It’s not oil, fish, or aquavit that’s behind the Norwegian sports machine, which delivered the most medals per capita of any nation at the 2010 Olympic Games—at least not entirely. Instead, a healthy portion of the funding for Norway’s sports organizations comes from Norsk-Tipping, the state-owned gambling company. Norsk-Tipping dedicates 45.5 percent of its annual profits to sports—more than $241 million U.S. dollars in 2009 alone. That’s one of the reasons that quadruple Olympic-medalist Petter...
