Paul Merson has revealed that he relapsed into gambling addiction and lost £160,000 meant for a house deposit while betting on table tennis during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Merson has spoken openly about his gambling addiction, which has cost him £7million during a 30-year battle. The 54-year-old former Arsenal midfielder placed his first bet aged 16 and that experience led him down a slippery slope that included addictions to alcohol and cocaine, as well as two failed marriages.
Last year, Merson presented a BBC documentary about gambling in which he examined his own life and asked whether enough was being done to prevent more people like him from suffering at the hands of betting companies. At the time, he told The Mirror he was “frightened to death” of relapsing – and that is exactly what had happened the year before.
In the summer of 2020, during the lockdown for Covid-19, Merson was furloughed from his job as a pundit on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday. After initially enjoying the extra time with his third wife, Kate, and his young children, he began to spiral back into bad habits due to his anxiety over the constant updates on television.
“My anxiety kicked in and I thought, ‘They’re not going to have Soccer Saturday any more’. I was thinking, ‘I’m not going to be able to earn anything’. My older kids’ mums have houses and I want to give my younger kids a future,” he told The Sun.
“Kate and I had £160,000 saved up and I blew it in a few bets. It was all online, but it wasn’t a bookmaker, it was a private bookie.”
He added: “My last bet was eight grand on a table tennis player. I didn’t have a particular knowledge of table tennis but everything was locked down at that point, so there wasn’t much to bet on.
“When I got to that point it was just a total chase-up to try and get my money back, which is a prime example of a compulsive gambler. That was my last eight grand but when I’m in the grip of it, I lose all sense of rationale.”
Merson says he is now blocked from all betting companies and that his wages go straight to his wife Kate so that he cannot blow them on gambling. The pundit attends Gamblers Anonymous sessions, talks to an expert and uses addiction support app Recoverlution in order to manage his addiction.
He remains passionate about reforming the gambling industry, insisting that the bookies must closely monitor problem gamblers and block access to those clearly out of control.
“I think they've got to take it in their hands,” he told The Mirror last year. “Not keep on leaving it with the compulsive gambler. Don't throw it onto them. They need to take control. They can’t just use that ‘when the fun stops, stop’ because an addict isn’t going to do that.
“You know when someone's not having fun - 90 bets a day, 60 bets a day,15 deposits a day. The limits need to be set for these people, because they won't set a limit themselves. The only time they're ever going to stop is when everything is gone. They're not going to stop until their bank account is at zero.”
