For those that live under a rock, Wayne Shaw was the substitute goalkeeper/coach/goalpost inspector/"roly-poly-goalie" for Sutton Utd, a National Football league side. In the 83rd minute of Suttons' 5th round FA cup match with Arsenal, he began to eat a pie on the substitutes bench. The stunt was seen as hilarious by viewers across the country, but not so easily amused were the FA or the Gambling Commission.
Before the match, Sun Bet decided it would be a brilliant idea to introduce a betting market of "Wayne Shaw to eat a pie during the match" at odds of 8/1. Shaw was aware of this before the game and decided "I thought I would give them a bit of banter and let's do it". He told his friends to bet on the match and Sun Bets revealed they had lost a 5 figure sum due to Shaws' actions. Richard Wilson of the Gambling Commission stated "Integrity in sport is not a joke, and we have opened an investigation to establish exactly what happened".
What happened Mr Wilson, was that Sun Bets thought they were being really funny and clever , but in reality made an outstandingly stupid decision in creating that bet. All Mr Shaw is guilty of doing is playing the bookies at their own game, in a time when so many close punters accounts for actually being good at it. If anything this was not Mr Shaws fault, but Sun Bets. If anyone else knew they could make their friends a five figure sum by eating a pie on the bench because a bookmakers made a stupid market, it would be a no brainer!
However, if we're going to consider the Gambling Commissions view that this action was against regulations, we must consult the FA's law on betting :
“A participant shall not bet, either directly or indirectly, or instruct, permit, cause or enable any person to bet on (i) the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in, a football match or competition.”
From this, it could be claimed that Shaw has instructed a person to bet on any other aspect of a football match or competition. However I would argue in his defence that the actions by Mr Shaw had no impact on the match and he wasn't physically "IN" the match at the time (benchwarming) and should therefore be treated as a separate issue from the FA. I know it's a weak defence, but it still astounds me how this isn't more Sun Bets fault.
It should be noted that Sun Bets are also under investigation to make sure they acted with integrity.......... All I can say on this matter is i'm betting someone got the sack pretty quickly!
Overall, i'd wager that unfortunately, Mr Shaw has breached the regulation, but in the circumstances, would anyone else have done any different?
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