As if booking WWE television wasn’t complicated enough, the company now wants to legalize betting on wrestling matches.
According to CNBC, the WWE is working with gambling regulators in Colorado and Michigan to do just that.
The report states that as well as enlisting Ernst & Young to make sure their match results aren’t leaked to the public ahead of time, they will not inform wrestlers of match finishes until hours before the actual match takes place.
Ernst & Young is the firm which oversees the results of various award shows like The Academy Awards.
While betting on wrestling and other forms of entertainment is permitted in other countries and in some states, it is banned in others.
WWE, AEW and other wrestling promotions already have partnerships with the sports betting site DraftKings.
On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer had this to say.
“Imagine if you’re in creative, because creative can’t know these finishes, if creative knows the finishes it’s gonna get out. It’s got to literally be Levesque (Triple H) and Bruce Prichard and almost nobody else know the finishes. The agents can’t know the finishes. No one can because if the agents know they’re gonna tell their favorite wrestler to be buddies with him. I’m not saying it’s gonna get out but they’re gonna know and then they’re gonna be hit with a violation. Almost nobody can know these finishes. So, now you’re on the writing team and you have no idea of these finishes so you can only write for a week. You can’t do long-term stories. I don’t know if the people who are wanting to do this to get in with DraftKings and get sponsorship money while at the same time kind of like screwing up the booking aspect of wrestling. Just the vibes that I’ve gotten from people are just kind of rolling their eyes.”
Top Photo by Naim Benjelloun.