Heath Shaw must be addicted to gambling. There can be no other explanation for his inability to refuse the offer of a low value bet, one he knew contravened all the AFL’s gambling rules. In handing his mate ten bucks, Shaw used inside information to throw down a joint bet, $20 on his skipper, Nick Maxwell, to kick the opening goal against Adelaide in round nine.
Maxwell was at long odds, 100-1, to kick the first goal. A lauded defender through 151 games, he’s played mostly in defence, kicking just 26 goals. He rarely starts or features up forward, kicking his last goal in round six, 2009.
Days before the round nine game against Adelaide, based on three bets, the odds on Maxwell kicking the first goal wound in to 25-1. The plunge in the odds was enough for the TAB to alert the AFL.
Maxwell started up forward but didn’t kick a goal.
Last week in front of the media, Shaw was reserved and uneasy. His explanation of what happened was filled with irrelevant information, a ramble about his mate in the TAB, and those crazy moments before the bet went down. Shaw set the scene as though he was seeking sympathy for a spur of the moment bet, just a man on the punt offered good odds.
‘I was at the local TAB to put a few horse racing bets on, as I usually would,’ Shaw said. The story continued, about watching screens, getting ready to leave when his mate said, hey, let’s use that inside information you’ve mentioned, that no one outside the team should know, and have a bet.
All Shaw needed to do in front of the media was admit to betting ten bucks on his skipper to kick the first goal. How it happened didn’t matter. He didn’t need to mention his mate, that he was getting ready to leave the TAB and took an offer that was floated.
In doing so, Shaw made his mate complicit, but his mate has nothing to do with stupidity.
It’s the most expensive $10 bet Shaw has ever had. For a footballer who must be earning $400,000 each year, ten bucks isn’t enough to bet on the future. The 14 match suspension, with six suspended, is as hurtful as the $20,000 fine.
AFL general manager Adrian Anderson spoke with deadly deliberation, almost appearing chuffed as he read the charges, fines and suspension. Anderson, with high profile proof that footballers were gambling inappropriately, wanted to make a sharp point that it wouldn’t be tolerated.
As Anderson spoke, there was silence among the journalists. Jaws, it seemed, were dropping instead of forming words. No one could believe Shaw could be so dumb, given all footballers are educated about right and wrong, about what constitutes an illegal wager. Shaw knew the rules and broke them. There can be no sympathy.
To blatantly use inside information is to disregard all the warnings, all the forums footballers attend and every sense of what information should and should not be spread around. Throughout history, inside information has ruined governments, marriages, business partnerships and lives.
Loose lips, and all that, I hate clichés, and while it might seem fanciful, Shaw’s loose lips might sink the premiership.
Heath Shaw is 25 years old, a premiership star. He’s played in 129 games, averages 20 disposals per game and is widely regarded as a defensive general. In last year’s grand final replay, Shaw’s smother of the millennium on Nick Riewoldt in the goal square was the match turning moment. He’ll be forever remembered for that smother, as well as being a damn fine player.
His place in the team is worth more than ten bucks, and now he’ll also be remembered as a footballer who bet $10 when he didn’t need the return.
That smacks of a gambling problem, no matter how anyone interprets this sordid stupidity.
Shaw has been on Collingwood’s list for seven years. Since 2005, he must’ve earned about $2 million in salary, perhaps more. He’s had access to the best training methods, the best rehabilitation processes, the best science from a club giving everything it can to make him a better footballer and person. The Magpies must’ve invested more than $3 million in the process.
AFL clubs make risky investments in footballers. Often the outlay doesn’t get a return, or isn’t worth the adverse media. In outlaying ten bucks, Shaw was set to recoup about $1000. Compare that with his eight game suspension and $20,000 fine.
It was always a risky bet. It could cost the Magpies hundreds of thousands in sponsorship, and more in trust.
Loose lips are stupid lips. Breaking the rules when they’re so basic, so understandable, is almost indescribable and the explanation why will forever remain mystifying.
Heath Shaw, in outlaying a bet like that, knowing the potential for sanctions, needs to address his gambling.
Former Adelaide captain and dual premiership player Simon Goodwin bet $3000 on West Coast to win the grand final in 2006. He won his bet, a neat return, but when the AFL found out, Goodwin received a $40,000 fine, with $20,000 suspended.
AFL footballers aren’t allowed to bet on other clubs, which may seem unfair, given the lack of involvement, but footballers have mates at other clubs. Mates talk, as Shaw has shown. When Goodwin fronted the press conference to explain his bet, he revealed a gripping gambling addiction and promised to seek help.
Goodwin’s autobiography was woeful, one of the worst football books I’ve ever read, not because of his story, because of the way it was written. It turned into romance, a Simon Goodwin love fest, but the chapter featuring his gambling was reasonable. A compulsive gambler, shares, horses, football and darts, Goodwin estimated his losses at $200,000.
A man who can’t resist a $10 bet, knowing it could get him in trouble, is a man with a gambling problem. Shaw admitted regularly punting on horses, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but he punted when he couldn’t trust the bet, faith in the win instead of the consequences. He had to know the betting agencies are in cahoots with their partners, which renders his decision making totally untrustworthy when it comes to gambling.
‘At the time it was something minor, a little bet,’ Shaw said. ‘I thought nothing would come of it. Looking back, obviously it was a stupid thing to do and these days you can’t get away with anything. I didn’t think of the consequences at the time if I was caught.’
Gambling problem, perhaps???
Shaw didn’t admit to one, but his bet asks serious questions the journalist’s didn’t ask, how often he bets and how much he puts down.
His captain, Nick Maxwell, isn’t without blame. He sat next to Shaw at the press conference, in trouble because he told his family what position he’d be playing hours after the team meeting. Based on that advice, three bets were laid by his brother’s in-laws. The bets totalled $85.
‘In round nine, the same as I have for every match of my AFL career, after I found out my role and who I’d be playing on etcetera, I spoke to family members,’ Maxwell said. ‘I had no idea until yesterday that they’d used that information to bet. They’d never done it before.’
Family members probably won’t again. Maxwell was fined $10,000 for leaking, with $5000 suspended. The AFL offered no suspension, because Maxwell wasn’t directly involved in either bet, he didn’t know they’d been laid until the AFL came knocking. He seems lucky, though, and took responsibility for spreading the word.
‘The rules state that any information you give out, you have to back that up and say it’s not to be used for gambling purposes,’ he said. ‘I never said that, so that’s why I find myself here.’
Neither Shaw nor Maxwell complained about the penalty.
‘I think it’s pretty important that the AFL made a strong stance on this,’ Maxwell said.
I opened a betting account last year, depositing $100, and gamble irregularly, small bets on football or boxing, $15 or $20 each time. Currently, without ever being topped up, my account holds $111. In the past eighteen months I’ve won eleven dollars. There’s no gambling problem.
The only time I could have used inside information I didn’t, not because I didn’t trust the information, because I couldn’t trust the bet. The inside information was spot on, the game panning out exactly as predicted. I might’ve made $40 if I betted.
It wouldn’t have caused a betting plunge. No questions, if I’d made the bet, would’ve been asked.
I don’t have a gambling problem. Heath Shaw mightn’t either, but no sense can be wrought from the risk he placed on his legacy, a possible premiership and immediate career, for ten bucks, just to win a thousand, when a man of his heightened status surely does not need it.
AFL footballers have privileges few others have. Betting $10 when the win is almost pointless is an unnecessary gamble, and that’s Heath Shaw’s problem.
