Blackburn Star Recounts Gambling Problem

England midfielder David Bentley has admitted he had a gambling problem that threatened to wreck his career. Blackburn football club star Bentley was hooked on gambling when he was a teenage youth player at Arsenal and would place up to 100 bets a day on horse racing, greyhound racing and play internet poker.

"I loved it. I was 14 when I first started going to a betting shop. I got carried away with it," Bentley told Setanta Sports' Football Matters programme.

"As I started earning more money I really started getting heavily into it. You just get addicted. I was on everything, the horses, the dogs, online with poker, betting on bingo, all sorts. I was betting on everything. . . You could get a certain amount of money and then just blow it all. I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing I thought of was to have a bet instead of thinking about football.

"I don't know whether other people are like that but from my point of view that's what I get like. I got to the point where all I wanted to do was have a bet, I suppose you can't live like that . . . You get addicted to the whole thing, trying to pick a winner. It started out just by loving it but you can't help but get to the next level. In the end you risk losing it all.

"It depends how many races in a day. It could have been anything - 50 to 100. It was a joke. Anything I could bet on . . . The more you get up the table and the more money you earn...I didn't want it to get where I was left with nothing."

Bentley, who has won four England caps, eventually broke the habit after an emotional talk with his girlfriend.

"It was difficult to stop doing it but luckily enough for me I got out of it," he said. "If you want to be top of the game you have to be addicted to football . . . I sat down with my girlfriend and she said you've got to stop. You just evaluate your life and I just thought to myself I'm going to have to stop. It was the hardest thing ever."

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