Gambling in the GAA - the ethical aspect

Started by Lone Shark, May 29, 2016, 03:27:11 PM

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theskull1

All it takes is one or two cocky/popular arseholes to bum and blow constant narratives about the bets they're placing for it to become normalised to a certain percentage of weak willed individuals. The proliferation of advertising is a serious problem .... you can only spend so much on drink every day, but with gambling, you can go down a deep hole in a single bad day if the self control is gone. Must be some backhanders involved to allow adverts and online gaming to go on. 

Are these issues discussed in schools I wonder? If not they need to be

It's a lot easier to sing karaoke than to sing opera

illdecide

Guys having punted on most things (football my fav) I can tell u gambling is a very addictive hobby and can ruin relationships in no time. I've actually went the other way and gamble very little but i did get a small taste of what can happen if u don't pull the reins in. I have seen at first hand with my local GAA team the amount of young men who would gamble on two flies crawling up a wall and it is sad, i know of at least 3 from our senior team who still attend Gamblers anonymous meetings and thankfully have stayed off it but lost girl friends and friends in the process. It would scare you to death if you realised just how big of a problem it is and with the technology now it's much worse and people can bet 24/7 365 days a year on basically anything. Back in the day you just went into bookies and done a bet for Sat football and that was it...it then progressed to mid week football and now it full time, the problem with gamblers now is they have the Smart Phones (as mentioned earlier) and can do this in private without anyone knowing. I don't even have an on line gambling account, i know guys have one for every gambling site that's out there...Very Sad.

I agree the Government should act on this and ban the advertising of Gambling, this is something that should not be encouraged.

 
I can swim a little but i can't fly an inch

Asal Mor

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on June 01, 2016, 11:56:23 AM
Was never a big gambler and haven't had money on a game since I realised that I was more invested in hoping the bet came in rather than enjoying and analysing the spectacle that was before me.
This is very true Croi. I still bet but I've been gradually coming to this conclusion too recently.

Lone Shark

When I started this thread, the key thing I was interested in was what actual steps people felt would be worth taking, and it's clear from this that the advertising aspect looks like the most obvious angle to attack. I wouldn't necessarily say that there won't be a loss there - I know for example that when Ladbrokes.com sponsored Derry GAA, the package was a considerable step up from what Derry were getting previously, or indeed since (i'm led to believe). However the GAA has a good track record here in terms of seeing the bigger picture and I've no doubt that they'd be happy to provide leadership in this area. If anything, the bigger problem could be at a local level, where the local bookie might be one of the main sponsors of a club - and finding a similar alternative would be difficult and that cheque for a grand or two a year could be crucial. 

It's also much harder to define what constitutes advertising in this day and age. I get great entertainment out of some of the twitter accounts maintained by various firms, is that advertising? Plus, we have to remember that lots of the advertising will make it through to our TV screens anyway - most of the big satellite channels aren't going to turn down an ad purchase from Bet365 or Stan James just because of Irish legislation, when Ireland constitutes 1% of their viewership.

I genuinely don't know what's realistic in terms of managing access however.  People have phones, and for the state to start restricting what they can and can't do with them is extremely tricky. Again, you'd have to get foreign companies to commit to spending large sums of money on software adjustments that effectively hamstring their own product - I've no idea how on earth you get anyone to come on board for something like that.

AZOffaly

ISPs who operate in Ireland could be forced to Geoblock specific sites (nationwide black lists essentially). That's one way technology could stop traffic to sites hosted in other countries. Then if those bookies make a fairly straightforward business rule that constrains your usage (similar to transaction limits on online banking), you could unblock them.

Ethan Tremblay

I would find gambling similar to how people would have treated smoking 30 years ago, more of a social thing.  It's an opening for a conversation, keeps the craic going and very much keeps you in the click.  Sometimes I pick up on a thing or two and spark up a betting convo with older players to kill an awkward silence(even though I don't have a clue wtf I'm on about). 

At club training there isn't a 5 minute period were someone is not talking about betting to some degree.  Our wattsapp group is littered with "tips" and when the thing gets going there are over 100 messages in the space of an hour.  A few of my friends are big big gamblers and when I say something about it it's usually brushed aside with comments such as "sure I haven't gambled in 10 days". 

We are usually educated at football about drinking before matches and training, but I would imagine waiting on a big bet to come in would have as detrimental an effect as rolling onto the pitch hungover. 
I tend to think of myself as a one man wolfpack...

general_lee

Do the scools do anything? Maybe something worth looking at. It's not just men that get into gambling

T Fearon

Is the 100/1 on odds on Dublin beating Laois this weekend the shortest price ever on a team in a Senior County Championship Fixture?


Il Bomber Destro

If you're a county player or have played county football or hurling you can pretty much get away with anything.

McCarron
Alan Smith
Davy Glennon
Darren Gleeson
Mark Hehir



If it was an ordinary Joe Soap, he'd have been locked up. What is interesting there is that it's pretty much confirmed Hehir only got the job because he was a GAA footballer and we have people arguing that these lads aren't being looked after well enough!




manfromdelmonte

Quote from: general_lee on June 03, 2016, 06:25:21 PM
Do the scools do anything? Maybe something worth looking at. It's not just men that get into gambling
schools have enough to be doing.
the proliferation of gambling onto our phones, onto tv screens and onto website is crazy

its normalising the act of gambling

LooseCannon

Quote from: seafoid on January 20, 2018, 01:06:36 PM
Quote from: LooseCannon on January 20, 2018, 12:55:44 PM
Quote from: seafoid on January 20, 2018, 12:19:25 PM
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/director-of-business-says-theft-of-more-than-60k-by-former-galway-hurling-star-a-huge-betrayal-36508986.html

There's a number of basic inaccuracies in the article.
He's a current panellist.
He's from Mullagh not Loughrea.
It is still shocking though.

I'm not suggesting that it's not shocking. But, for a national newspaper, you'd think they'd have the basic details right. It's not like they're a tabloid.