Australian bookmakers under fire for taking bets on junior sport

Investigations from ABC News have revealed three of Australia’s biggest gambling companies are offering bets on sporting events involving underage players.

Australia’s TAB, Sportsbet and Bet365 are allowing people to wager on the Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup taking place in South Africa, including the highly viewed match between Australia and Sri Lanka last Wednesday in Benoni. This has caused public outcry over possible match-fixing and grooming. 

Close to half of Australia’s squad for the T20 cricket tournament are under 18, with two aged 15 and 16. The same goes for the Sri Lankan team, which has only three players aged 18 years while the rest are below. 

According to child protection activists, betting on children is exploitative as what should be seen as a rewarding sporting event is now tainted by the profiting of the gambling companies. Australia’s National Commissioner for Children, Anne Holland, specifically called for laws preventing wagering on underage sporting activities. 

“Clearly, kids are being exploited for profit,” she told ABC.

“Young people are basically being used for profit by these online gambling businesses. They are businesses making a profit on our kids.” 

A parent of one of the young players expressed their displeasure and concern at the situation.

“They’re not racehorses … she’s not a greyhound,” the parent said.

“It’s kids’ sport.

“I’d hate it if the motivation behind holding tournaments was because of the money from gambling rather than for the sport.”

While TAB and Sportsbet offered pre-match odds on the Australia vs Sri Lanka match, Bet365 offered in-play match odds on its international sites. It didn’t offer it in Australia because the practice is illegal in the country.

This, however, could pose an issue to the sport’s integrity, according to Catherine Ordway at the University of Canberra. She noted the mix of in-play betting and young ages of the players could lead to match-fixing. 

“We’ve seen grooming techniques used by match-fixers who target vulnerable people and try to convince them to throw matches or drop points to deliver a gambling benefit,” Ordway said.

“Young players often don’t have the knowledge or life experience to appreciate that what might seem like an innocent compliment on social media might be part of a bigger plan to start grooming them for match-fixing.”

When asked for comment, TAB and Bet365 declined while Sportsbet gave out a statement noting it “does not provide betting markets for under 18 years of age competitions or events”.

Australia has no law against betting on underage sporting events. 

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