Federal Member for Throsby Stephen Jones held up his family ticket to St George Illawarra Dragons matches at a senate committee hearing in Sydney last week, just to accentuate the fact that rugby league sells itself as a family game.
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What perplexes him, and millions more of us I'm sure, is how this game of core family values can turn around and let gambling saturate it. He also mentioned he had gone to the Kembla Grange races, where he clearly had about as much luck as I normally do at the track.
The point he made was that most people who go to the races have a bet. Most people who go to the football, however, don't have a bet.
Mr Jones asked a procession of NRL and gambling industry executives whether it was their intention to turn this situation around, so that one day most people who go to the footy will end up betting on it.
They all said no, of course not. The gambling companies said their aim was not to grow their market but simply to increase their own share of the existing market.
This comment instantly brought to my mind the aerial prowess of pink farm animals.
A commercial enterprise that doesn't want to grow its market - now there is a strange beast.
This stance is reminiscent of the ridiculous argument put forward for years by the tobacco industry.
Mr Jones told me later his five-year-old son can spout out the odds on football teams hours after he has heard them. His son may not fully understand what the odds are all about but he is growing up in a world that is normalising gambling on sport "and that's what worries me," Mr Jones said.
Unless we do something about this quickly, it seems to me, we will be allowing sports gambling to go down the same path as tobacco and alcohol advertising.
We spend a decade or two ignoring the effect it might be having on our kids' minds, then eons correcting the harm and dealing with the consequences.
Associate Professor Samantha Thomas, of Wollongong University, told the senate committee of her concerns about the "gamblification of sport".
Young men, in particular, felt bombarded by the "tsunami" of gambling products, she said. Some reported feeling not part of their peer group if they didn't gamble.
Allowing the gambling industry to self-regulate was like getting a burglar to change the locks on your house, she said. Touche.
One of the main topics at the hearing was the appearance of bookmaker Tom Waterhouse on Channel Nine's rugby league broadcasts. I can't say it any better than Senator Richard Di Natale, who declared: "People watching footy with their kids don't want to see Tom Waterhouse ads rammed down their throats and see pseudo-commentators giving odds.
"People are very, very angry at this sport being enmeshed with gambling."
The NRL admitted the lines between the bookie and the TV commentary team were initially "blurred". They might be less blurred now but, as Professor Thomas said, probably not to a child who still sees him spruiking odds from the touch line.
Committee chairman Andrew Wilkie asked a question I can't answer: if kids aren't allowed to see gambling ads during their G-programming time, why are they allowed to see them on sports telecasts, along with their heroes' jerseys plastered with gambling logos?
Am I troubled by this? You bet.