Football’s uncomfortable relationship with gambling companies – and the clubs who are walking away – The Athletic

Annie Ashton takes a deep breath and pauses for a moment before she answers.

Did she feel she had any option but to speak out?

I dont feel like Ive had a choice although Im not saying that I didnt have a choice, she says. In my mind, there was no doubt that speaking out was the thing that I needed to do.

On April 22 this year, Annie lost her husband Luke to gambling-related suicide. Luke went missing the day before and it was only three weeks after his death, when looking through his phone, that Annie learned of what she describes as a gambling disorder that had taken over him.

As Annie sits down to speak to The Athleticduring Safer Gambling Week an initiative run by the Betting & Gaming Council and with the impending release of a government white paper that will review the 2005 Gambling Act, she says she has no regrets about her decision to share Lukes story in an attempt to raise awareness.

Ive since learnt that its not heard of really, but the police gave me his phone back. They dont usually do that, she says. It almost seemed like it was fate for me to do these things now, because it was there. I opened his phone up and could see his PayPal account activity. That made me look at other accounts, like his betting account.

I logged into his account and scrolled through his history, and at certain points you can see where the free bets are dropping in. That is not unheard of but when hed lost quite a lot of money and he might have stopped for a few days, then a free bet would go in and he would put another deposit in of a large amount. That was a pattern when I scrolled back as far as I could go.

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Football's uncomfortable relationship with gambling companies - and the clubs who are walking away - The Athletic