someone else if it wasn’t them: the money they pay for those slots goes to the networks - either pay TV or 7 - not the AFL.