‘Is that satire?’: Outrage as Peter V’landys describes NRL as ‘wagering content’

Australian rugby league commission chairman Peter V'landys, who has said ‘you can get two times the revenue’ by working with a wagering operator. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Anti-gambling advocates have reacted furiously to the NRL chairman Peter V’landys’s open pursuit of gambling revenue, criticising his description of sport as “wagering content” as scandalous and counterproductive.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, V’landys said opening next season in Las Vegas would help develop new broadcast and gambling markets in the US. He said some Americans were looking for wagering content in different timezones and “rugby league is the perfect one for that”.