Bet on it, an epidemic awaits

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Berkeley_Eagle

Current Status: 24/7 Manly Fan
Bet on it, an epidemic awaits
MARCH 15, 2013
FORGET for the moment that your humble correspondent is being sued for defamation by Tom Waterhouse.

Ignore the fact he has clearly already taken a rather dim view of comments I have made in this column about the manner of his sponsorship of Australian sport. In fact, for the moment - Your Honour, my learned friends et al, if it please the court - let's leave the whole pure advertising part of sports betting aside. For on Friday last week, a new level was reached in the insidious nature of the bookmaker's invasion of Australian sports.

I refer to the Channel Nine coverage of the Broncos-Manly match last Friday night when Waterhouse had moved from being a semi-detached sponsor of the broadcast - which is troubling enough - to being a quasi-member of the commentary team! Complete with freaking Channel Nine microphone in his hands! Being crossed to before the game, at half-time, and then joining a panel with a suitably embarrassed looking Ray Warren and Peter Sterling at the end of the game, being asked for his thoughts! WTF? We can quite rightly ban smoking advertising and sponsorship of sport because it is not fair to expose children to it before their minds are formed, and yet THIS is allowed to go to air?

For you know it, and I know it. There is now a whole generation of kids growing up watching Australian sport, who think that gambling on sport, discussing the odds, knowing who all the chief bookmakers are and speaking about them in reverential tones - not regarding them as parasites, producing nothing, growing fat on taking money from people who can ill-afford it - is simply the normal way of things.

And why do the kids think these absurdities? Why is it guaranteed there will be an even worse epidemic down the track of these kids developing gambling problems? Simply because we, the older generation, have totally failed them. In face of the rising damp of gambling interests on Australian sport - not just Waterhouse - we, together with the sporting administrations we support, and the governments we elect, have not had the gumption to put a stop to it.

Ultimately it will come down to this: The clubs are driven by the profit motive, as are the codes, as are the networks - they just can't help themselves but to take the lucre. So we must look to the government in this election year. Is it Labor or the Coalition who has the strongest policy proposed to stop gambling's invasion of sports? Let's find out.

Peter fitzsimons
http://m.smh.com.au/sport/the-fitz-files/bet-on-it-an-epidemic-awaits-20130315-2g60h.html
 
I'll email him my line about th turning more people off than nick x, and I bet he goes with it next week.
 
voicefromthehill said:
Moondog said:
Normally Fitzsimons grates on me but this time I think he's pretty spot on.

He is spot on, but he will harp on this for the next 6 months - that is grating. Make a point and then move on

Is he related to Phil Gould?
 
Ahhh, the kids, we must protect the kids!
..here's a thought, if you are worried about your seven year-old kid
getting on the blower to put a cpl bets on...take some responsibility as a parent and drum it
into there heads how bloody dumb it is whenever you see the ads.
Two can play at the subliminal brainwashing game, lazy parents are happy to blame society's ills...:-/
 
Matabele said:
voicefromthehill said:
Moondog said:
Normally Fitzsimons grates on me but this time I think he's pretty spot on.

He is spot on, but he will harp on this for the next 6 months - that is grating. Make a point and then move on

Is he related to Phil Gould?
Yes by marriage. Peter Philsgould and Phil Fitzsimons....classic example of a menage a trois.
 
bad parenting can't stop it being plastered across whilst watching the game. It's so bad what is happening and Fitzy is right, parasites. James Packer, this city has been great to my family is another.
 
Ah Fitzy, the last bastion of public morality. When he has finished pontificating about how no one should hold a religious belief (and yes, I enjoyed constructing that), or that any form of body contact (shoulder charges, mandatory helmets) should be banned because of the long-term implications, or how the 'game they play in heaven' (but actually view in Hell as one of their punishments) is always better than RL, he will move on to whatever else pops into his head.

He has become as bad and dogmatic as any of the radio shock-jocks he claims to abhor. That doesn't mean that some of the above isn't correct but he won't have me joining any of his crusades! Cop those mixed metaphors Fitzy and loosen up the bandana as it is affecting the blood flow to your brain.
 
ifernolan said:
RL Gronk said:
Lisa wilkinson is a very attractive woman with clearly no taste in men.

in what universe?

Did you see her in her 20s and 30s she was smoking hot 95.5 out of 100 in the rootabilty scale now days she's more 70-75.
 
ManlyBacker said:
Ah Fitzy, the last bastion of public morality. When he has finished pontificating about how no one should hold a religious belief (and yes, I enjoyed constructing that), or that any form of body contact (shoulder charges, mandatory helmets) should be banned because of the long-term implications, or how the 'game they play in heaven' (but actually view in Hell as one of their punishments) is always better than RL, he will move on to whatever else pops into his head.

He has become as bad and dogmatic as any of the radio shock-jocks he claims to abhor. That doesn't mean that some of the above isn't correct but he won't have me joining any of his crusades! Cop those mixed metaphors Fitzy and loosen up the bandana as it is affecting the blood flow to your brain.

Your every post is quality.
 
RL Gronk said:
Lisa wilkinson is a very attractive woman with clearly no taste in men.

ifernolan said:
RL Gronk said:
Lisa wilkinson is a very attractive woman with clearly no taste in men.

in what universe?

11086594_gal.jpg
 
Fitzsimons will always be given the time of day by me because of his unwavering and sustained campaign against Alan Jones. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

He can grind an axe though, right down to the handle sometimes.
 
ifernolan said:
RL Gronk said:
Lisa wilkinson is a very attractive woman with clearly no taste in men.

in what universe?

I knew her quite well when I was a teenager and she was about 28. She's great, very genuine, with a fine sense of humour and good fun to be around. He's punching above his weight.
 

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