You do realise they're not sanctioning him for gambling, yeah? It's for betting on - not just AFL, but - his own team. There's the nuance that separates driving a car legally to running down pedestrians.Running people over isnt an addiction caused by driving a car. Theres no organized advertising campaigns for running people over either.
Gambling is a known addiction.
Its incredibly negligent of the AFL to be promoting gambling on the one hand but then sanctioning players for doing it.
They cant have their cake and eat it.
The only real negative is that he did it on his own team. It was neglidble amounts of money so he cant be accused of match fixing especially when hes paid a tonne of money to play.
Of course hes an idiot for doing it, but theres bigger issues here then a 20 year old kid being an idiot.
Why come down so hard on this issue but other issues on field its all wishy washy and especially dependant on who it is and what jumper theyre wearing?
All new players go through mandatory AFL induction, which includes topics such as gambling. Collingwood likely run their own programs on top of that, too.