Gambling Addiction Amongst Sport Professionals

Competition

Competition is the big one here.

A professional athlete is trained to be ultra-competitive, to the point where it becomes part of their DNA. They are not only competitive with the people and teams they play against, but also against other players who may be on their own side – two forwards battling for a place in the team, for example. They even compete against themselves to achieve personal bests, and to top previous records, etc.

This can easily spill over into day to day life, whereby the person needs to find ways to compete with those around them regardless of what it is. The desire to win, whatever the game, is ever present.

Gambling is competitive by its’ very nature; the challenge is to beat the bookie, and there is even a monetary reward for doing so.

Added to this, is the possibility that for some athletes, the thrill they get from professional sports diminishes over time; their experience means they build up a tolerance to that adrenaline rush they used to get when playing sport.

If that happens, they might want to find something to replace that feeling, and gambling fills the space.

Tactical

A sports person needs to be tactical by definition.

No sport is won by brute strength or blind speed alone, there is always the opponent to consider, and whatever obstacles they try and throw in your way.

Using tactics to outsmart an opponent feels good, and there is certainly a tactical element to betting, especially when trying to recover losses.

A professional athlete who loses money might start trying to work out ways to get that money back by adapting their strategy a little bit here, a little bit there, and trying to improve their ‘game’.

Of course, with most forms of betting, even those with a skill element, this isn’t really possible, so it becomes a simple exercise in chasing losses, which is a big no no.

A sports person’s mindset isn’t set up to accept a loss though, they need to work out why they lost, and fix that part of their game for next time.

Ambitious

Sports men and women want to win, they want to achieve.

They want to win the trophy/competition/tournament, and the only way to do that is by winning every match or game, and the only way to do that is to win more points and challenges and serves etc. then the other guy or girl.

Win win win win win.

But winning once isn’t enough, they then have to go and win again, and again, and again. Or win something bigger, better, harder to achieve.

Then, when they do win something, they are usually rewarded with medals or trophies, not to mention the financial rewards that often come the way of professional athletes.

Apply this mentality to gambling and you have a problem.

Betting frequency increases, stakes get higher, and as a consequence, so do losses.

Paul Merson – Football

Arguably the most well-known gambling addiction in football, belongs to Paul Merson.

He was a dominating force on the football pitch, but off the pitch, something else was dominating him.

Merson first fell foul of alcohol and cocaine addiction, and although he always liked to gamble, he has said that it was only after the battled to give up the booze and the drugs that gambling really got a hold on him.

At one point, Merson was in debt to the tune of £7 million because of his illness, and even gambled away £160,000 his family had saved for a house deposit.

He was betting via a private bookie and spent his last £8,000 on a table tennis bet, a sport which he had no knowledge of, but it was one of the only things in-play at the time.

Paul has spoken openly about his past and campaigns for reform in the gambling industry; he has even made a documentary exploring both his own gambling addiction and the way it has impacted others, and written a book about his struggles.

Wayne Rooney – Football

One player who seemed to get control over his harmful gambling behaviour, was Wayne Rooney.

As a young player he was given God-like status, was showered in praise and money and was constantly in the news along with his other half, Coleen.

He was making £55k a week in 2004 when he was just 18 years old, but racked up debts of around £700k betting on sports. He would place them over the phone or online.

He would get bored while in hotels while playing away, which was how it started, but he has said that it “didn’t feel like real money” and he “didn’t realise the amount he was putting on at the time”.

Luckily, Wayne managed to knock it on the head fairly quickly, and paid his debts off thanks to his wages rocketing to £300k a week.

Although gambling wasn’t an issue that plagued Wayne for a long time, as evidence of just how easy it is to slip back into old habits, he reportedly lost £500k in a single night at a Manchester casino.

He had been left out of the Man Utd squad for their most recent game so perhaps he was unhappy about that, but he was placing large amounts on long odds roulette bets and kept losing, and it didn’t seem to deter him from betting more.

There have been no reports of dangerous gambling behaviour since then though, so fingers crossed it was just a small bump in the road for Rooney.

Ted Cheeseman – Boxing

Welter weight boxer, Ted Cheeseman, had a gambling problem from an early age, and estimates that he essentially boxed for free from his first fight in 2015, until the fight that changed things for him in 2019.

That fight was for the European light middleweight title, but Cheeseman had already gambled the last of his purse for the fight the night before. It had been a similar story for his 15 previous fights – the money was spent before, or shortly after, it was earned.

Towards the end of the fight against Garcia, Cheeseman wasn’t even defending himself, he was simply letting Garcia hit him; he has said since that he was punishing himself.

He told his trainer about his addiction that same night, and aside from a £20 bet on the Grand National two months later, he hasn’t placed another bet since.

Cheeseman described his mentality during his addiction. He said if he won £10,000, instead of thinking about what he could buy with it, he would be thinking about how he could turn it into £30,000 at the bookies.

He is lucky in that he found the right help early in his life – he was 23 in 2019 – but says that the regret is the hardest thing to deal with, knowing he once had a lot of money but now sometimes worries about the bills.

Ted estimates he lost hundreds of thousands of pounds and maybe even as much as a million during his 5 years of addiction, but is now dedicated to living the rest of his life gambling free.

Chris Wood – Cricket

Long serving Hampshire player, Chris Wood, has been vocal about his gambling addiction, and is one of many pros to claim that gambling is a hidden issue in the sport.

A lot of private gambling goes on in changing rooms according to Chris, and this leads on to more serious bets being made via online bookmakers.

An 11 year addiction left Chris £200,000 in debt, and even though he sat down with his team mates to tell them about his problem in 2013, it didn’t stop him placing bets.

He would end up placing big bets on sports he didn’t even follow in the middle of the night, just to get a dopamine hit, and was maxing out credit cards (before the ban) and ruining his relationships.

His worst point came during an injury where he was effectively bedridden for 6 weeks and contemplated whether life was worth living at all.

It was actually listening to Arsenal legend, Tony Adams, give a talk about his addiction and his charity, Sporting Chance, that proved the turning point for Chris.

He was inspired to ask for help, realised he wasn’t alone, and has happily not placed a bet since December 2018.

He now talks to other elite athletes about his experiences, and educates them on why they are more vulnerable to gambling harm than a regular Joe.

Mark King – Snooker

Despite being ranked inside the top 32 players in the world 9 times between 1996 and 2015, reaching number 11 in the world in 2002, Mark King had been struggling with a gambling problem since he was a teenager.

Starting with card games for few pounds, he progressed to spending all night in card clubs gambling into the early morning, and then ended up visiting a bookies and wagering on the horses and the dogs. He also tried casinos and roulette machines, and before long he was gambling on pretty much anything there was a market for.

Things got so bad that he went broke, sold his own snooker table for £1,000, and ten minutes later had lost it at the betting shop. At one point he was £100,000 in debt, and estimates that he has lost £500k all in all over the years.

He even contemplated robbery to get money to gamble.

Mark has been quoted as saying, “When I gambled I was like a firework that went off and I just didn’t care who I hurt. My wife and three children could be on their knees saying ‘please dad don’t go’ and I’d just walk out.”, adding, “It was disgusting and I hate that person.”

Happily, things have changed for Mark.

He placed his last bet in December of 2012, but says he still contemplates the idea sometimes, and the thing that keeps him from doing so is attending regular Gambler’s Anonymous meetings.

He first attended one in 1997, but started going regularly in 2003. Considering his last bet was made in 2012, you can see just how hard Mark has had to battle to keep his addiction at bay.