{"id":313984,"date":"2024-03-13T11:43:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T16:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=313984"},"modified":"2024-03-13T11:57:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T16:57:21","slug":"sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"Sportsbet Suspends Greyhound Betting Market Over ‘Racist Comment’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian-facing online betting company Sportsbet<\/a> was forced to pull the betting market on the final race at Maitland Greyhound Track on Monday. That’s after a \u201cracist\u201d message appeared in its live feed.<\/p>\n

\"Ezra
Ezra Mam, main image, the rugby league player who was the victim of racism in Las Vegas, and \u201cEzra Man,\u201d bottom left, the racing greyhound named after him. (Image: AAP\/Greyhound Recorder)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The controversy surrounded a racing dog named for the Indigenous Australian rugby player Ezra Mam. On the same day as the race, another Australian rugby player, Spencer Leniu, was handed an eight-match suspension from the sport. That\u2019s after he was determined by a tribunal to have called Mam a \u201cmonkey\u201d during a National Rugby League<\/a> (NRL) exhibition match in Las Vegas\u2019 Allegiant Stadium on March 2.<\/p>\n

\n

Just hours after Leniu accepted the penalty, social media users spotted that the form comments for two-year-old greyhound \u201cEzra Man,\u201d the favorite and eventual winner of the race, also contained a racist message.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It read: \u201cGo Bananas! Let\u2019s see if we can get some positive headlines, tonight??\u201d<\/p>\n

The feed was provided to Flutter-owned Sportsbet by Greyhound Racing New South Wales as part of several content services it offers operators.<\/p>\n

\u2018Highly Offensive\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sportsbet suspended betting on the race after screenshots of the comment began circulating on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are extremely disappointed highly offensive and inappropriate comments supplied by a third party were automatically published on our platforms,\u201d a Sportsbet spokesperson said on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

We do not tolerate hate speech, discrimination, and racism in our organization, on our platforms, or by our partners. We will continue to call it out and unreservedly apologize for the distress this has caused,\u201d<\/strong> the spokesperson added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Greyhound Racing NSW said Tuesday it was \u201cappalled\u201d by the comment and apologized \u201cunreservedly for \u2026 the distress it has caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

A source inside the organization told The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> that the staffer responsible had been fired.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Showcase<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The NRL event in Las Vegas was the first time that high-profile rugby league games had been showcased to a live U.S. audience, and the spectacle was marred somewhat by the racism controversy.<\/p>\n

\n

Lenui, who is of Samoan extraction, told the NRL panel Monday that \u201cat the time I thought it was one brown man saying something to another brown man.\u201d Leniu claimed he did not fully understand the racial connotations of the term or even that Mam was Indigenous Australian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But Lachlan Gyles, counsel for the NRL, wasn\u2019t buying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is beyond argument that in Australia in 2024, calling an Indigenous person a monkey does constitute racial abuse, and racial abuse of a very serious nature,\u201d Gyles said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian-facing online betting company Sportsbet was forced to pull the betting market on the final race at Maitland Greyhound Track on Monday. That’s after a \u201cracist\u201d message appeared in its live feed. The controversy surrounded a racing dog named for the Indigenous Australian rugby player Ezra Mam. On the same day as the race, another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":313990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,28036],"tags":[90196,90197,81713,90199,90198],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSportsbet Suspends Greyhound Betting Market Over 'Racist Comment'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sportsbet pulls market on greyhound \u201cEzra Man\u201d over racism controversy surrounding NRL\u2019s Spencer Leniu and Ezra Mam.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sportsbet Suspends Greyhound Betting Market Over 'Racist Comment'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sportsbet pulls market on greyhound \u201cEzra Man\u201d over racism controversy surrounding NRL\u2019s Spencer Leniu and Ezra Mam.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-13T16:43:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-13T16:57:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Ezra-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1051\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"606\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/\",\"name\":\"Sportsbet Suspends Greyhound Betting Market Over 'Racist Comment'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Ezra-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-03-13T16:43:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-13T16:57:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Sportsbet pulls market on greyhound \u201cEzra Man\u201d over racism controversy surrounding NRL\u2019s Spencer Leniu and Ezra Mam.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbet-suspends-greyhound-betting-market-over-racist-comment\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Ezra-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Ezra-1.jpg\",\"width\":1051,\"height\":606,\"caption\":\"Ezra Mam, main image, the rugby league player who was the victim of racism in Las Vegas, and \u201cEzra Man,\u201d bottom left, the racing greyhound named after him. 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