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With two gambling scandals shaking both the NBA and Major League Baseball, the integrity of sport is under scrutiny.

Last month, in the NBA, Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier were arrested after investigations uncovered a network of illegal betting and high-stakes poker schemes.

And now in baseball, two legit pitchers – Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz – were indicted after being accused of intentionally rigging some of their pitches and manipulating game outcomes. Legit becomes illegitimate in a flash.

Both scandals are timely. And, furthermore, especially awkward as it was only days after the Dodgers won a legacy-sealing, multiple-precedent-setting, arguably fairytale World Series– one for the purists that is, that the story broke. 

This week on Vanilla Club Podcast, I speak with behavioural scientist and psychologist Nicola Coalter, who has spent years studying gambling– and she is quick to point out that it is indeed gambling, not the softer and fuzzier ”gaming” nomenclature preferred by the industry. 

Gambling is so ingrained into Australian sport that we no longer blink an eye at betting app logos on jerseys (which is still taboo in the U.S.), or normalised betting advertising during every ad break. Nicola explains the danger of these newfound digital betting formats, as they are algorithmic, tracking every press of the button, and designed to psychologically lead the bettor to more time spent, more funds staked per spin. The free accessibility, cultural permissivity, and the on-demand nature of this generation of gambling offerings is clearly way ahead of what the combined culturo-socio-governmental status quo can muster as far as prevention and frankly, crisis management. The numbers? Well, they speak for themselves. Of almost 200 countries in the world, Australia is #1–yes, numero uno, in terms of gambling losses per capita. 

Nicola regularly works with clients at the ground-level who are struggling with this kind of addiction, and encourages us to avoid moralising individuals with messages to “gamble responsibly”. This kind of rhetoric unfairly blames individuals, and does little to address the intricate system upholding the extraction and exploitation.

Nicola’s upcoming documentary, Clubs at a Crossroads, continues her mission to expose the systems behind gambling harm and advocate for meaningful reform. Her work and insights are accessible via the above links.