An insider-betting charge against NRL hooker Brandon Smith has been withdrawn due to a lack of evidence.<\/p>\n
But the New Zealander continues to battle an allegation he supplied cocaine to a fellow first-grade player in 2025.<\/p>\n
The South Sydney Rabbitohs hooker faced Southport Magistrates Court on Thursday for the update on the two criminal charges against him.<\/p>\n
The police prosecutor withdrew the allegation Smith had disclosed inside knowledge of the Souths’ starting line-up for his return from injury on July 2, 2025, telling Magistrate Louisa Pink that he would offer “no evidence” for the charge.<\/p>\n
Smith’s inside knowledge about being moved to the run-on side for the Rabbitohs’ clash against Manly was previously alleged to have been shared with an associate, who subsequently placed a bet on the game.<\/p>\n
Investigators had obtained messages between Smith and his alleged associate, Pink heard.<\/p>\n
“There are screenshots taken of bets being placed … of $200 for Smith for first try at odds of $91, which would have returned over $18,000,” the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Some of Smith’s text messages to his alleged associate on the Gold Coast, allegedly containing inside information, had been received via a mobile phone tower based in NSW, Pink heard.<\/p>\n
That tower data created an argument that no offence had been committed in Queensland, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Smith’s lawyer says evidence was ‘pure speculation’<\/p>\n
Smith’s solicitor Paul McGirr said a gambling expert’s evidence previously offered by police had been “pure speculation”.<\/p>\n
There was no evidence about what player lists were known to the public at the time, McGirr told Pink.<\/p>\n
“The brief of evidence … is extremely poorly prepared given the delay,” he said.<\/p>\n
Smith remains charged with unlawfully supplying Sydney Roosters lock Victor Radley with cocaine at Currimundi, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, on June 7, 2025.<\/p>\n
The charges stem from a police investigation following the seizure of Smith’s phone at Gold Coast Airport.<\/p>\n
Radley has not been charged with any offence.<\/p>\n
Questioned and released in time for game<\/p>\n
Smith was questioned by police in August 2025 when he arrived in Queensland for a match with Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
He was released without charge and ran out against the Titans.<\/p>\n
The charges against Smith were brought by Taskforce Maxima, which targets criminal gang activity across Queensland.<\/p>\n
McGirr sought costs from Queensland Police in court on Thursday, arguing investigators and prosecutors had not acted in good faith.<\/p>\n
“Even a junior prosecutor would look at this particular matter and realise there are problems,” McGirr said.<\/p>\n
“The betting company, being Sportsbet, was not spoken to.<\/p>\n
“That was fatal to their case; it could never have succeeded but as late as Friday it was continuing.”<\/p>\n
Pink briefly adjourned the matter to consider her decision on costs.<\/p>\n
Smith, a former Kiwi international, has played 164 games since his 2017 NRL debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An insider-betting charge against NRL hooker Brandon Smith has been withdrawn due to a lack of evidence. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,8513,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-845420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}