Safeguarding Podcast – Red Card! with Tony Kelly

By Neil Fairbrother

In this SafeguardingPodcast with Tony Kelly, we discuss his life as a professional footballer, THAT goal, how his gambling addiction impacted his game and his book Red Card! A Bet You Can Win. We also discus the campaigning work he’s doing with Kelly’s Red Card Gambling Support Project CIC to help young footballers, the Gambling Act and whether it’s fit for purpose and the two big asks Tony wants implemented to safeguard children in particular from gambling addiction.

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There’s a lightly edited transcript below for those that can’t make use of podcasts, or for those that simply refer to read.

Welcome to another edition of the SafeToNet Foundation’s safeguarding podcast with Neil Fairbrother, exploring the law, culture and technology of safeguarding children online.

Neil Fairbrother

Gambling is the UK is fastest growing addiction and with over 500,000 problem gamblers in the UK, there seems to be very little help, advice and guidance available to prevent an addiction developing, or to support those who are currently suffering. Today’s guest takes us through the impact that gambling addiction has had on his career and what he’s doing today to help prevent young people in particular from becoming addicted, former professional footballer, Tony Kelly. Welcome to the podcast, Tony.

Tony Kelly

Hi Neil, thanks for having me.

Neil Fairbrother

It’s a real pleasure. Thank you for making so much time available. You’ve had a busy week with your book launch, but could you provide us with a brief resume please, so that our listeners from around the world have an appreciation of your background and experience?

Tony Kelly

Okay. Yes. I grew up in Coventry, so I’m from the Midlands originally, my family’s from the Midlands. Like thousands and thousands of young boys, my desire and passion was to be a professional footballer and that stemmed from nine years old growing up watching Brazil 1974 world cup team, et cetera, Rivelino and Jairzinho et cetera. So that’s where the passion came from.

And then when I left school at 16, I had an opportunity to get on that first ladder, so to speak, to become a professional footballer, which is basically becoming an apprentice, which these days is called the Scholar, same thing, two years, 16 to 18.

And it all started well for me, the best thing that happened is I became the youngest player to play the Bristol City’s first team at 16 and 244 days [old]. That record stood for a good number of years. I scored, I think, in my third game for Bristol City as a 16 year old. So yeah, the future looked bright. But unfortunately for me, I was a little bit wild!

Neil Fairbrother

Well indeed, we’ll explore some of this duality in your life shortly, but before that you’ve recently published a book called “Red Card, a Bet you can Win”, which is really a story of two halves. The first half is really a description of your successful footballing career, which you’ve just alluded to and you had more success actually than you’ve just said, and the other half, the second half so to speak, is one of your gambling addiction. And what I’d like to ask you is what prompted you to write the book and to be so open about this problem that you had in the first place?

Tony Kelly

Yeah, I think after my professional football career, which was nine years, and then having suffered from gambling addiction throughout that period it came to a point where, this is going back to 2012, 2013, there was sort of snippets in the press about, you know, one or two ex-footballers, you know, suffering from gambling addiction, named Michael Chopra and one or two others. My sister is a Head Teacher and we talked about it one particular day and she said, you should put your story to print. So there was no plan to write any book or anything like that. So she sort of prompted me, but then we talked about, you know, getting awareness out there.

Now obviously it’s very, very difficult to go public, so you know, I understand why thousands of people don’t want to go public. It was a very difficult thing to share your story, but I think because of the bankruptcy in 2010, because of my faith which kicked in 2011, I was in a better position and felt right, now’s the right time to go public and I felt comfortable with going public.

So the main point of writing that first book was to actually raise awareness and to get my family and extended family and friends to understand what I’ve been through because they, you know, the majority of my family and extended friends didn’t have a clue about exactly what I’ve been through. So it was good to get it out there and raise awareness and share it with family and friends and in general, the public.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. Now, before we go much further I’d really appreciate it if you could tell us just a little bit more about your footballing career and I should say at this point, this is soccer, not American football, this is English soccer in particular. And you had many successes on the page, but perhaps the highlight of your career was in the League Cup tie against Liverpool in 1991. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that?

Tony Kelly

Yeah, I think I’d probably say that it’s the highlight, you know, when I played at Wembley in a Cup Final for Stoke. And then in my opinion, that’s when Wembley was Wembley with the Twin Towers, et cetera. So that was a great day, but in terms of the euphoria, the adulation, the media spotlight, scoring at Anfield in a 2-2 draw for Stoke was huge.

My whole family came down on a Wednesday night to see me play at Anfield. So I had great support. And then I think the aftermath of that in terms of doing all the media stuff, you know, the phone’s not stopped ringing and doing magazine reports, et cetera, yeah, it was just, it was just a bit macis and I still get, you know, lots and lots of messages on social media, about kids that were there then at 15, 16, that are grown men now and saying they were behind the goal and it was mental et cetera. Because Stoke fans are fanatical fans.

Neil Fairbrother

You were instrumental though in that match, weren’t you, you scored a particular goal?

Tony Kelly

2-1 down, one minute to go, Lou Macari, ex-Manchester United & Scotland manager, he brought me on last minute. Yeah. And within, I think two minutes, yeah, I’ve equalized in front of 7,000 Stoke fans behind the goal. And it was just pandemonium, basically, you know, afterwards the changing rooms were like, everyone was just, you know, just ecstatic basically. It was a great night for me and it was a great night for the football club.

Neil Fairbrother

Well done on that, that’s absolutely fantastic. Now you describe your first experience with gambling as being in a bookmakers, which was right next door to the stadium that you were playing in at the time. What drew you into that that bookmakers or bookies?

You were instrumental though in that match, weren’t you, you scored a particular goal?

Tony Kelly

We know that there’s lots of different reasons why people start gambling, we might touch upon that later, but for me, I moved to London as an 18-year-old. And I was to be fair I was quite quiet then and shy, believe it or not, but I was quite quiet and shy then. And it was a case of, you know, there was a group of lads, five or six players, I call them senior players, 22, 23 years old. This is Dulwich Hamlet Football Club, a well-known established semiprofessional football club.

And next door, well, you know, a hundred yards down the road, was a Mecca Bookmakers I’ll never forget it, a Mecca Bookmakers. And, you know, some of these players used to before the match on a Saturday at one o’clock, used to go in and put that little £5 accumulators on or whatever.

And this is where we talk about peer pressure. So it was my way of fitting in. And it was my way of having that sense of belonging, feeling part of a group, that kind of thing. And that’s because, you know, I was shy. So I wanted to try and find a way of fitting in. And once I, you know, teamed up with that little group that was me and I felt confident, et cetera. And I started obviously out of curiosity and obviously the financial reward, because at the end of the day, everybody puts a bet one to win money. So yeah, that’s how it all started, just on those football accumulators.

Neil Fairbrother

And what were these Bookies like back then? Because this was pre-internet, there were no apps and no smartphones, a very different experience.

Tony Kelly

Yeah. Generally speaking, you know, Bookmakers back then in the late eighties were predominantly male dominated. You would very rarely see a female in a Bookmakers. Smoke-filled rooms. SIS has just about to come in. So there was, you know…

Neil Fairbrother

And what is SIS?

Tony Kelly

The satellite screening for live racing. So that came in I think around 88/90 because obviously, you know, they would put chalk boards and the prices, et cetera, were written on the boards in the Bookies, before we had live TV, live satellite screening. So yeah, it was a very different place and there wasn’t free coffee and the lovely leather seats that you have now, none of that. It was just as I said, smoke-filled rooms, middle-aged men, and that was generally the Bookmakers.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. Now the more successful you were as a footballer, the more involved in gambling I think you became, and it wasn’t just Bookmakers or Bookies that attracted you, you enjoyed playing the roulette wheel in casinos. And you described the impact of gambling on your game, at one point you said: “When I won, I’d be on a high and play well, but when I lost it would usually lead to a stinker on the pitch.” Describe a “stinker” for us, what was going on in your mind then?

Tony Kelly

Yeah. The impacts mentally for me. The strange thing about this is that, you know, everybody’s different in terms of our makeup and how we’re wired up, et cetera, how resilient we are, we’re all different. So some players, you know, it won’t affect their career, whether you are sportsman, cricketer, snooker player, whatever it is. Foer some players as a gambling addict may not have a problem, it may be a form of escapism. They may be fine on the football pitch.

But for me, I struggled you know, because obviously I wasn’t getting any sleep. I had lots of debts, so I was getting depressed and anxious. So every time, you know, I’d probably get three or four hours sleep going to play a match in front of 15,000 on a Saturday afternoon. Thinking about betting, preoccupied with betting, whether my bets are coming in for that day. So that led for me not being focused on many occasions in a match. And that’s what I mean by having a stinker.

So there were times the managers just could not work me out. You know, I’ve had numerous conversations in the manager’s office where they try and find out what’s wrong. But if there was more education and awareness back then maybe that question would have been asked about are you struggling with anything? Are you struggling with gambling, et cetera.

But they couldn’t quite work me out. [They’d say] sort yourself out, you know? You should be in the team every week, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, they couldn’t quite work it out, [they were] pulling their hair out. All the managers I played for. And that’s because my form was so sporadic. One week I would be Man of the Match the next week I’ll be out of the team for a month because, you know, a dip of form. And that’s all, you know, with me, it was all mental. Mental stress and a struggle. Yeah. I struggled with it.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. Now, after you ended up in Division Three, you had a new manager arrive on the scene, a chap called Lou Macari, and he brought with him a new training regime, which you described as being “legendary”, but this also had an impact on your football as well as your gambling. Could you describe what was going on then with Lou Macari?

Tony Kelly

Well, Lou Macari was probably the best manager I played under in terms of he wasn’t too harsh. Maybe it should have been in terms of what I was going through and my form being sporadic. But the fitness regime, Lou was well known within English football, particularly in the Second and Third Divisions, for being a fitness fanatic. So much so, as an example, when I’d done an interview after the Liverpool game on ITV, this is like half ten at night, I had to run round the stadium of Anfield because in his mind, this is how he thinks in his mind, I’ve only played for four minutes, you know, so, you’ve played four minutes, so need you to do a bit of extra. So even though I scored the equalizer, even though everyone’s all happy et cetera, I still have to run around the pitch after the game on that Liverpool night at Anfield. So that’s how he thought. Fitness was a big part for Lou Macari

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. But it seems that fitness regime, I think also had an impact on your gambling and he seems to have been the first person that you, at least the first manager, that you spoke to about your gambling. What was his reaction?

Tony Kelly

I think that there’s a little bit of a misconception. I didn’t speak to him directly about the gambling. I spoke to him about finances and because he was sort of in the world of gambling I suppose in terms of horse racing, [it was the] same with the previous manager, Alan Ball, they owned horses, et cetera. So they were familiar with, you know, players gambling, et cetera.

And I remember one day losing money and not having money for the week, et cetera, and going in and asking for petty cash from the secretary. And instead of, you know, having a go at me or instead of just, you could have asked the question, yes. He could have, he could have gone into more detail about what’s happening with me, but he said, no problem, Tony, you just go and see Diane. Yeah, fine. He didn’t have an issue with me borrowing money, but whether that’s facilitating my gambling. Yeah. You can look at it that way in terms of what parents do today, et cetera. So, yeah.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. So we discussed something called Online Gaming Disorder in quite some detail in a previous podcast and in particular the impact of dopamine on the Reward Network inside the brain. Are there similarities, do you think, between that and gambling, whether online or offline and even goal scoring? Can goal scoring become an addictive sensation?

Tony Kelly

Interesting. Yeah, because dopamine’s a powerful chemical and when we’re talking about convergence of gaming and gambling there’s without a shadow of a doubt in my opinion, and my organization’s opinion that, you know, it can lead and does lead to young people getting you know, led on to adult gambling.

The nature of gaming in terms of risk and reward elements, so if we talk about Loot Boxes, for instance, that risk and reward element, it’s the same, the repetitive behavior, the excitement, you know, the frustration of losing or winning, the frustration of not getting the item that you might want, whether it’s a Loot Box or whether it’s FIFA or in Fortnite, or you’re not getting the best player in the packs.

All of these kinds of elements are all geared to having a similar outcome in terms of where you could be as a 13 year old in terms of when you get to 18, because you have built up this familiarization with gambling and gaming. So I think the convergence is actually huge anyway, in the UK. I think we have 500,000 gamers in the UK now,of children.

Neil Fairbrother

Yeah. Now you had many wins on the pitch and we’ve talked about some of those but in August, 2011, because of your gaming addiction and the financial consequences of that, you declared yourself bankrupt, which you describe as the “biggest win” of your life, which for many people, I think would seem a little bit of a contradiction. So how do you square that circle? Why did you describe it as being the biggest win of your life?

Tony Kelly

I think because lots of people get to a certain position on their gambling journey. Unfortunately, many get to a position where, what I say in terms of, you know, the point of no return and unfortunately suicide. And we know that’s reality. We know that’s happening today.

For me, I lost everything. I lost the house. I had the breakup with my partner. I lost five or six years of the game in terms of my football career. So lots of massive impacts in various different ways on my career and my life with gambling. But when the opportunity to maybe go bankrupt and clear… because I did have a £192,000 bankruptcy file. And for me, the mental stress of 1) trying to pay off debts that I can’t and 2), you know, waiting for phone calls or bailiffs and getting cars repossessed, and all of these things that come with all the serious debt.

When the opportunity came to say, okay, you could go bankrupt, but this is what will happen. I weighed it up, you know, I weighed. It up with my family as well and it was the thing that suited me. So in terms of calling it a big win, it suited me because it cleared me of debt and it was the start of my recovery.

I couldn’t get credit for six years. It stays on my credit file for six years. So there is a negative impact, but I didn’t want credit so in my head I thought, right, I can’t get any more money now. So for six years, because I can’t get any credit because I had 32 creditors. So it was a massive [relief]. I remember walking out of the court with my brother and we were, I was so happy because it was a massive, massive relief and a massive burden off my shoulder. And right now, you know, now maybe I can start on that recovery process.

Neil Fairbrother

Well, you’ve done more than start on the recovery process because you’ve set up an organization called Kelly’s Red Card Consultancy. Tell us about Kelly’s Red Card Consultancy.

Tony Kelly

Well, www.kellysredcardconsultancy.co.uk is the website. Kelly’s Red Card Gambling Support Project CIC, one under a charity. And that came about after the publication of the first book, because again, nothing was planned. I didn’t have no agenda about what I was going to, what’s going to happen, what the future holds. And I don’t come from that business background, et cetera, but it was put to me that, you know, maybe I should start something because I had such great feedback with the book. So I set up Kelly’s Red Card Gambling Support Project in 2015.

And initially we were going to concentrate on therapy, but we thought right, there needs to be more education awareness, there’s treatment services out there, so how can we address, you know, educating people? Cause that’s my passion and that’s the vision I wanted for Red Card to be able to educate people.

So yeah, I’ve got a really good team together. Some really good support, you know, getting obviously governance and directors, et cetera. And we probably became active, I’d say probably really active, I’d say 2017 onwards was when we really started to go out and deliver educational workshops. And I delivered, obviously like I do today, personal talks, et cetera, and just really raising awareness and educating because prevention is the key for us.

As far as we’re concerned today that’s what we believe in. Early intervention is key to particularly protecting young people from gambling harm. So yeah, so it’s a really positive project, I’m really enjoying it. Lots of work, been to lots of different places, schools, colleges, rehab centers, rotary clubs, you name it, we’ve been to many various different organizations, but our primary target audience is young people, but yeah, I’m loving it.

Neil Fairbrother

Excellent, well done on that. Now there is another form of gambling that is related to football and that’s online gaming, we’ve briefly mentioned online gaming previously. Electronic Arts is one of the largest gaming publishers globally and they produce the FIFA football game and they made headlines recently, certainly on the Verge news platform, in an article that said that “Electronic Arts wants to push FIFA players to the FIFA Ultimate Team Mode, which lets people spend real world money and in-game currency to buy loot boxes with virtual athletes”. We touched on loot boxes a few moments ago, what are loot boxes and is it a form of gambling? And if so, why?

Tony Kelly

Well, Loot Boxes is basically like a treasure chest, if you look at it that way. So where the gambling element comes in from us at Red Card and from other campaigners is that when someone purchases a Loot Box during a game, so for instance, if it’s Fortnite, then there’s cosmetic characters. So you might purchase it and you’re hoping to get the best weapon. If it’s football, FIFA, they call them packs. So you’re a child, 13, 14, I will buy a pack which can cost anything up to £16 and hoping that they’ll get a Ronaldo or a Messi in that pack. And obviously they don’t, then it’s more money, more money, more money until they do.

So in terms of why we feel it’s classed as gambling and the Gambling Commission don’t recognize it as gambling, they’re saying because there’s no monetary reward. But when you look at, you know, gambling as a whole, in terms of the risk and reward element and a game of chance, that’s what it is, it’s a game of chance. You don’t know what you’re going to get when you pay for those Loot Boxes, or you pay for that FIFA pack, you have no idea. So there’s a risk and reward element there. And it’s a game of chance.

Neil Fairbrother

These young teenagers, or possibly pre-teens, are playing this game and if they have access to the money, which might be their parents’ credit card, they will spend a lot of money on this stuff because it’s important to them. The Gambling Commission may say there’s no financial reward, but there’s definitely a reward there.

Tony Kelly

Yeah, there’s definitely a reward. And I think, you know, the stats are out there in terms of the amount of, you know, young people between 11 and 17 that are gaming, which is 500,000 plus. And then you’ve got issues where they’re using their parent’s debit card, so their parents end up with a big debt. And so, then obviously all the other issues come in terms of struggling with their mental health, struggling with anxiety, because you know, they’re continually gaming, so it’s going to affect their school productivity, all these kinds of things. So all the other elements of impact of problem gambling come into play with young people. And that’s why we have to look at it as a form of gambling.

Yes, the latest Gambling Act review, part of that is looking at banning Loot Boxes, whether that happens, we don’t know. And I think one of the most dangerous things about gaming for young people is the fact that the majority of the gambling sites that offer these gaming opportunities are unregulated, with no age verification. And I think that’s the most dangerous thing.

Neil Fairbrother

Oh, well, it’s interesting you should mention Age Verification, it’s a constant theme within our podcasts. And in fact, I was going to ask you a question about that. The National Lottery has increased its age for playing or gambling on the Euro Lottery and other games that they have on their website, the age has gone up from 16 to 18. Do you think that it should be a robust Age Verification in place to filter children out of online gambling sites, even ones that are apparently fairly innocuous, such as the National Lottery?

Tony Kelly

Yeah I do. I think when we talk about young people, yeah. Let’s look at it logically because our brains, as they say, don’t develop till 24, 25. Young people are more vulnerable risk takers, et cetera. So 12, 13, 14, 15 year-olds, they have no, you know, real reality of what the value of money is, basically.

So for them spending, you know, £100 to £300 continuously, because at the end of the day, the majority of the time, it’s not their money, it’s their parents, many of them have not got £300 or £400. So that’s the scary bit, where’s the money coming from? So for them to be doing that, then we have to look at it and say, yeah, you know there has to be Age Verification.

The Lottery, that’s obviously from I think is from October [2020], 18-year-olds, from scratch cards. And I think when we look at, before this came in, this change legislation came in, we have to think why would you not think that 16-year-olds going into a shop and buying 50 scratch cards is not dangerous? [That] It’s not gambling? So I think that was only a matter of time before that age was going to be put up to 18. And I’m glad that that’s happened. So that’s one change we could say is positive.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. Now, in your book, you say that research shows that out of the 92 Football League clubs, there are on average three players in every team addicted to gambling. And in December 2020, the Mail Online reported that 8 out of 20 Premier League clubs have a betting company as a sponsor. Isn’t there something of a contradiction here? Should these gambling companies be allowed to sponsor football clubs? After all tobacco companies and I think alcohol companies are not allowed to advertise in the same way, and all three of those industries are related to harm.

Tony Kelly

Yeah, I think that’s a massive topic that’s being debated at the moment. And again, another part of the Gambling Act review, advertising, promotion. I think my view with the whole advertising side of [it]. particularly that correlation between professional football and gambling. So at the moment as we speak, we’ve got 10 premiership clubs, which is half the premiership sponsored by gambling companies. 17 of the championship clubs are sponsored by gambling companies with some form of contract, whether that’s shirt sponsorship or whatever.

And so, on one side of the fence, people are saying that they should ban gambling advertising with professional football and shirt sponsorship. And on the other side of the fence, people are saying, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on those football clubs, particularly in the pandemic.

Now my argument is that when we’re talking about Premier League and we’re talking about the Championship, the two highest tiers of professional football, firstly, the gambling contract might be worth £20 million or £50 million pound. They’re all different too to each individual club, but it’s a drop in the ocean, it’s pennies. The Premier League clubs, their biggest income and their income streams, their income revenue comes from broadcasting rights, ticket sales, commercial deals. This is not a big part of their income. So it’s not going to have any effect whatsoever. Formula One had the same thing back in the day with advertisers, with JB Players, et cetera, Formula One has gone from strength to strength and football will do the same.

So I think in terms of encouraging young people to gamble, I would probably say 80% of me is saying, yes, we should be banning advertising in professional football. I’ll give you an example, Wayne Rooney when he signed his contract at Derby, part of that contract is to wear the 32 number, and that’s obviously sponsored by 32 Red. So when you’re getting these kinds of things happening and young people are looking up to their idols, you know whether it’s Wayne Rooney, whether it’s Jose Marino out in the back of a taxi, whatever they are, it’s being glamorized and it’s being normalized and this is for young people. So that’s where the danger is and that’s where young people think, well, if it’s okay for Wayne Rooney, it’s okay for Jose Marino, it’s okay for us. You know, and that’s the danger.

Neil Fairbrother

Last year in 2020, the House of Lords Select Committee on Gambling recommended there should be no gambling advertising on any of the sports grounds or sport venues. Presumably you would be in favour of that being stopped?

Tony Kelly

I have an opinion on this too, it’s come up in various consultations that I’ve had. My sort of overriding feeling is that when it comes to advertising gambling, whether that’s in professional football or whether that’s in general on our TV screens, what I haven’t seen over the last few years and I’m when I say this, I mean, literally I haven’t seen one advert, there is not one advert that highlights any risk of gambling, that highlights any impact of gambling.

You know, we’ve got the silly slogans “Stop when the fun stops”, “Gamble aware” “Gamble responsibly”. They mean absolutely nothing. We know that. So my thought is that gambling, we have to think about, you know, the business as well. Everybody has a right to, you know, to advertise their products, even though someone will say yes, but it’s a harmful product. Okay. But I would say that it’s the content, the imagery and the language that needs to change. So if there was some kind of balance, then I think it would sort of give people the opportunity to say, okay, you know, this is what it does.

For example, while we’re speaking, I have a cigarette box here. “Smoking causes blindness” “Smoking kills”. Now that’s as clear as you can get, you know. So why we don’t have these kinds of powerful, safer messages in advertisements I don’t know, because everything that we see is geared to encouraging people to gamble. It’s as simple as that. Coming out of the pub, coming out of the casino, girls, lads, all happy or normalized and encouraging people to gamble. And it’s basically saying that there’s no risk to it because they’re not highlighting any risks. So that’s what I would like to see, a big change in advertising, just to have a.

Neil Fairbrother

The Secretary of State for Digital Culture, Media, and Sport, Oliver Dowden said that “…whilst millions gamble responsibly, the Gambling Act is an analog law in a digital age”. And as you alluded to, there’s recently been a review of the Gambling Act, and we don’t know what the results of that review will be, but I believe you had some involvement in that review.

Tony Kelly

Yeah. So I was part of the Gambling Commission Interim Advisory Group, which is a group of lived experience people, 16 of us. And we were basically part of a group that held consultations, held meetings with the Gambling Commission, with Neil McArthur, over a nine-month period. And also, we had a meeting with the DCMS as well.

And basically, our role, as the people with lived experience, as people that have been through the whole addiction cycle, was basically to give the Gambling Commission and the Government recommendations of what we feel should change in terms of the Gambling Act review. The Gambling Act 2005 is obviously not fit the purpose now, so there needs to be a reform. There’s so many issues that need to be looked at. We’ve touched on advertising. You’ve got VIP schemes, you’ve got product design, affordability checks, which is a massive one.

So all these things, we had an input to the review. And then it’s a matter of like you said, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 6, 12 months. I’ve read recently that there’s going to be no change in 2021, whatever changes are going to be made are going to be made 2022 onwards. But while that’s happening, people are still suffering gambling harm. So yeah, it’s a huge issue the actual Gambling At review, it needed to happen, but it’s the question of, will there really be any robust changes? We have to wait and see.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay, now you’re probably aware that there’s also an Online Safety Act being passed. There was an Online Harms White Paper published a couple of years ago, that’s gone through the consultancy phase. The Government, in fact, Oliver Dowden issued the Government’s response to that in December 2020, and we’re waiting for the first draft of the actual legislation itself due to be published soon.

Tony Kelly

What was that related to?

Neil Fairbrother

This is online harms, which covers a wide variety, or at least in the Online Harms White Paper, it covered a wide variety…

Tony Kelly

Online gambling harms?

Neil Fairbrother

No. So my question really was, should gambling harms have been included in the Online harms white paper?

Tony Kelly

Yeah. That’s funny, I was talking to someone the other day about online harms, because obviously of what’s going on in football in terms of racism, et cetera. And then you’ve got, you know, bullying, you’ve got trolls, you’ve got all these online harms, as you said.

Neil Fairbrother

Well, indeed. And this weekend as we are recording, the Premier League, I think, or at least a number of clubs in the Premier League have opted out of using social media by way of a demonstration, they’re striking.

Tony Kelly

Yeah. Basically, it’s a start, it’s a start. I don’t know how far would go but it’s a start. But when you look at that and you look at the harms that are going on online in various different forms, you surely have to have gambling harms as part of that. You know, online gambling harms, we touched upon it the other day when I went to meet my team. We had a university student that was part of the advisory group, I can’t mention his name, but his friends have basically burned their first student grant loan in one night. We were sitting here knowing that an 18, 19-year-old can open a gambling app, get their £4,000 first grant loan and just blow it in one night and how that is allowed to happen is just…

That’s where the affordability checks and all that has to come in. Gambling harms online is actually massive, you know, regardless of background, status, gender, whatever, it affects everybody and I know poverty particularly in young people. So you know that’s going to be a big part of the Gambling Act review in terms of customer interaction and intervention from the operators, because they’re the ones that are, you know, laid to blame at the moment.

Neil Fairbrother

How might an affordability review work?

Tony Kelly

Yeah, there’s obviously a lot of talk about it because it extends from that point I’ve just made about at the moment you can spend, in terms of deposit limits, you can deposit as much as you want. You can spend 10 grand in a night if you want. And obviously thousands of people are suffering gambling harm for that reason.

So in terms of affordability checks, one of the things that they’ve looked at is maybe going down the model of the credit reference agencies. So just like going for a mortgage, it’s quite simple and straightforward, really, because if you go for a mortgage, you won’t get a mortgage unless you can prove affordability, you know, and it’s a similar type of model they want to try and adapt. So that, you know, you can’t spend £5,000 a night, you know, that would never happen again. So there’ll be robust checks. There’ll be reviews after three or six months just in case you lose your job, or get laid off, or whatever. So, yeah, I think that’s how it would work.

Obviously you’ve got to come to a point as to what’s affordable for who, because obviously there’s going to be a scale because you have a 21 year old that’s on 30 grand a year and then you’ll have a professional footballer you know? Yeah. So you have to find a balance of what the threshold will be. This is a difficult one because there’s a lot of talk about and there are various views. So yeah, we have to wait and see how that pans out.

Neil Fairbrother

And what’s the Bookmaker’s attitude to all of this?

Tony Kelly

Well, people are saying that they don’t like it. They don’t like it. In terms of, you know, obviously we have to remember, unfortunately, the business we’re in and the business that operators are in, is a profit driven business. End of story. That’s just a fact. So they don’t like it in terms of, you know, reducing their profits. And then obviously when it comes to the operators, you know, this is where they don’t do themselves any favours.

So if they, for instance, breach one of their license conditions, which are laid down by the Gambling Commission, if they breach one of those license conditions, for example, someone’s gambling £500 a night, seven nights, 14 nights. Obviously, they see it, they see the transactions, they see the bets, let’s just say William Hill for argument’s sake and they don’t intervene. That just means that basically, they’re not interested in protecting you, they just let you continue about without a phone call, without an email, without intervention.

And if that happens, sometimes they get a big fine. And when we talk fine, we’re talking millions. It could be £6 million, £7 million, £8 million fine from the Gambling Commission. Now, this is where they don’t do any of themselves any favours, because what will happen that, to them, it’s a slap on the wrist because of the amount of profit that they make. And then they’ll just do it again and again and again.

And so this is where they’re saying that, you know, licenses have to be revoked. You know, they have to come down hard on the operators because they, you know, they’re just not they’re not adhering to protecting people, and they’re going to be taken to task hopefully in this consultation where the regulations for them will really change in terms of making sure that they adhere to their license conditions.

Deposit limits, again, it’s a profit driven business. Again, when it comes to deposit limits, which is obviously a limit to what you can deposit on your account, at the moment, it can be anything, but if those deposit limits are changed yes. You know, they’ll look at it as though they’re losing money. They’re losing their clients, they are losing profits, but we have to do something to protect young people. We have to do something and deposit limits and affordability checks are two major things that need to change to protect young people.

Neil Fairbrother

Okay. Tony, we’re rapidly running out of time and I know you’ve got a busy evening ahead of you, so just a couple of final, quick questions if I may. With the proliferation of smartphones, online gambling apps and the huge increase in salaries for even young footballers, what’s the one piece of advice you have for young players. And similarly, if you were a young player today, would you be able to resist all of this again?

Tony Kelly

Good question. I think if I were a young player today, I think I’d have a better opportunity in terms of a better chance of not going through the cycle that I went through because of more awareness and education out there. You’ve got to remember that 34 years ago there was none of this. I didn’t know what gambling addiction was.

So what I would say to young people today, you know, a player that’s at Tottenham, for instance, and signs a first year contract, 18, is going to be on five grand a week straight away. So my advice would be this: steer clear of gambling. Because they’re young, they’re risk takers, you don’t know where that first bet is going to lead. You might think that, Oh yeah, I can have a £10 bet, £25 is fine. I won’t get addicted. But you don’t know that. So the best possible advice is just to stay clear of gambling really.

Neil Fairbrother

Keep the risk on the pitch.

Tony Kelly

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s it.

Neil Fairbrother

And what’s next for Red Card Gambling Support Projects?

Tony Kelly

The next big major thing for us really is the project we’ve just secured with YGAM, which is educating the BAME community between 14 and 24 year-olds, that starts 1st July. So it was a partnership with YGAM, Clearview and TalkGen. And that’s good for us because, you know, coming from a Caribbean background, I’m aware of, you know, the stigma attached and the shame attached to gambling in our communities, particularly the Asian and the Muslim community. So lots of these people from these communities are gambling, but they’re not talking about it and we need to really get in and educate them. So that’s the big project, a two-year pilot for London and the Southeast. And hopefully if that goes well, then we’ll roll it out nationally.

And then on the book, my book, as you know, is just been published. So I’m looking forward to doing some work with that over the coming weeks. So yeah, some exciting times for Red Card and myself at the moment, but I’m just happy to continue educating and raising awareness. That’s my goal and my passion, my vision.

Neil Fairbrother

Fantastic. Tony, listen, thank you so much for your time, absolutely fascinating reading about your life, your career as a professional footballer, the demons you’ve had to face and how you’ve overcome them. We do have a couple of copies of your book actually available. So if people want to email us at info@safetonetfoundation.org, then first come first served the first two will go out. Tony,thank you very much for your time. Pleasure speaking to you.

Tony Kelly

Thanks a lot, Neil. Appreciate it. Take care, Mike.