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The Ethics of Gambling for Sports Journalists

This will not be a discusssion about whether newspapers should put the betting lines in the paper. That is a tired debate that doesn't concern me. The real question that will be asked is: Can a sports journalist remain ethical and objective when making a wager on the side?

To get to the meat of the question, we must refrain from talking about the perception of a gambling journalist. The question isn't: Will readers PERCEIVE journalists as unethical if they bet on games (that is an interesting question, but not the question that will be tackled here)? Our question is: ARE journalists acting unethically when they bet on games?

The answer: There is only one instance where gambling could tempt a journalist into acting unethical, but it wouldn't make sense to act on it. So, NO.

There is no way for a journalist to affect the outcome of the game. He (yes, i will use the pronoun "he" until there is more than one female journalist on press row) is not calling the plays or shooting the 3s. He cannot go down in the fourth round. Likening a gambling journalist to Pete Rose would be absurd.

What about the objectivity of a journalist while large amounts of money are on the line? The argument against gambling could go: When a journalist loses a large bet, he will take it out on the team in the story.

Well, writing a story criticizing a certain team for not covering the spread or heckling both teams for not covering the over in a story will not get a person too far in journalism. That wouldn't be tolerated by the higher ups. 

Besides, Journalists can learn to quash either their praise or disapproval for a team in a story just as they learn to not cheer in overtime. They have to be conscious of excitement or disgust and avoid it. And if they can't avoid their gambling excitement, chances are they couldn't avoid the excitment of cheering for the home team. And they shouldn't be writing in the first place. 

That brings us to the only scenario that could tempt a journalist away from telling the truth in a story.  The example: The star player of a team gets injured at the end of practice two days before a game. The team is a slight favorite. But you know that upon hearing of the star player's injury, Vegas will turn the slight favorite into the underdog. You, the journalist, hold the story until you can wager against the team with your inside information.   

In this case, the journalist still is not influencing the outcome of the game. That is impossible. What he is doing wrong is withholding information from the public, which goes against the core of journalism: truth telling.

So, why couldn't or wouldn't this scenerio pan out. There are two reasons. 1. 99 percent of the time, there would not be only one journalist at practice. Even if you withheld the news, someone else would publish it and you would taking a lashing from your editor. 2. let's say for some inexplicable reason, you are the only journalist to witness the injury. You would still not have to hold the story for a day to make the bet. These days, most betting takes place over the internet, and it would take no more than 2 minutes to make the bet -- enough time to scoop Vegas, and still get your story out in a timely fashion.

Here, i believe i have laid out a nice argument condoning gambling journalists. Before now i have only defended gambling journalists against attack. There is also a reason why gambling sports journalists don't only belong but should be celebrated.

Not only would a gambling journalist continue to be objective, but he would also be much more thorough in his analysis and research when presenting it to the public, because it is not only his story on the line. It is now his money, as well. The only people who should fear a gambling sports journalist are Vegas odds-makers, looking to keep their edge over the public.