By his own admission, Tim Livingston doesn't know much about horse racing. But his appearance on the second day of the Association of Racing Commissioners International's 88th Annual Conference on Safe Horses and Honest Sport had the room full of horse-racing regulators and other industry participants spellbound.
Livingston is an investigative sports journalist and host of the true-crime podcast whistleblowerpod.com (coming soon to Netflix and FX). His life's work was charted when he spent a decade investigating the NBA's 2007 gaming scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy, organized crime and more. The Atlanta-based Livingston was the featured speaker for the ARCI conference session entitled “Behind the Curtain of Other Sports – What the Public May Never Get to See.”
Besides being interesting and at times jaw-dropping, the topic was of keen interest to the regulators because of the burgeoning of sports betting, now legal in 33 states. Ed Martin, the ARCI president and CEO, said no other professional sport undergoes horse racing's regulation and government oversight. While sports wagering is regulated by the states, they don't regulate the betting product – unlike betting on horses.
The ARCI is the umbrella organization of the official rule-making bodies for professional horse and greyhound racing.
“With the way the world is going, I'm super-interested in talking to you guys about what your plans are to make sure these systems are as integrity-driven as possible,” Livingston said via Zoom. “Because right now, I don't think anybody in the regulations space is really innovating. I think everything is status quo, a quid pro quo system in a lot of these sports.”
Livingston relayed how his deep-dive reporting uncovered what he described as an NBA strategy of using referees to manipulate games to push playoff matchups that would bring the biggest ratings. He stressed the NBA is much better today as far as refs deliberately influencing games, but there remains plenty to keep him in business. For instance, he said data analysis indicates there are nine players in the top 100 in men's tennis who intentionally will drop the first set but go on to win the match.
“That's a huge indicator of match-fixing,” he said. “Mafia in Eastern Europe, Italy, South America are going to players who need the money … and say, 'Hey, you can win the match. Just drop the first set and I'll give you 50 grand.'” He said tennis hierarchy doesn't want to rock the boat because it needs the players and might lose those who don't have sponsors and otherwise couldn't afford to stay on the various circuits.
Livingston said he has “another year or two of reporting, at least,” but his belief is that the drug testing for performance-enhancing substances in the NFL and NBA are largely a sham.
“Do some simple Google searches on HGH, NFL, doping testing,” he said. “It's an IQ test; it's not made to actually catch people. I think you guys have to be careful because a lot of these guys who architect these doping programs are doing so with the leagues…. Their job, in a lot of cases, is to paint a picture of a really thorough doping program than in reality is made to not catch anybody ever.
“… It seems like you guys do a pretty good job, based on my minimal research. Undoubtedly it's better than the NFL and the NBA.”
Martin said he came across Livingston's podcast while driving on a trip.
He called it “must listening for anybody who is in this space. I asked Tim, 'When you did this, did you hear from any sports-betting regulatory authority to say, 'Hey, this might be something we want to look into?' Crickets.”
He told Livingston that most of the regulators in the room have no authority over sports wagering. But he pointed out that they are public officials, who must adhere to financial disclosure, conflict of interest, and public records and meetings requirements.
“The drug-testing results are all posted on their websites, how many (equine) athletes have been tested, how many they found adverse findings on, what they found,” Martin said. “They bring a charge on somebody, they're all public. One of the things that hit me — because I was trying to understand how we compare with, say, the NFL — is that I couldn't find anything on the NFL.”
Livingston said there was no motivation for transparency in major-league sports in the era before the internet and social media.
“Everything was done behind closed doors, and now those doors are going to be open,” he said. “We're in 2022. I think by 2030, things are going to look a lot different when it comes to all sports. All this stuff is coming out, one way or another in the next couple of years. So I think the regulatory agency, anybody who embraces this early and wants to get out in front of it and be transparent is going to earn an incredible amount of trust.
“I don't fully know who you guys are or what you do; I'm still very new to this world. Ed reached out to me, and I think it's incredibly interesting. That's why I wanted to talk to you guys. Because I'd love to be on the forefront or help any way possible to increase transparency, better these systems, help with any regulation that's going to allow for better overall integrity of these sports.”
Livingston concluded by cheerfully telling the regulators, “Anything I can do, let me know. Otherwise I'll just be in my unfinished basement investigating all these sports scandals.”
Responded Martin: “You have plenty of work ahead of you. I'll help you understand horse racing. I think there are a lot of people in the room saying, 'and you think horse racing is bad on any given day!' We certainly all know what our challenges are, where we can improve. Listening to you doesn't absolve us of our responsibility, but it's virgin territory when it comes to human sports.”
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