'Anyone can become addicted to gambling' - the relationship between footballers and betting

Gambling addictions among professional footballers have become far more common since the pandemic started according to the Sporting Chance clinic.

The charity, set up by former Arsenal defender Tony Adams in 2000, is the world’s largest provider of mental health services to sportspeople, with gambling or drug addiction often being involved.

Chris Murphy, their Communications Manager and Gambling Education facilitator, revealed they have had a sharp increase of calls concerning gambling addiction since March 2020.

“Last year and also at the start of this year, gambling has been around half of all the addictive disorders that we see,” said Murphy.

“And that’s a big change compared to previous years where it’s generally been drugs and alcohol.”

He attributes this rise to the prevalence of betting company advertising in sport nowadays, saying: “The way that the gambling industry has really embedded itself in the fabric of professional sport may well be a contributing factor.”

This issue has been in the spotlight in recent weeks with gambling charity The Big Step sending a letter to eleven football clubs in the UK, urging them to cut social media links with betting websites.

The charity’s founder James Grimes said: “If you’re a footballer struggling with gambling addiction and you have to wear one of the brands that you’re using, that causes problems, there’s a hypocrisy there.

“Anyone can become addicted to gambling and for footballers, they have it harder than anybody in that sense because they are literally playing in the environment that is facilitating gambling so heavily,” he continued.

Some footballers have publicly revealed their gambling problems, including Michael Chopra recently, but Grimes believes there must be others.

“We know that it’s estimated there’s 1.4m gamblers in the UK,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up that there’s only four or five footballers that have been open about gambling addiction, there has to be more.”