The ability of Sportsbet to burrow deep into the foundations of the country’s sporting and recreational industries has hollowed out a great many things.
This was on full display last month, with the online bookmaker’s sponsorship of the wildly popular Million Dollar Fish. CEO Barni Evans handed a cheque for $1 million to 19-year-old Katherine boy Keegan Payne for catching the prized barra, yet the Sportsbet chief and his marketing gurus were nowhere to be seen when Payne’s national media tour ended in a predictable TV cringefest.