The run-up to this year’s games in Rio de Janeiro again shows that the quadrennial celebration of vanity, nationalism and hypocrisy called Olympics are long past the expiration date on their performance enhancing drug vials .  Macau authorities seem to feel the same way, turning their back on all sports by extending the city’s sports betting monopoly for another five years. Like the Olympics, the Macau Slot monopoly represents a gross misallocation of resources and extraordinary missed opportunity for Macau casinos that have experienced 26 consecutive months of revenue declines.

My disdain for the Olympics comes goes back decades. To me the Olympics emphasize much of what’s worst in human nature . The poster child for the modern Olympic movement could be Tonya Harding, the figure skater who worked with her ex-husband and thuggish pals to attack rival Nancy Kerrigan ahead of the 1994 Winter Games. This gang that couldn’t shoot straight ambushed Kerrigan after a practice session, aiming to break Kerrigan’s leg with a collapsible baton but merely bruising her thigh. (Crumpled in pain after the clubbing, Kerrigan reacted in true Olympic spirit: “Why me?”) Incredibly, Harding competed in those 1994 games, famously being granted a do-over over a bootlace malfunction, but was subsequently blacklisted from skating; this happened back when you actually could go too far in America.

The Olympics and Macau’s sports betting monopoly are both enormous wastes that belong in the trash. (Photo Credit: AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Of course, Harding was a charmingly clownish amateur compared with Russia’s state-sponsored chemical cheats and dozens of freelancers that have made everyone a suspect. Fair play, the foundation of sports, has been reduced to an anachronism.

More fundamentally, I object to enormous waste of human and financial resources that the Olympics encourages.  If similar enthusiasm from national governments and corporate sponsors could be put into efforts to cure cancer (or zika virus), feed the hungry or educate children, the world would be a much better place. And make no mistake, the days of Al Oerter, the four time discus gold medalist who worked full time as an aerospace scientist, are long gone. Like other professional athletes, Olympians are in it for the money, backed by government handouts and corporate sponsorship  – an estimated US$9.3 billion for the current travesty – that leave folks at the bottom to pay the bills. Only FIFA kleptocrats save the International Olympic Committee from being the most despicable sports governing body on earth. As with FIFA, decades of endemic corruption have eroded any latent IOC competence, gloriously on display in the farce over Russian athletes’ eligibility.

Macau’s governing body displayed a similar lack of competence and vision by extending the sports betting monopoly of Macau Slot, that decision relegates the world’s casino gambling capital to another five years of third rate sports betting primarily aimed at locals, rather than capitalizing on the 30 million-plus visitors and top notch gaming management that Macau attracts. Last year, authorities extended Macau Slot’s monopoly for 12 months, creating false hope that they were considering an overhaul of the outdated system that limits betting to football (soccer to Americans) and basketball at a handful of betting shops near affiliate SJM Holdings casinos. In Las Vegas, sports betting is the fast growing part of casino gaming revenue, expanding at a double-digit pace. Last year, Macau’s sporting betting revenue fell 9% to US$84 million, less than 1% of the figure for Hong Kong and less than 0.3% of Macau’s casino revenue.

Opening up Macau’s sports betting market could bring enormous benefits. With new Cotai casinos’ gaming floors designed for 400-500 tables but granted just a fraction of that figure under the government’s table cap, there’s room for state of the art sports betting lounges. Sports betting would draw people to the gambling floor and create a new potential revenue stream for casinos. It would also expand casinos’ appeal into a complimentary adult direction, rather than reaching into less related areas such as family entertainment.

Global Market Advisors senior partner Andrew Klebanow sees sports betting as a way for Macau to embrace to the sports-mad Indian market that finds Macau an intriguing but often inhospitable place. Watching sports leads disparate people find common ground, or as the millennial marketers says, enjoy social collisions. Sports betting lounges would be places to eat, drink and be merry in a casual setting, something Macau doesn’t have enough of.

Sports betting lounges also offer juicy new marketing and promotion opportunities. Natural extensions include activities such as US originated Top Golf or Urban Putt that put a modern spin on club meeting ball. It’s also a perfect setting for Asia’s largest (official) sports merchandise store, spanning the globe with Nigerian Super Eagles kit, All-Blacks jerseys, sumo mawashi and Mexico City Tigres caps.

The sports calendar provides a virtually endless menu of activities that, with big enough screens and drinks, will entice sports fans, whether they choose to wager or not, and pretexts for special events Super Bowl weekend has become a major Las Vegas event, even though the game takes place far from the Strip. The Olympics, with its cross-gender and transnational appeal, would be a similar opportunity for Macau. But, instead of embracing the opportunities sports betting offers, Macau won’t even get in the game.