[Matt Hughes] FA want to ban Lucas Paqueta for life as extraordinary details of alleged betting scam revealed. 60 bets placed on West Ham star to be booked, with one worth just £7.

These sorts of markets are heavily restricted and they often cap bet amounts.

You wouldn't be able to bet £100,000 on it even if you wanted to.

I think the best explanation is that they were starting small to possibly work their way up to bigger bets. It’s also pretty hard to hide a £100,000+ bet on a yellow card for a specific player. Can’t imagine a lot of those come in from Brazil.

The real money would have been betting on results which is scary to think he could have eventually started trying to throw games.

He wasn’t the one making the money. It says he was doing it for his friends.

I think I'm allowed to link to the story here, as it's not direct in the post? Please delete if this breaks the rules mods.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/28284325/fa-lucas-paqueta-life-ban-extraordinary-details-betting-scam/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=sunfootballtwitter&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1717484723

Possibly an addict. Often no rhyme or reason to addicts behaviour. It becomes less about the money.

It makes far too much money for that to ever happen

I agree though, they're a huge net negative

Certainly things like betting on yellow cards should be banned, as they are too easily influenced by the player. I can understand betting on a player to score or get an assist, but negative outcomes seem to only help criminals.

In the future people will look back at betting ads like we do at ciggies being advertised back in the day. It will always go on and must be legal/regulated (carefully), but it is a cancer upon society, and its popularity now is both symptomatic of the problematic state the country is in, and even a root cause of that state. Some people can have a bet without it being a problem (I’m one of them weirdly enough, but plenty of other problems in my bag, don’t worry about that). Of course those with vested interests will pay MPs of any stripe to lobby on their behalf and swear blind they do no harm. Like the tobacco lot, the betting lot will take the piss as long as they’re allowed. That’s maybe a reason to come down on these donations made to political parties. After all, if they aren’t seeking to buy something, why hand over the money?

Can’t ban it. Would just end up happening illegally like prohibition. It needs to be heavily regulated, taxed, advertising banned and possibly nationalised and profits go to charity.

Should we ban drinking? In moderation, there’s nothing wrong with going out for a few drinks with buddies every once in awhile, but there’s also alcoholics. I don’t think it’s fair to ban these kind of activities because of the idiotic decisions of the minority

Because some people break the law or gamble beyond their means, the vast majority of people who are able to gamble a reasonable amount for just a bit of extra excitement on matches should be prevented from doing what they want with their own money? How's that make sense?

Also as others have commented, those with real gambling problems will simply do it illegally, or likely find some other way to act recklessly and lose their bank account (which they should have the right to do btw).

Supporting him? He's going to cost the club tens of millions. He's an idiot.

Mad ain’t it. They get punished, it’s evil etc… for an addiction. Yet we have Sky Bet league one. Shirt sponsors, stadium sponsors… all betting companies. All that is okay ain’t it. Love the game less and less every day.

I wonder if we start seeing clubs working on ways to prevent this sort of thing happening, between mandatory training, counselling or whatever and specific clauses in contracts.

Also, without the capitalisation Tonali read as to(e)nail to me and I was trying to work out if it was a saying that I've just never learned before

Big difference between what Tonali did and this though, spot fixing like Paqueta brings the integrity of the whole sport into disrepute

The sentiment of your post is very human but I'm afraid it's also very naive.

The Premier League is one of the most gambled sports in the world and that's because people see it as fair and just.

The Premier League itself will fight tooth and nail to make sure they are still viewed this way.

As for a gambling addiction I don't buy that argument at all and feel it's something players say for leniency. If you are a gambling addict there are lots and lots of ways for you to gamble that doesn't involve football.

Tonali and his representatives lied and Newcastle couldn't have done their due diligence properly on such a huge money deal.

I said on another thread that Paqueta will be banned for life and people thought I was stirring the pot. What he has done is actual spot fixing and regardless of the amounts involved is far worse than Tonali or Toney.

I came here as a Geordie to say the same thing. These players are still just kids. And make the odd bad choice. We all did and we didn’t have the income these guys do. I really feel for them and if he loses his career over this it’s a disgrace.

Based on what?

I could definitely see him playing out his contract while these appeals carry on. It would be a massive shame to lose the resale value but if we can get another couple years it would still be better business than Haller/Anderson.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see how the FA plans to make the case that an organised betting ring of £7 stakes is any more likely than simply people from his hometown knowing that he makes a lot of rash tackles.

It's 60 bets from the small community he grew up in, not 60 random bets from everywhere. It's pretty bad.

The technical term for that would be 'fraud'.

From what i understood Toney never bet on himself/games he played it, unlike Lucas. If true, those are 2 diametrically different infractions.