Skip to footer

Sports betting, friends and foes

Even as New Jersey opens up sports betting, Singapore offers a law to suppress online gambling to help end the country's reputation as home to match-fixing worldwide, especially on European soccer games.

|
Reuters
Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal sits in a Finnish courtroom in 2011, accused of bribery related to match-fixing of soccer games. Since his conviction, he has helped to clean up the sport.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

It may sound strange, but the question must be asked: Will New Jersey take a lesson from Singapore?

On Monday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a surprise move aimed at helping Atlantic City’s ailing casinos. In defiance of federal law, he decided to allow the casinos to accept wagers on most sports events; New Jersey will be the first state to do so outside of Nevada.

His action happened on the same day that Singapore decided it was tired of its notoriety as a global center for online sports betting and the related crime syndicates that fix sports matches worldwide, especially soccer. The government in Asia’s wealthy island-state released a proposed law that, short of outright banning online gambling, would restrict it in ways no other country has.

The Singapore measure, expected to take effect next year, would restrict remote gambling in three ways: It would block access to such websites, ban advertisements for online gambling, and prevent payments to and from the sites. Only a regulated, nonprofit entity based in Singapore could offer online gambling. And it must turn excess revenue over to a charity. Hefty fines and jail time for violators would help enforce the law.

The country’s actions have two purposes: to shut down the match-fixing rings tied to sports betting and to protect young people and gambling addicts from easy access to online betting.

Despite its reputation for clean government, Singapore has seen a string of arrests of high-profile criminals charged with fixing soccer matches, mainly in Europe. With satellite TV, Asians have taken to watching European soccer (football). And Singapore has proved to be an easy portal for betting on games. Its total online betting is estimated to exceed $400 million.

Last year, a probe by Europol investigators found 680 matches worldwide were fixed by syndicates with links to Singapore. Asia-dominated criminal groups are laundering about $140 million a year through illegal sports betting, according to the International Centre for Sport Security.

Since 2007, more than 8,400 people have been arrested worldwide for soccer match-fixing. In 2011, Interpol and FIFA, the international soccer governing body, set up an “Integrity in Sport” unit to find new ways to stamp out the problem.

Singapore is now doing its part. But New Jersey, whose action could lead other American states to follow suit, is going in the opposite direction. Governments that rely on tax revenue and job creation from gambling need to wake up to its effects, especially if sports wagers are allowed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Sports betting, friends and foes
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2014/0910/Sports-betting-friends-and-foes
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe