Gambling/Betting is widespread in the world of soccer today, whether you stake a little sum on matches or stake high, the fact still remains you are part of the gambling industry.
Gambling can be sometimes great and fun to involve in, but when it isn’t kept under control or play responsibly it becomes an addiction. That has been the case for some football stars who engaged themselves in gambling.
Despite the glitz and glam footballers enjoy, one of the darkest sides of some professional footballers is the kind of lifestyle they choose to live.
Whether good or bad, those who manage to control their expensive lifestyle, betting, or other things would have a wonderful time while still active or after retirement.
According to sources, hundreds of professional footballers have full-blown gambling addictions.
This is something that you rarely hear about but it’s actually a serious problem. It’s easy to see why this happens.
These guys have more money and free time than they know what to do with.
Also, many believe they have special insights into sports like soccer and know exactly where bets should be placed.
Sadly, most of the time this belief is totally unfounded. Also, it’s not always sports betting. Some prefer to visit casinos and hit the slot machines or poker rooms.
Here, we’ll take a look at the players who are addicted to betting/gambling during their careers.
Scott Davies – (Ireland)
The Irish International has played most of his professional football in the lower leagues of English football.
The Stains Town defender is one of the footballers who has seen the darkest side of gambling and did admit to heavy loss in casinos once he started earning large wages as a professional.
Davies now gives help and advice to others who have found themselves having similar problems in gambling addiction.
After a few years away from gambling, his life has turned around working with an organization named EPIC Risk Management, where he delivers talks to clubs about gambling problems inviting the players to ask for help if they are struggling.
Early in his career, at age 16 he moved out of his parent’s house in Aylesbury to live alone in the digs at Reading, playing for the youth team Davies wages at the time was £50 a week, and got paid every Wednesday morning.
That was when his gambling act started, every of his salary was being spent at the bookmakers and since there is no one to checkmate him.
It was the perfect avenue to avoid the age answer of him being eligible to place a bet or not, and each time he visited the bookmakers he would walk out with an empty pocket, with his salary for the week gone to gambling.
Michael Chopra – (England)
Like Davies, like Chopra.
The former Newcastle United and Sunderland forward also suffered from gambling addiction, having started betting at age 17 when he first played for Newcastle.
Chopra claimed he gambled up to £30,000 in cash with other players on the team bus en route to matches while he was a teenager at St James’s Park, and lost over £2m to gambling.
His gambling problem was so bad that he would set his alarm for 3am so he could place a bet on games that were taking place in South American with the bookmaker.
He also joined Sunderland to pay off his debts, which started out when he was just a young lad, Chopra was also faced with additionally severe charges from the British Horseracing Authority for suspicious betting activity.
Chopra’s story is one that is clouded by controversy off the pitch with gambling addiction.
However, his talent brought a lot of joy to thousands of fans who saw him played.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have involved himself with what he thought was a team bonding activity, but for Chopra, it became a destructive vice to him which made him bankrupt and led to his parents selling their home to pay for his debts.
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David Bentley – (England)
The former Blackburn Rovers midfielder began his gambling as a youth player age 14 at Arsenal.
During that time, he used to go to the betting shop with his mates at first and with their dads as well.
Bentley’s gambling addiction grew bigger when he started to earn more money, which made him bet on everything including horses, dogs, online poker, and American sports.
Bentley was so addicted to gambling that he thought of nothing early in the morning rather than going to the betting shop to place a bet, even what was his primary assignment which is to play football, he didn’t quite think much about it the way he thinks of gambling.
Bentley’s healing from gambling addiction was aided, thanks to his agent and girlfriend who helped him overcome his addiction, and say goodbye to greyhounds, horse racing betting, and online poker with up to 100 bets a day.
The former England international is now doing well running several businesses across Europe, among them is his restaurant business in Marbella, Spain.
Eidur Gudjohnsen – (Iceland)
The former Chelsea and Iceland forward did enjoy a successful career that spanned two decades, but one thing he failed to conquer during his trophy-laden career was falling victim to gambling.
Gudjohnsen gambling addiction first started when he was recovering from an injury, which he used in pushing himself back to full fitness.
Just like other players who were addicted to gambling, Eidur admitted to the fact that he lost almost half a million pounds in just a few months, with roulette wheels and blackjack his games of choice when he missed out on football due to injury.
His addiction was so deep that Eidur compared winning a bet to scoring a goal, as such he got rooted to betting which spiraled out of control and eventually ran him into a £6m debt.
In 2009, having found a way to conquer his habit, he quit gambling and he has since being a coach, managing FH Hafnarfjardar in the Icelandic League.
Thanks to his vehement decision which he took to stop gambling, perhaps that act may have ruined his life and football career.
Dominic Matteo – (Scotland)
Matteo is a former Scottish professional soccer player, whose career spanned 17 years, making 366 league and cup appearances, of which 276 were in the Premier League.
Matteo didn’t just have a thriving career, he was also one of the very renowned players who had a serious gambling problem, which made him accumulated around £1m in debts and declared bankruptcy.
Matteo’s losing seven figures to betting, he also admitted to betting £100,000 on a single horse.
In 2011 he opened up about his addiction in his biography ‘In My Defence‘ and interviews promoting his book.
In the book, he explained how he had gambled away his fortune and what should be his daughter’s inheritance.
Having gone through the terrible experience of gambling, Matteo raised awareness and help others to avoid committing the same mistakes, he committed while playing professionally and also gambled away his fortune plus that of his daughter.
Paul Merson – (England)
The former Arsenal midfielder had to battle plenty of addiction during his playing career, from drug to alcohol, to gamble which had a negative effect on his game.
When he eventually quit alcohol and drugs, he replaced them with betting and reportedly spent thousands of pounds at a time on a regular basis to bet, which cumulated into around £7m debt forcing him to sell his house at the time.
According to Merson, “Wagering bets was more challenging to stop than any substance he’s ever consumed“, when he was very active patronizing the bookmakers he lost up to £30,000 in one round of betting.
In 2008 he gave up his £300,000 home having missed his mortgage payments agreeing to gamble addiction rehab.
After his retirement, he has since been working in the media as a pundit, co-hosting football program.
In 2019, Merson talked about how he had relapsed in battling his alcohol, drug, and gambling addiction which even led to depression.
However, Merson was able to fight and won all of his addiction in the end, and now maintain a life away from all of his past.
Joey Barton – (England)
The current Fleetwood Town manager in League One and former Manchester City midfielder has a record of being on the forefront of controversy off and on the pitch during his professional career.
Coupled with the fact that, he also had a record of gambling addiction which got him in trouble in 2017, when he was banned by the Football Association for breaching betting rules.
It was reported that Barton placed 1,260 bets during his active days, even during his time at Rangers he was also banned for breaking Scottish Football Association betting rules.
The former Newcastle United was also once jailed for assault given credence to how controversial he was.
Barton also admitted to betting on games he was involved in, which says a lot about his addiction.
However, despite being very active in gambling the former Burnley man never for once got involved in match-fixing which could have spell doom for him.
Away from his gambling problem, he now enjoys life as a soccer manager in the lower division of English football.
READ ALSO: Top Black Football Stars Whose Lifestyle Vices Ruined Their Career
Andros Townsend – (England)
The Crystal Palace forward has become a key player for the Selhurst Parkside in recent seasons, with his display on the wing helping the Eagles in the Premier League this season.
The former Tottenham Hotspur man is another victim of gambling addiction, who fell foul of the FA betting rules when his gambling habit got out of control during his loan days at Birmingham City.
According to him, he revealed that before his then team Birmingham faced Blackpool in the first leg of the 2012 Championship play-off semi-final, he lost £46,000 on a single match lying down on a bed, due to the fact that he couldn’t sleep pondering about what was the biggest match of the season for him and the Birmingham team.
It’s was reported that it was boredom in a hotel room that got him into betting, when he saw a free betting ad on his phone, he downloaded it and he got addicted to betting.
After he got caught by the FA, Townsend went for counseling to help his addiction, and thankfully it helps saved his career and likewise saved him from destruction in the hands of sports gamble.
Dietmar Hamann – (Germany)
Hamann is no doubt one of Germany’s brilliant midfielders during his career.
The former Liverpool maestro suffered a lot of addiction among them was betting following the breakdown of his marriage, an experience he described as a painful and expensive experience.
During his torrid time, he revealed how he once lost £288,400 on a single bet on cricket in a match that involved Australia and South Africa.
In his autobiography ‘The Didi Man’ My Love Affair with Liverpool, he also revealed better how he placed a bet on Australia for €3,365 at 340 runs, which means for each runs over 340 you win €3,365 but for every run under you lose the same amount.
In what happened to be a sad story for Didi, unfortunately, Australia collapsed for 237 runs, which cost him €345,900, and for every wicket lost it’s felt like a stab in the heart to the former Champions League winner.
Hamann gave up his addiction the next day, having lost a huge amount of money placing a bet on Australia, and realized he was going out of the board.
Since then things changed for him and won his battle.
Kyle Lafferty – (Northern Ireland)
For those who don’t know much about the former Rangers forward, Lafferty’s goals were very crucial to Northern Ireland’s qualification for the Euro 2016 finals in France.
Lafferty was also one of the players that got an addiction problem in betting, he admitted that boredom played a major reason for his online gambling once training and matches are over.
Lafferty was able to surmount his demons all thanks to his wife Vanessa and the birth of their daughter, Sienna who had a stabilizing effect on him, claiming “I have someone else’s life to look after as well“.
Before the support of his wife, which helped him stay out of betting he was charged and fine by the FA for £23,000.
The Reggina man in the Seria B now plays his football without the fear of going back into betting, and despite not playing in the big leagues anymore, he still remains one of Northern Ireland’s key figures when called to play for his country.
Final Thought
As a soccer player, many factors could contribute to players getting themselves into gambling, which includes boredom from injuries or using gamble as a way to catch fun which in the end pushed them into addiction.
As much as it looks like having fun, when involved in betting of some sort, staking responsibly is key and it shouldn’t be an everyday routine.
Once it becomes that then it has become an addiction.
BE GAMBLE AWARE, BET RESPONSIBLY. STAKE WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE. DON’T GET ADDICTED
