It turns out that cricketers and footballers are more likely to be ‘problem gamblers’
According to a recent survey, regarding to gambling, professional sportsmen are three times more likely to become addicted to gambling in comparison to the average population. 170 footballers and 178 professional cricketers took part into the survey, carried out on behalf of the Professional Players Federation. The results showed that in comparison to the general population from which the people who participated in the survey and were classified as ‘problem gamblers’ were about 1.9 %, a much bigger number of the professional players,6.1 %, were recognized as such.
According to the estimations that the researchers made, about 192 cricketers and footballers that live in Britain is likely to have some gambling problems, and around 440 are on the edge of having such type of problems in the near future. And only three percent of those professional players admitted that they have sought help for solving this potential problem.
So according to the results, all type of sportsmen are a group that is ‘at risk’ when gambling is involved. But during the recent years, particularly footballers admitted for having gambling problems. Sportsmen fit really well to the profile given for people, dealing with such a problem – they are mainly young men and their working routines are not with such a tough structure.
These results are a bit warring, so as Brendon Batson, chair of the PPF (Professional Players Federation) said – the whole of professional sport should take some measures and help those young men for dealing with this situation. It is clear that sportsmen are a group that is at great risk, so the good practice should be expanded and improved among them. The gambling problem could be overcome if sportsmen, federations and all other people and associations, connected with sports, work together.
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