Holding court: Eddie Hayson held a bizarre hour-long media conference on Thursday. Credit:Louise Kennerley Sure! I tried to put $30,000 into Kieran Foran's betting account. Yes! I went on holidays with Brett Stewart. For sure! I've had footballers, judges and policemen at my brothel! Definitely! I owe former world champion boxer Jeff Fenech a fortune. Of course! I owed retired prop Luke Davico a lot of money too, but I paid it back. But those games you said I fixed, I didn't. Even though I openly admit to using other people to place bets, I didn't do so on those games. And if I ever got inside information, I didn't use it. And – my favourite quote of the morning – "inside information doesn't really exist in rugby league". (My other favourite quote was "I don't follow Manly any more. They're heading to, probably, bottom four or wooden spoon next year". Would he say this if Stewart was going to be there in 2017?)

When we see events like this, professional punters calling media conferences to throw barbs at their accusers by name and then opening up to questions, which ends up in an amateur inquisition, what does it tell us? What does it tell us about rugby league, about Sydney and about Australian society? The implications for rugby league exist on two levels. One is the practicality of fighting match fixing, which completely discounts why players might be friends with underworld figures. They just can't be. But it's going to be a bigger job than anyone imagined to delouse the game.

Culturally, it seems like 20 per cent of the rugby league community is mystified by the other 80 per cent. Maybe that's the wrong percentage but the minority finds itself asking: How can you visit a convicted killer in jail? How can you hang out with a brothel owner or a porn king? Fill in simulated sex acts with dogs and urinating in one's own mouth as required. The experiences of columnists like me, perhaps readers like you, preclude us from completely understanding much of this behaviour – although most of us would have had contact with some of it. We are not just asking our players to behave, it has now become apparent. We are asking them to turn their backs on their friends. Andrew Fifita and Kieran Loveridge are friends. Hayson and Foran are friends. Jarryd Hayne and Chris Bloomfield are …. Your honour, I'm not alleging anything. Career in limbo: Kieran Foran. Credit:Kirk Gilmour What if someone told us to turn our backs on our friends, according to a third party's own moral judgment? Dump your friend who was unfaithful to their partner, who got caught drink-driving or who frequently takes sickies ...

I accept people who can coax professional athletes into match fixing are bad news, but we need to completely appreciate the implications of what we are mandating. When is the line of fascism crossed? Stopping people from mixing in society … isn't that what jail is for? As for Sydney, the questioning of Hayson after his statement to the room on Thursday was clearly – along with an attempt to obtain raw information – occasionally aimed at discrediting him. The old saying goes, some people can't be defamed because of the reputation they already have. By calling a press conference, Hayson sought public redress another way. Controversial: Andrew Fifita sporting FKL on his wrist strapping. Credit:Matt King

These are the people who make up the day-to-day royalty of Sydney: colourful racing identities, larger than life TV reporters, overpaid shock jocks, PRs for hire, strident sports columnists, footballers in TABs, jockeys in brothels, porn kings. If you sent the jail population of Britain to the Sea of Tranquility tomorrow and flew off to the moon to visit them in 250 years, you might find a very similar society. Which brings us to the implications for Australian society: many viewing the Hayson press conference would consider it completely reasonable to use whatever information you have to beat the blasted bookies. They'd see nothing wrong with this element of Hayson's alleged behaviour, even if they found most of it repugnant. Betting is a national illness. Without legal sports betting, we'd not have had Thursday's astonishing circus. But then it wouldn't have been Australia. It wouldn't be Sydney. It most certainly wouldn't be rugby league.