‘It smacks of hypocrisy’: Tony Jones slams AFL over $8 million-a-year betting mega-deal

Sports broadcaster Tony Jones has slammed the AFL over a forthcoming mega deal with gambling agency, BetEasy.

The Herald Sun reports the AFL is closing in on an $8 million a year deal extending the league’s contract with the betting agency.

The news comes just a day after Geelong became the latest club to ditch poker machines, following the lead of Collingwood, North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs.

Tony Jones slammed the AFL for the “hypocritical” impending deal.

“Is the AFL really that hard up for cash that it needs to continually align itself with gambling?,” he said.

“To me, it smacks of hypocrisy.

“On the one hand you’ve got the AFL who paints itself as this moral crusader. They love latching on to a social issue and then shoving that down our throats.

“Yet gambling, to me, is a huge social issue!

“What the AFL is doing is here is wrong and flies in the face of so many good things that it does for the community.”

Tony Jones highlighted the effect the promotion of gambling at the football has on children.

“I’ve spoken to parents who do have young kids: five, six or seven years old, who say their kids will be sitting at the football and they say ‘oh Dad, Collingwood is paying $2.20 today’,” he said.

“That from a seven year old! You don’t want them growing up thinking that is normal speak!

“We’re effectively grooming kids in the art of gambling!

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