Adams charity claims gambling addiction is rife

Every football club has a problem with gambling addiction, the charity set up by the former England defender Tony Adams said yesterday.

The assessment by the Sporting Chance organisation came after Adams, a recovering alcoholic, gave a graphic description of how gambling is reaching alarming levels within the game.

Some players – despite being on vast wages – are even stealing from their children's savings to cover their losses. "I was watching one Premiership game not long ago and a player went off. It was said he was injured but he didn't look injured," Adams said. "I suspect he'd had a bad day at the races."

The former Arsenal captain said gambling needed to be treated like any other addiction. "They [the addicts] lose their self-respect and before you know where they are, they are nicking money out of their kids' savings to have a bet. It is something about which clubs need to be aware. It is difficult to trace – but it can cause a lot of damage."

The difficulty in detecting gambling is thought to be one factor in its growth over other forms of addiction – especially as many players are more health-conscious and the testing for drink and drugs is now more rigorous.

The issue of football's gambling culture has been thrown open this week after Chelsea striker Eidur Gudjohnsen admitted losing £400,000 in casinos, while Manchester United's Ruud Van Nistelrooy said "obscene" wages were fuelling constant gambling by his team-mates. An unnamed England player was also said to have lost £30,000 in bets while at the World Cup.

It is nothing new – the Millwall striker Steve Claridge claimed in his autobiography to have blown £1m, while the Blackburn winger Keith Gillespie became addicted after placing bets for team-mates – and card schools have been in existence as long as football clubs. But experts claim the problem is growing.

Peter Kay, the chief executive of Sporting Chance, which was set up by Adams and is dedicated to getting sportsmen with addictive illnesses into recovery, said: "If you have the kind of driven, obsessive character that it takes to become a professional footballer, with that tunnel-vision, then you are predisposed." He added: "I have not come across a football club where gambling does not play a part in the players' lives.

"The problem is made worse because players have huge amounts of money to spend, lots of time on their hands and are, often, lonely especially as they travel a lot and spend long hours in hotels.

"If a player is dropped from the team, this can often lead to depression and a craving for the buzz of football – sometimes found in gambling," Kay said. "It is acceptable to gamble. There have always been famous gamblers in football and for most it is enjoyable. But for around 10 per cent it is an addiction."

His words were echoed by the Professional Footballers' Association which has added its support for clubs to impose controls. The PFA deputy chief executive, Mick McGuire, said: "Gambling is a big danger. With drugs or alcohol there's random testing – it isn't quite as easy to test for gambling problems."

The PFA runs courses with Sporting Chance to try and educate young players about all forms of addiction.

Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, is planning to carry out research into the subject. He said that players turned to gambling because the clubs have stamped out many other forms of addiction. Others get hooked on video games, he said. "They are things you can do under the eye of the manager and he may not even realise the extent of the problem," he said.