The richest sportsman on the planet isn’t Floyd Mayweather, LeBron James, Lionel Messi or Roger Federer, but Michael Bambang Hartono, a 78-year-old from the small town of Kudus, in Central Java, Indonesia. His jab’s weak, he surely can’t dunk, and his backhand likely sucks, but he’s a crack lobbyist and he plays a mean hand of bridge. These two talents go together. In 2016, after years of effort, Hartono persuaded the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to include bridge as a competitive event at the 2018 Asian Games. Last month, he took part in the contest himself, as a member of Indonesia’s supermixed team, and won a bronze medal.

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The Indonesian government promised to reward all its medallists with a cash bonus. Hartono gave his $16,700 away to his bridge foundation. He could afford to, because he’s worth $11bn. If he weren’t, it seems unlikely he, or any of the other 216 bridge players would have been competing. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) has been lobbying for their sport to be included in a major Games for the last two decades. Until now, the nearest they’d come was when it featured as a demonstration event before the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, when the WBF pitched it as an indoor activity to fill the “usually vacant afternoon period” between snow sports in the morning and ice sports at night.

So when Hartono persuaded the OCA to include it on the full programme at the Asian Games, the second-biggest multi-sport tournament on Earth, it was a big breakthrough for the federation. Hartono says it took “a lot of convincing”, the process smoothed, presumably, by his status as one of the world’s wealthiest and most influential men. When it was done, the WBF thanked him for his “remarkable and persistent” efforts and gave him a special gold medal in recognition of “his enthusiasm, dedication and strong believing” which “gave to us the chance to open this window and to reach our dream”.

Hartono made his money selling clove cigarettes. According to the World Health Organization, around 65% of the adults in Indonesia smoke, and according to Forbes, one out of every five cigarettes they burn is manufactured by Hartono’s company, the Djarum Group. During the 1997 stock market crash, Djarum used their tobacco money to take over Indonesia’s largest bank, BCA, and since then they’ve moved into the real estate, hotel and electronics businesses too. He and his brother have been ranked the richest men in Indonesia every year for the last nine years, their combined worth three times that of the man ranked second behind them.

Hartono is one of a gang of rich bridge addicts. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are both avid players, and sometimes partners. “Bridge,” Buffett said, “is such a sensational game that I wouldn’t mind being in jail if I had three cellmates who were decent players.” Hartono says he learned a lot of what he needed to succeed in business by playing the game. He started when he was six. His uncle taught him how during the Japanese occupation. “One time, one of my uncle’s friends could not come. So my uncle told me: ‘Sit down and play.’ That’s how it all began.”

Bridge, Hartono says, gave him his training in decision-making and risk-taking: “First you get the data, the information. You analyse the information, and then you make a decision. So business, real life and bridge are the same.” Hartono explained that he was so committed to it that, as part of his training regimen for the Asian Games, he quit drinking during tournaments. He says he lost the gold at the summer North American Bridge Championships because he had a glass of wine with his dinner and then kept falling asleep during the game. His opponent had to poke him awake. “I lost a gold medal because of that! In the final! So no more wine.’’

So bridge requires skill, stamina, concentration, and a measure of sobriety. The question is whether that’s enough to make it a sport. In a landmark decision last year, the European Court of Justice ruled that bridge wasn’t, because it contains a negligible amount of physical activity. Which seems a sensible stance. But the OCA have tended to be more flexible with their definitions. Chess, Go and Xiangqi have all featured in previous Asian Games, and it seems likely that eSports will in future ones too. They were included as a demonstration event this year, and are slated to be on the full programme in 2022.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest eSports were recognised by the IOC last year and featured as a demonstration event at this year’s Asian Games. Photograph: Helena Kristiansson

The IOC are a step behind that, but they recognised eSports last year, and are coming under heavy pressure from their new commercial partner Alibaba to press on with developing an eSports programme. The twist is that it’s not even clear that the people who play and watch eSports are bothered whether it’s in the Olympics and the Asian Games or not. A survey run by Nielsen across the USA, UK, France and Germany found that just over half of fans they asked felt eSports were actually sport, and just over a quarter thought they should be in the Olympics.

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Which make you wonder exactly what it is about this booming new multimillion dollar millennial industry that makes the IOC, the OCA and their commercial partners so keen to include it in the Games. Bridge’s elderly billionaire had to lobby for entry, but the OCA are desperate to get the boys and girls who play eSports involved. The argument over the difference between a sport and a game has gone on almost as long as people have been playing them. It seems the IOC and the OCA have decided it has less to do with how much physical activity is involved than it does how much money the players have, and the organisers stand to make.