Sunday, September 16, 2018
No Holds Barred: Declan Hill on Sports Gambling and the Fight for Sports Integrity in the U.S.
On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with investigative journalist, academic, consultant, and expert on match-fixing and corruption in international sports, Declan Hill.
He has just started a new teaching position as an associate professor in the Investigations Department at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven in New Haven, Connecticut. This unique position, which he calls a "professor of investigations", has him teaching a graduate course focusing on corruption in sport and what the recent legalization of sports gambling in the U.S. means for American society.
We spoke with him by phone Wednesday.
"This is an epic-changing moment in American society," he said. "It's comparable with the repeal of Prohibition, because sports gambling has effectively been illegal for over a century. And it's been driven by the trauma of the Chicago White Sox fixing the World Series of baseball in 1919. That Shoeless Joe Jackson trauma 99 years ago has cast a pall over American sports leagues since that time.
"And only this year, only in 2018, on May 14th, did finally the U.S. judicial system say, 'Hey, it's OK for people to gamble on sports.'
"So this is a massively complex question. It's massively complicated, with good stuff on both sides of the issue, bad stuff on both sides of the issue. All kinds of societal stuff, all kinds of religious stuff, all kinds of social stuff."
The debate in the U.S. over the next steps, however, have been dominated by two types of groups which only are serving their own interests, he noted. First are those with their own commercial agendas, including the gambling casinos and the relatively new group of sports gambling monitoring companies. They are trying to ensure a major stake in the legal sports gambling market in the U.S., which it is estimated will grow to hundreds of billions of dollars.
The second group, he said, are those with a "geopolitical agenda". Much of agenda in the U.S. is being pushed by the Middle Eastern monarchy of Qatar -- the same country whose government was accused of massive bribery to get the hosting rights for the FIFA World Cup in 2022. This monarchy, he said, has founded an organization "purportedly" fighting for sports integrity and which is in the forefront of the discussion on sports gambling in U.S. They also, doing what they are paid to do, seek to deflect discussion away from Qatar's role in sports corruption, he said.
While little useful debate is going on about the effects of sports gambling, it is expected that massive amounts of gambling will take place not only on the largest sports in the U.S., but, judging from how gamblers have operated around the world, on the minor leagues of professional sports as well as college and even high school sports.
"Fixing turns sport into theater," he said, and we will see more of it on all levels of sport in America.
In order to address these dangers, he made a proposal.
"It is absolutely clear what American sports needs," he said.
"It needs an Environmental Protection Agency. It needs a meat-packing inspector agency. A similar independent agency needs to be set up at a federal level to protect the integrity of sport.
"And it needs to be funded by a one percent tax on legal gambling. So every sports bet that takes place in the United States, a very small section of it, one percent, goes to setting up that agency, funding it, staffing it with good people."
We discussed the need for independent intelligent discussion on these issues, problems like sports gambling addiction and what happens when illegal bookmakers try to go legal, how sports gambling may kill off some sports, the opposition to forming an independent sports integrity agency, and much, much more.
You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.
No Holds Barred is available at Google Play Music.
Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.
You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.
The PodOmatic Podcast Player app is available for free, both for Android at Google Play, and for iOS on the App Store.
The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.
No Holds Barred is sponsored by:
The Catch Wrestling Alliance, resurrecting and promoting the sport of authentic catch-as-catch-can wrestling. The Catch Wrestling Alliance provides tournaments, seminars, and training as well as education about catch wrestling. Join the movement and keep real wrestling alive. For more information, go to CatchWrestlingAlliance.com.
Skullz Double-End Bags, the perfect bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve timing, distance, and hand and eye coordination. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. For more information, go to SkullzDeBags.com.
Labels: Declan Hill, Eddie Goldman, gambling, integrity, No Holds Barred, sports
Monday, May 14, 2012
No Holds Barred: Catherine Ordway on the Integrity and Anti-Doping Movements in World Sport
On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Catherine Ordway, a sports integrity consultant and attorney focusing on anti-doping, corruption, and match-fixing issues.
Based in Australia, and dealing with many issues at once, she works as an Advisory Board Member at Asia Pacific World Sport and Women, with the Doping Hearing Tribunal at SportAccord, and as an IAAF Medical and Anti-Doping Delegate. She has written numerous articles and made many presentations on good governance and the battle against doping and corruption in world sport. She also is a consultant on anti-doping issues to the bid group which is seeking to get Istanbul, Turkey, selected as the host of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The issues of doping, match-fixing, and other forms of corruption, along with bad governance, are haunting world sport, and not just the historically scandal-plagued combat sports. What to do about them has caused controversy as well.
We thus discussed these issues with Catherine Ordway in a global context in an interview recorded by Skype on Friday.
"I feel very optimistic," she said in this interview. "I love sport, and everybody that's involved that I know in the anti-doping movement and the integrity movement also love sport. And they're in it because they see what's good about sport, and that they want to keep what we love about it going forward."
We discussed how doping is a symptom of broader forms of cheating in sport, the need for a proactive approach to these problems, how change sometimes only comes following tragedies in sport (such as the suicide of former NFL star Junior Seau), the proposal for the eventual formation of a World Anti-Corruption Agency for sport, the issues of bad governance in combat sports as well as concussions and poor anti-doping control, the need for fans to speak out against the various forms of corruption, and more.
You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.
No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.
Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.
The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.
No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:
ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.
Beezid.com - Penny Auctions. Your #1 source for exciting auction shopping and outstanding deals on just about anything! Top rated, most trusted auction site online. Where do you shop? Beezid.com - Penny Auctions.
American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.
Based in Australia, and dealing with many issues at once, she works as an Advisory Board Member at Asia Pacific World Sport and Women, with the Doping Hearing Tribunal at SportAccord, and as an IAAF Medical and Anti-Doping Delegate. She has written numerous articles and made many presentations on good governance and the battle against doping and corruption in world sport. She also is a consultant on anti-doping issues to the bid group which is seeking to get Istanbul, Turkey, selected as the host of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The issues of doping, match-fixing, and other forms of corruption, along with bad governance, are haunting world sport, and not just the historically scandal-plagued combat sports. What to do about them has caused controversy as well.
We thus discussed these issues with Catherine Ordway in a global context in an interview recorded by Skype on Friday.
"I feel very optimistic," she said in this interview. "I love sport, and everybody that's involved that I know in the anti-doping movement and the integrity movement also love sport. And they're in it because they see what's good about sport, and that they want to keep what we love about it going forward."
We discussed how doping is a symptom of broader forms of cheating in sport, the need for a proactive approach to these problems, how change sometimes only comes following tragedies in sport (such as the suicide of former NFL star Junior Seau), the proposal for the eventual formation of a World Anti-Corruption Agency for sport, the issues of bad governance in combat sports as well as concussions and poor anti-doping control, the need for fans to speak out against the various forms of corruption, and more.
You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.
No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.
Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.
The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.
No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:
ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.
Beezid.com - Penny Auctions. Your #1 source for exciting auction shopping and outstanding deals on just about anything! Top rated, most trusted auction site online. Where do you shop? Beezid.com - Penny Auctions.
American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.
Labels: boxing, Catherine Ordway, corruption, doping, Eddie Goldman, integrity, MMA, No Holds Barred, Olympics, sport
