So, when I was 6 or 7 (my memroy is hazy) my dad bought me a Scalectrix F1 track. I immediately bonded with Williams. Red and white, clean colours. Benneton with green and whatever, yuck"!!!
Williams at the time was sponsered by Malrboro. When I was 17, despite a total ban on tobacco advertisement in Norway, I knew Marlboro. I neeeded the 20 pack of “Marlboro Country.” I had to have Williams F1 1994. I had to get a taste of the lung cancer greatness that was Malboro!!! I am now 33 years old, kicked the habit a year a go. I play Aussie rules football but my O2 intake is fucked. I have 6ish years before I am 100% sure that I will not get luing cancerrfrom my tobacco addiction that was started from an innocent add on a scalectrix car thing.
15 years later. Tobacco advertising is gone. Alchohol advertising has been gone from Norway since the 1980s. But thank fuck Pinball has found another venue for income. Now we can focus on gambling!!! A thing that casinos, online gambling companies and other companies use to get money from the poorest of the poor. The house always wins, BUT GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY!!!
I just put in an event for Norway but I will cancel it if IFPA keeps courting gambling sponsorship. I will not contribute to this hobbies decline into spot fixing, advertising to screw the lower stratas of sociey etc. I can’t go to Pinburgh this year but I can’t attend next year if my name is affixed to gambling and possibilities of spot fixing. THe fact that the organizers of our sport are participating in a sponosred event where there is gambling involved is madness!!!
The youth getting into Pinball will not see the players they adore but the odds on the players. Tom-Andre Andersen (23696) is 500000000000000000:1 so he is a shit player but Josh Sharpe is 1,02:1 so he is an amazing God.
In 10 years gambling adverts will be on the graveyard with Tobacco and Alcohol. IFPA choosing to side with a looser at this stage is puissling and so strange.
If IFPA want’s to grow the hobby I am so keen to pay 1 dollar per player in any tournament I organize. But please, do not make our younger participants associate pinball with gambling. I will hopefully avoid lung cancer,hopefully our younger players will grow into a sport with no vices, no gambling and avoid the bad influence of the betting industry.
I have been informed that IFPAs linking to betting sites is just news related and they are not sponosorships. I humbly beg IFPAs forgiveness, but sadly my original point in regards to promoting odds etc stands. Linking to betting sites not above board (IN MY OPINION!)
With pinballs history regarding ban, gambling etc I would expect the IFPA to not wanting pinball to in any way be associated with betting etc, maybe even take active stance that it does not encourage participating in any kind of betting.
Betting odds on events is NEWS within the world of competitive pinball. We have rules in place to discourage the act of players betting on events, but by all means if you aren’t participating in the event it’s completely within our rules to place bets on IFPA sanctioned events.
The history of where gambling fit in with pinball (locations paying out based on certain achieved scores when games were primarily a game of chance) is a vastly different world compared to today.
I’m not worried in the slightest about comparisons of the “sports betting” of today that are offered in relation to businesses taking advantage of players through their active gambling on the machine itself.
I continue to believe it’s great exposure for the sport, and helps legitimize the game in the eyes of the sporting world.
My main problem is the link IFPA provided (as news) includes odds on the President, VP, Director, and assorted employees of sponsors of IFPA (in a competition they played in.)
I am 100% sure that none of the above people would ever spot fix, throw a game etc etc. But we are not growing the sport for the now. We are growing the sport for the future. And the IFPA cannot post links like this without casting serious (and I mean SERIOUS) doubts about the legitimacy of any high level competition. (Edited for spelling errors.)
Hmmm I am personaly quite ambivalent to betting and pinball (although i dont find it necessary at all, same as with prize money), but i find it strange that ifpa are strongly discouraging it but at the same time saying it is such a good thing for competitive pinball. No problem with ifpa having that latter stance, but if so i would encourage you to scrap the whole “discouraging” thing from the rules and just embrace it wholly if it is such a good thing.
I have few to no feelings about sports betting specifically, but on the topic of sponsorships, I was surprised to see that ReplayFX is being sponsored by the U.S. Army this year…
By all means. AFL is a cespit of gambling. But ol Gillon Mclachlan cannot win the Brownlow, Rising Star or a premiership in the betting adds he (or the AFL) is linking to.
Until recently, MyBookie was a diamond-level sponsor of IFPA with two direct links on their home page. They are no longer a sponsor, I guess. It has still not been made clear who sets the odds for these events, not is it clear whether it is legal for MyBookie to accept bets from the US.
Regarding what you said about youth, it makes me wonder if players who are not yet 18 should be excluded from the betting lines. It is weird that one can place a bet on Alex K even though it is not legal for him to gamble anywhere.
It was actually an article they wrote about you that caused us to part ways with respect to our sponsorship relationship.
It was the first time I saw them advising to “stay away” from someone, and I saw the impact that had on you going into the event through some of your Facebook page postings. That sat with me through the NYCPC and it felt like a dirty cheap shot to me.
For someone who I feel is one of the most important people we have in this sport, I have no interest in taking sponsorship funds from a company that would be so negative towards someone in that manner.
Since then I believe all “advice/tips” articles on the odds have been of a POSITIVE nature towards our players. I’m hopeful that trend continues.
While we’re fine posting their articles as “news” I have no interest in pursuing any kind of sponsorship relationship again at this time. That can of course change in the future, but I felt terrible as the article did seem to impact you personally.
news is one thing. But that is iffy as the US based IPFA is promoting an unlicensed offshore bookmaker at an time where lots of US states are starting up legal licensed bookmakers.
and the news is a little much on the promoting side. Now sponsorship of that is very bad given the history of pinball and history of sports.
There is no players union / association and people running the ifpa are playing and acting as referees in events. The history of sports shows that is very bad with sports betting in the mix.
Well one easy fix for at least part of people who worked on games. Is that people who worked on the game must be open questions about code / rules / hidden stuff with NO HIDING under an NDA.
and on and helps legitimize the game in the eyes of the sporting world.
You can’t have the sport league commissioner playing in events after you get to an point in the sport may not today but down the road.
actually I heard a story about a swedish player asking something about the code at PAPA 7, 8 or 9 and didn’t get an answer.
I can’t/won’t say more about it and “maybe it was lost in translation”, but the consequence was, that he stopped competing in Pinball tournaments.
never thought about this until this thread, but your comment made me realize that although this has most likely not happened yet, the likelihood of it happening is increasing. New games always wind up in tournaments, some new games are being designed by names in the competitive field (elwin at stern, bowden at deeproot, @law at p3) and hopefully more will follow. so it seems likely that this will pop up in the future. Also, hasnt lyman been programming and competing for years?
on topic: this is sports betting and not gambling. Individuals who bet money on pinball are not just throwing money at a chance encounter, they are placing a bet on a performance of skill. Its unfortunate that the two get intermixed. sports betting places pinball in the category of baseball, basketball, football. Gambling puts it in the category of slot machines and roulettes. Because the Ifpa wishes to do the former, they allow betting on our sport. I fully support them, even though i personally do not condone the activity of betting. Many people dont seem to grasp the massive difference between letting outsiders do it, and encouraging insiders to do it. And anyways, just because something is there, doesnt mean everyone has to do it. Many children were able to overlook those same cigarette ads without picking up the habit, plenty of people in league dont drink, even though theyre at a bar, and most of them place a ten dollar bet that their skill level lands them in a position to win some money back. Dont agree with the betting? you can opt out. I really dont understand all the trouble this has caused.
Can you opt out of being on mybookie.com? I certainly don’t want ANYONE betting on me. Not that I’ve never been anything but “the field”, I suppose it’s possible if I ever break into the IFPA top 100 I could be listed
