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Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) has apologised after a highly inappropriate and offensive comment relating to Indigenous NRL star Ezra Mam was published on betting platforms on Monday night.
The comment, written by an employee of GRNSW, was published in race information relating to a greyhound named Ezra Man which raced and won in race 12 at Maitland on Monday night.
It read: “Go Bananas! Let’s see IF we can get some positive Headlines, tonight?”
Punters quickly spotted the tasteless comment and called it out on social media on the same night Spencer Leniu was fronting the NRL judiciary for calling the Indigenous Broncos five-eighth a “monkey”.
One Sportsbet user called for the person responsible for the comment to be fired in a post on X.
“This is a disgrace whoever wrote this should be fired not on and not funny,” Anson Smith wrote alongside a screenshot of the comment.
In a statement provided to news.com.au, GRNSW said it was appalled by the comment, which had been syndicated to betting platforms nationwide.
“On Monday night in the form comments for the Maitland meeting produced by GRNSW and published on the thedogs website and on the platforms of our partners who use our comments, such as Sportsbet, an inappropriate and offensive comment was made in reference to the name of one of the runners,” the GRNSW statement read.
“GRNSW was made aware of the comment during the evening and immediately deleted the remark, and while this removed it from thedogs.com.au, this correction did not flow through to our partners.
“GRNSW is appalled by what was published, and apologises unreservedly for the comment, and the distress it has caused.
“GRNSW also apologises unreservedly to its partners who were unwittingly and through no fault of their own, caught up in the incident.
“GRNSW will not tolerate this kind of behaviour and appropriate action has been taken.”
Sources have told news.com.au the GRNSW employee responsible for the comment has been sacked.
Bookmaker Sportsbet chose to cease wagering on race 12 at Maitland completely in order to swiftly remove the comment from its betting platform just before 11pm on Monday night.
A spokesman for the company told news.com.au the offensive comment had auto-published on its platform and the wagering giant had done everything in its power to quickly rectify the situation.
“We are extremely disappointed highly offensive and inappropriate comments supplied by a third party were automatically published on our platforms,” the spokesman told news.com.au.
“Sportsbet immediately removed the event and associated comments when we became aware.
“Our partner Greyhound Racing NSW has confirmed that necessary action has been taken, and we have sought further re-assurances that appropriate controls are in place.
“We do not tolerate hate speech, discrimination and racism in our organisation, on our platforms, or by our partners. We will continue to call it out and unreservedly apologise for the distress this has caused.”
News Corp is reporting NRL CEO Andrew Abdo had also received a formal apology for the incident from a representative of GRNSW.
More to come.
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