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A professional sports athlete betting in his or her sport is a potential murderer of that sport.

At the heart of any game is the competition of its players. Sports viewers watch not as casual bystanders but impassioned fans rooting for one side or the other. Players on either side are expected to give it their all for the purpose of their side winning. This is obvious.

Professional athletes betting on their sport opens the door for the outcome to be swayed. The outcome becomes no longer a competition decided by which side or individual is better, but a manipulated result decided by what a betting player may or may not have done to influence the outcome for his or her benefit.

It doesn't matter if the player does influence the outcome or not, the possibility alone that he may have influenced it is enough to ruin the sports credibility. In such a case, the sport fan's confidence in the player's dedication, honesty and integrity toward the sport is gone. What becomes important to the betting athlete is not the "kill or be killed" mentality that drives the sport, but the money that can be made by them if they skew the outcome toward their liking.

Competition breeds life into sports. It's the heart that pumps blood through any sport's veins. It's what fills the stadium seats and attracts the advertising revenues that keep it alive. Players betting kills the competition. This equals no heart. No heart, no life.

What's that you say? Professional teams don't ban their athletes who take drugs, not for life they don't. Certainly taking drugs is worse than betting!

Sports is a world onto itself, and in the sport's world the highest crime is betting because it can bring the swiftest death to the sport. An athlete who took drugs can continue to play and it won't destroy the game like betting will.

What? What if a player bets on his own team to win, why should he be banned then?

IF you open that door even a tiny crack you allow for the possibility of it opening more. Keep the betting door shut, and the game will go on, and everyone will continue to love it.

The professional athlete who bets on sports is a potential murderer of that sport. It's the worst crime in that world. Ban him for life, so that the sport my live.

Learn more about this author, Jim Valko.
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