Betting on a sports game takes fans to an extra level. They are not just fans anymore, they become engaged and they have financial stakes in the match.
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As countries across the world have been going one step further in the legalization of sports betting and have been experiencing subsequent growth in the development of Indian betting apps, they are confronted with a growing phenomenon of fans’ aggressiveness towards sports teams and players.
In the past few years, we have continuously watched on the news or heard athletes talking about how much they are verbally attached to and ‘abused’ on social media by sports fans over their poor performance or inability to perform as expected. In the meantime, an increasing number of players admit becoming the object of blame by many people who are claiming to have lost a lot of money just because they (the players) haven’t been able to do as well as anticipated.
Linking that kind of aggressiveness and blame with fans is filtered through the lens of sports betting, irrespective of whether we are talking about Apostas Desportivas or wagering through betting apps from all across the world. At least this is so for a considerably large part of the population. And the truth is that it might be this case, though nobody can be sure of that.
Betting on a sports game takes fans to an extra level. They are not just fans anymore, they become engaged and they have financial stakes in the match. So what happens in the game is not only to affect their emotions but practically their pockets as well. When there is money involved, people get to be more anxious and more stressed.
That’s not true for everyone who bets – on the contrary, this is the case for those bettors who experience gambling problems or who are going down this road- though it can easily be seen, even in isolated circumstances. And when they are stressed they get to have a distorted or emotionally charged view of the situation.
That said, betting on sports makes bettors more “vulnerable” to developing aggressive feelings towards the team or the athletes, whom they consider responsible for losing. While this kind of thinking is not frowned upon – because after all, one’s opinions and perceptions should not be judged – the behaviour following or resulting from this kind of thinking can create problems and it is this behaviour that is scrutinized by those who link betting with aggressiveness when bet misfires.
On the one hand, this might be correct. Aggressiveness towards players, verbal attacks and abuses on social media or on any other points of interaction for that matter, may be triggered by the fact that fans have experienced financial losses from bets gone bad. It’s not unusual for fans to insult or bully athletes for not performing well. Even if we realize how wrong this is, it remains the case for many players who have admitted to experiencing such aggressive behaviour on their social media pages.
On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that sports betting is behind this kind of behaviour. Of course, as we said earlier when there’s money involved there is much more anger and aggressiveness, but this doesn’t mean that every time a player is blamed for his poor performance, there is a bettor behind it. Or even if there is a bettor behind this, it doesn’t mean that it is sports betting per se that has fuelled this attitude.
Maybe we need to think outside the box for a minute and consider other factors that may interplay with the whole situation here. Maybe we are now witnessing greater aggressiveness and verbal violence because fans can express them and direct them towards the ‘recipients’ instantly on social media.
Maybe it is the unique, direct interaction and communication between fans and players (or teams in the broader perspective) that has made this behaviour more prevalent and apparent to everyone. Maybe it is the social media that are offering the platform for such feelings, thoughts and behaviours to be expressed, to such a level that these may have well existed in the past, but people had no actual way of directly communicating them.
And then again, maybe it’s both. The growth of Indian mobile betting apps, which has been pushed to extraordinary levels as sports gambling has become legal in more and more countries, and the prevalence of social media, has given a stronger voice to fans.
