What the loser gets is punishment (7)
I believe the answer is:
beating
'punishment' is the definition.
(beating is a kind of punishment)
'what the loser gets is' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found within the answer.
'is' could be 'be' and 'be' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for beating that I've seen before include "Defeating; thrashing" , "Overcoming (a problem)" .)