Please, Gamble Irresponsibly The Rise, Fall and Rise of Sport Gambling in Australia

Australians will gamble on anything, from two flies crawling up a wall to less important things like federal elections. Thanks to the internet, mobile phones and gambling tax loving Federal and State governments, Australians can indulge their love of a punt no matter what they’re doing. Aussies can be at the birth of a child, performing open heart surgery or handling heavy machinery and still put a bet on. As a result, Australia sits atop the world when it comes to gambling, losing more money per capita than any other country, leaving the next biggest loser, Singapore, a distant second. But it wasn’t always this easy because once you could only gambling on sport in Australia illegally, which it turned out was also pretty easy. Over the last thirty years, gambling on sport has slowly, then quickly become legalised in Australia, to the point were almost every ad on TV seems to be about sport betting. This book traced the history of gambling in Australia from the convict era, the rise of SP bookies and organise crime, the legalisation and commercialisation of the industry and the threat it now poses to the integrity of sport.

Writer and broadcaster Titus O’Reily was born in Melbourne and raised by the Sisters of Collective Misery, a kindly but sombre order who placed an emphasis on sport above all other things, including religion. At the age of eight, Titus set off from Melbourne for London in a rowboat containing only himself and a positive attitude, arriving just two months later thanks to a powerful stroke and favourable currents. In London, Titus developed a love of drinking, writing and ice skating, the last being something he did professionally across Europe for almost a decade. Upon returning to Australia, Titus turned to writing about sport, carving out a reputation for inaccuracy and being difficult to work with. Titus’s unique take on sport has been hailed by some of the most respected figures in sport as ‘awful’, ‘childish’ and ‘barely comprehensible’. titusoreily.com