Klangja

Advertisements for bookmakers have become an integral part of TV programs in Serbia. They are sponsors of football, basketball, leagues, teams, national teams, in short, there is no block of advertisements in which someone does not bet on the result. Famous actors invite us to win, successful athletes invite us to bet, beautiful girls with pouty lips and breasts smile seductively at us inviting us to have a phenomenal time. All household chores are completed by themselves, reality TV contestants are staring into their phones while making bets, the wedding stops, everyone wins, you just need to make a good account and become rich. A person simply cannot explain to himself why he does not want to get rich.

Luck has been completely removed from the concept of betting in Serbia, every lottery ticket wins and everyone takes turns celebrating a win. In the mass of popular actors, Đura brings happiness to everyone like Mephistopheles, while Andrija Milošević convinces the boys that they will not disturb the family dynamic, they can achieve everything if they bet online. It can be in the betting shop, where the horny chicks are devouring you with their eyes, while Batistuta sits next to Dulet Savić and enjoys the bohemian atmosphere. There are no losers, no addictions, no superstitions, no broken families, no greengrocers who make houses and property go bankrupt, everyone is happy.

Unfortunately, things look different in life. In the betting shops, some sad characters fill out the tickets by squeezing their last straw. None of the glamor of television, just pure non-chemical addiction on the level of heroin addiction. Colleagues say that when the debt in Serbia exceeds 20.000 euros, family resources dry up and addicts are taken to treatment that lasts for years. Younger and younger people are coming to treatment for gambling, and treatment is made more difficult by the fact that betting shops have sprung up like mushrooms at every turn of public transport, at every junction and in every free bar. It is unusually difficult to change lifestyle habits when challenges are aggressively present in the media and physical environment. For the sake of comparison, imagine that you need to cure someone of heroin addiction, and on television you constantly see smiling people shaking hands, and in your neighborhood you have places where they legally deal, with neon signs at the entrance. Difficult, cousins.

These days in Serbia, what we could expect for years has only been confirmed. FIBA launched a major investigation against basketball players in Serbia who are suspected of fixing matches and betting on the results. Today you can bet not only on victory or defeat, but also on complete statistics in any part of the match. Almost 30 players in our league are under investigation, and some have already "drank" suspensions because their involvement in fraud was proven. The big world bookmakers have known this for years, so they did not accept payments related to our basketball league.

The Serbian Basketball League published a statement in which it supports the FIBE investigation and offers full cooperation, but for me it is devastating that you have the name of a sponsor in the name of the league - a large chain of betting shops. I don't want to say or insinuate that bookmakers are part of the fraud, just like basketball clubs, it's about individuals, players who were lured by easy and big money. This is where we come to the paradox of our media, in which this information received incredibly little space, almost none. To be precise, the amount of news about the biggest fraud in the Serbian basketball league in the Serbian media is inversely proportional to the amount of advertisements for bookmakers in the same media. The news was pushed under the carpet so as not to disturb the image of the lucky winners, the favorites of luck in our betting shops. If word gets out that it's not just luck, but also malfeasance, maybe the players will sober up, although I just wonder what kind of abstinence crisis it would be if someone abolished and closed the betting shops overnight.

In the media coverage of this mega scandal, I noticed an attempt to justify the actions of the players. Namely, their earnings are allegedly not high, so then fixing the results comes as a supplementary source of income. Imagine the poor people being forced to fly, it just brought tears to my eyes. For days, the news was circulating in the media that Partizan and Zvezda were invited to European competitions, but we heard little about the reasons why Partizan and some other clubs cannot play in the domestic league. They allegedly owe money.

An interesting detail is also modus operandi result-fixing scams, where the payment goes through the bookmaker's account, which is a parallel payment system located in the gray area. You can pay someone by depositing money into someone's bookmaker account, which he or she can withdraw. What a place for money laundering, which has been warned about for years. Just as no one will ask you about the origin of the money if you buy real estate in Belgrade, they won't ask you in betting shops either, that's money laundering at work. Unfortunately, this news has not reached the front pages even today.

In the end, it was really naive to expect that this level of irregularity and mudslinging would not affect the sport and our basketball. There was slander with the fixing of results in other countries, in Italy and England even the biggest clubs were fined, I just wonder what consequences this affair will have on our basketball. Many players will be left without a license, but I am afraid that it will end there, that the investigation will not go deeper into all the pores of our society, where corruption has metastasized. Perhaps there is a description of every totalitarian society in which laws and rules are applied selectively - "La vida tombola", as Manu Chao would say and Maradona would sing. ¶