Today there was a story about a cricketer placing a bet on a cricket match. It’s not half as bad as what you would think:

Here’s the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/35158436

And here’s the whole story :

Angela Reakes: Player punished for £4.36 bets on World Cup final

An Australian cricketer has received a two-year suspended sentence for bets totalling Aus $9 (£4.36) during the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

Angela Reakes, 24, of the ACT Meteors in the Women’s National Cricket League, was guilty of breaching Cricket Australia’s (CA) anti-corruption code.

She pleaded guilty to placing five bets on the Australia v New Zealand final man-of-the-match betting market.

CA integrity unit chief Iain Roy said: “Angela knows she made a bad mistake.”

He added: “All elite cricketers are reminded regularly that betting on any form of cricket is strictly prohibited.”

Australia won the World Cup final in March, beating New Zealand, with James Faulkner named man-of-the-match.

So Female Aussie Cricketer places a bet on the Aussie Men’s cricket team, and she got a two-year suspended sentence. Because, you know, anti-corruption. Glad someone’s thinking of the children.

Everyone knows that cricket had/has a shady element to it with spot fixing, match fixing and even past Aussie greats Shane Warne and Mark Waugh provided information to a bookmaker, for a fee of course. But this is a total overreaction if you ask me. (Yes I know it’s “just” a suspended sentence, but she shouldn’t even have that IMO).

Just to be clear, she bet on a game that she wasn’t taking part in, for a whopping £4.36…I’m assuming that’s all she could get down as her account has been restricted by [insert shitty retail bookmaker of your choice].

She should have got a friend or family member to place the bet for her if she simply had to have a bet on. Aussies are the biggest gamblers in the world after all, as this story reminds me:

From:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/02/daily-chart-0