After the Vancouver Whitecaps played MLS rivals the Portland Timbers to a scoreless draw on the road last week (May 2), soccer fans who turned to the Vancouver Sun online to read about the game might have been puzzled.

The headline, “Whitecaps’ Kendall Waston cashes in on chirpy reporter”, didn’t seem to be referencing the previous day’s match. And the first 11 paragraphs of the story were about a “friendly bet” between sports reporter Gary Kingston and Caps defender Kendall Waston.

The piece (which also showed up in the print edition the next day with the headline “Waston pads wallet thwarting Timbers”) eventually got to the game report itself. But the emphasis given a seemingly minor event (a casual bet) and its odd placement in the piece (before the actual story itself, and taking up almost half the space) must have given some readers pause.

Pricey wager proposed

It turns out Kingston had made a bet a few games previous with Waston, a rough-and-tumble centre back known for his bruising tackles. The reporter’s wager was that Waston would not be able to avoid picking up a yellow card (caution) from the referee during the next three games.

Waston’s incentive (other than the financial one)? A three-game stretch of good behaviour would drop one of his already accumulated yellows and earn him a reprieve from the automatic one-game suspension that would come with his next warning.

Kingston wrote that Waston suggested $1,000 for the bet, but because that was “too rich for my poor reporter’s salary”, they settled on $100.

Waston played solid games against Real Salt Lake and D.C. United without picking up a yellow card, then he did the same in the third match, against the Timbers. Kingston was then made the target of much good-natured postgame ribbing, as well as being $100 poorer.

Ethical questions raised

But the wager raises some ethical questions, not the least of which is this: should any reporter be making bets for money, of any amount, with any of the subjects they are covering, for any reason?

What would you think of a paper that ran videos of one of its legislative reporters handing over cash to a member of the provincial cabinet? For any reason? And despite newspapers’ sports sections being sometimes referred to as journalism’s “toybox”, shouldn’t their reporters be subject to the same strict codes as scribes reporting on politics or entertainment?

And even if the reason for the cash exchange was relatively innocent, shouldn’t all media outlets strive to reduce or eliminate even the appearance of a possible conflict of interest or intimation of corruption?

Why so eager to publicize?

And why was the paper so eager to publicize what could be seen as a breach of journalistic ethics? Besides the blog and print versions, the Sun blurbed it on Facebook as well, and it even posted a video on both its and the Province’s websites with the title: “Video: Reporter loses $100 bet to Whitecaps player Kendall Waston”. The clip showed Kingston explaining the bet and handing the cash to Waston. Presumably, the article and video was picked up by Postmedia member papers throughout the chain in Canada, and possibly even internationally.

A clue could lie in this revelation by Kingston, four paragraphs into his story, where he wrote: “For those who haven’t heard—and it was gleefully mentioned a few times on the Team 1410 post-game [radio] show to the cheeky delight of play-by-play team Peter Schaad and Dave Norman, Waston and head coach Carl Robinson—the genial Costa Rican won a bet with some reporter. Okay, he took some money off your agent.”

Did radio leak prompt disclosure?

Could it be that Kingston’s editor, once the news got out via radio, ordered him to make a full disclosure to pre-empt any possible criticism? (“We weren’t hiding anything.”) That would seem to explain the anecdote’s bizarre length and placement, all out of proportion for what was being treated as something hardly worth mentioning.
There certainly wasn’t a hint of apology in Kingston’s writing or even a trace of acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

If the admission wasn’t a preemptive strike, then the Sun needs to take a long look at itself in a moral mirror. Granted, a “friendly” wager once in a while between a politician or professional athlete and a familiar reporter, someone seen on an almost daily basis, is nothing to get too exercised about.

But that bet should be kept, at most, to something no more expensive than a beer, say. Again, it’s appearances that are important, even with something as picayune as a drink wager.

Keep it to one drink, not 20

But Kingston’s bet would have bought approximately 20 pints. Where do you draw the line for something like that? Don’t forget that the reporter made it sound as if, given a somewhat more generous wage, he would have been fine with betting $1,000.

This is no slight against the moral character of Kingston. The veteran, award-winning scribe, who has covered the Olympic and Paralympic games, the B.C. Lions, soccer, and amateur sports, is well respected and seemingly unbesmirched by scandal. And there is no suggestion that any other bets were involved or that he has ever bet on the outcome of a match.

Could money have an effect on a game?

But couldn’t the fact that there is $100 at stake, conceivably, have an effect on the intensity of a tackle? And if the bet were higher, could it have more effect? Could it end up, ultimately, affecting the outcome of a game where the slightest miscue—clipping an opponent's heel in the penalty area, having a ball hit your hand or arm—can change a win into a draw or loss?

Kingston admitted to Waston in the video that while he was watching the game, “when you took the guy down I was yelling, ‘Give him a yellow; give him a yellow!’ ” Couldn’t the fact that he had, in effect, money on that game also affect his reporting of same, consciously or unconsciously?

Sports betting worth up to $1 trillion per year

It’s the job of sports reporters to get inside information from athletes, agents, or team personnel that can give an advantage to their reporting. Surely, with the worldwide sports-betting industry estimated to be worth anywhere from $700 billion to $1 trillion annually (never mind the illegal industry), and with the increasing prevalance of “exotic”, nontraditional betting on aspects of games other than wins or losses (who scores the first goal, who gets awarded a penalty), it is in the best interests of journalists and media outlets to appear as squeaky clean as possible, given the importance and potential value of such privileged knowledge.

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that this should probably extend even to “friendly” wagers between reporters and the athletes they cover. After all, now that readers know that at least one Sun reporter has made a $100 bet with a professional athlete the outcome of which depended on officiating during a particluar match, what's to stop them from wondering if another reporter has inside info on a hushed-up injury or a pregame change in a player's field position? What might be done with such information?

Appearances.

Other papers deal with cash bets

After it was revealed that a Washington Post reporter covering the Masters golf tournament a few years ago had participated in a low-stakes (the big winner got $103) Masters betting pool, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the Post’s assistant managing editor for sports, had this to say: “We’ve stressed to our folks that prizes for these sorts of pools, including the NCAA tournament, should not involve cash, no matter how small the amount."

The New York Times ethics policy states, in part: “To avoid an appearance of bias, no member of the sports department may gamble on any sports event.”

(A call and email to the Sun’s sports editor, Lionel Wild, failed to get a response before deadline.)

Maybe the next time a local reporter and athlete feel tempted to make a cordial bet, they will think twice about following through, or keep it to a non-monetary stake. More likely, though, barring an edict from their bosses, they will just keep it to themselves and a few colleagues.

After all, would anyone outside of a particular circle of acquaintances in the Whitecaps' dressing room, on the sidelines, and in the Sun newsroom have ever heard of this recent bet if it hadn't been blurted out on the postgame radio show?

Kinda doubting it.