A former gambling addict from Newcastle who ended up in prison after stealing from work is calling for football clubs, including his beloved Sunderland AFC to end its gambling sponsorship and advertising.
Joe Clarkson, 31, from Newcastle city centre, has been a devoted Black Cats fan ever since his first game at Roker Park in 1995.
During his teenage years, his gambling spiralled into a dangerous addiction. He said this addiction would eventually lead him to steal around three-quarters of a million pounds from his workplace to fund his habit and he was jailed for almost five years.
Now six years into his recovery, Joe said prison was the "best thing that ever happened to him" but as he adjusts to life after gambling, he's found he's not able to attend his beloved Black Cats games due to gambling advertisements.
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He said: "Football is a massive part of people's education and the club has a great opportunity to show people, their fans, the local community, and the next generation what is right and what is wrong.
"Clubs have a responsibility to send out the right messages and to set an example for all the men, women, and young people who go to matches. I'm not saying gambling shouldn't exist because a lot of people do it safely, however, we have got to protect that percentage of people that are either suffering harm or showing signs of progressing into harm."
Opening up on his own struggles, Joe said his gambling started when he was just 14 and got progressively worse as time progressed. His addiction led him to steal from the finance company he worked for and said the manager was "one of his best friends" which made it all the more painful.
He said: "I always felt like I struggled to fit in from quite a young age and that continued without me really being self-aware into my early work years. I became a people-pleaser. Gambling was something that provided me confidence, meaning, and in a lot of ways a purpose.
"I started working at the age of around 17. My role as financial controller came with access to a lot of the business' finances and ultimately the temptation became too much. I couldn't keep up with the pressure of the pay-day loan companies, loan sharks whilst living in utter denial.
"It was a relatively small family business which makes my actions even worse. I’m devastated my actions could have ruined the company, thus affecting many employees' income and their families that relied on it. I have no idea how it survived, but I am extremely pleased and relieved it has."
Joe was jailed for four years and eight months which gave him the chance to become a better version of himself. He said: "Apart from the first week, prison was the best thing that happened to me. It allowed me to become the correct version of myself.
"I feel extremely selfish saying it because I dragged all my family through it, who were innocent parties. I deserved every single day of my punishment, if not more, but my family didn't deserve it and that's something that will be on my conscience for a long time.
"A big part of some self-acceptance was meeting someone in prison who had done a very similar same thing as I did to fund his addiction. We essentially became each other's mentors, and we were helping each other by simply listening to each other, talking through thoughts, feelings and emotions, daily if not hourly."
Joe's guilt towards the victims meant he's never felt like he's been able to open up to tell his story, however this changed very recently when he lost a friend. He said: "A member of the local Gamblers Anonymous meetings in the North East took his own life. Yet another human being, man, father, a friend of many and took his own life."
Joe, who was previously a Sunderland AFC season ticket holder, used to go to matches regularly and loved seeing his team play, however, he said gambling adverts at football matches encourage people to keep the addiction going.
He said: "Everywhere I looked in my life, there were gambling advertisements or inducements, emails, calls, messages, and corporate days out. It was relentless."
Joe still attends Gambling Anonymous meetings weekly and hopes to become a counsellor to help those who have experienced similar issues to what he has. But he said he has to work every day to keep his recovery going and has massively changed his lifestyle. Sadly, he doesn't believe he will be able to go to the Stadium of Light again.
Joe said: "It's been nearly six years and I still take it as seriously now as I did then. I've had to massively change my lifestyle to protect myself. I haven't had a drink for five and half years, I don't consider myself as having a drinking problem but I’m aware inhibitions drop, and I can’t afford to risk this happening again.
"I haven't been to a football match for five years, my gambling started out and remained a constant throughout that period of life. Whilst there are advertisements in the Stadium of Light, I am not prepared to take that risk. I don’t deem it as a safe place for me anymore. Far too often now, is football and gambling in the same sentence."
Joe is just one of many football supporters from across the UK – including people recovering from gambling addiction and families bereaved by gambling-related suicide – who have launched more than 20 petitions through 38 Degrees.
Together, they are urging their clubs to end and reject gambling sponsorship and advertising and to back The Big Step – a campaign to end all gambling advertising and sponsorship in football. The campaign, which aims to get one million signatures, has been organised by Football Supporters Against Gambling Adverts (Football SAGA).
Joe has also set up a petition to encourage Sunderland AFC to kick gambling ads out of football and so far gathered almost 300 signatures. If you would like to sign the petition, you can do so here.
Joe has written to Sunderland AFC in a bid to get the club to back the campaign but he's yet to get a response. Sunderland AFC did not wish to respond.
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