Through the complicity of the political class, racketeering and gambling have captured certain sections of society and undermined the instruments of democratic control. Legendary football champions were scolded by bookies because the player spoke out on TV when the team was playing badly.

“I have already reached a certain form of blackmail, and as Prime Minister I am asking the Romanian state to see” – Marcel Ciolacu

CONTEXT

• Over the past year, the industry has become increasingly competitive between small domestic firms, usually focused on offline and so-called pawnshops, and large international companies that focus more on online and sports betting.

• The first charge that due to the inevitable new excessive taxation of gambling and the removal of gambling dens outside the borders of populated areas, the authorities favor transnational corporations, since only they will be able to afford to pay increased taxes.

• In counterattack, the big ones say that smaller firms in the market do not follow the rules, cultivate dependence and evade taxes, effectively discrediting the industry.

At some point, his phone vibrated. The former football player of the national team was on the air, analyzing the matches of the Romanian stage in the show. In his opinion, one of the schemes was disappointing in the game, which he told the audience.

The phone that impressed him

During a break in the broadcast, he mentioned who called him. He was one of the managers of the bookmaker company, which had a contract with that team and with the former glory of the “national team”. The connection between them was established, the discussion between them remained, but the content was too undemocratic to remain a secret.

A representative of the gambling industry reminded the football analyst about the contract he had. The great champion was perplexed, confused and brave. Embarrassed because he never got a warning for an “error in thinking”, embarrassed because he didn’t understand the situation, he played a lot abroad and that’s unthinkable in a free country, and brave because on the pitch and there it’s things in lives that cannot be bought.

He politely told the head of the bookmaker to leave him alone, that this was his opinion about the game and he would express it when he wanted to. It was not sold.

From the accounts that appeared in recent months, the head of the bookmaker also realized that the red line had been crossed. But what the powerful man did was just coercion, an extreme gesture, something that inevitably gets on the nerves as long as the industry he represents believes itself to be all-powerful.

“It’s time to open their eyes”

The episode related to the football player was also told by Katelin Shepelin, the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Sporturilor. “Bookmakers have little time left, it’s time to open their eyes. Society blames them, sometimes openly, without nuances, as happens when tectonic movements take place,” the journalist writes in Gazeta.

Zeppelin analyzed the relationship between the industry and society, explaining from the world of sports how the “gigantic and opaque attitude of the industry” to gambling will eventually cost them big, especially if “they do not give up their strong, sometimes brash and unethical behavior, and unless they support broad movements to educate the public and protect those vulnerable to addiction.”

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