Former NRL player Luke Bateman has revealed he was offered drugs by a gambling company in a bid to strengthen the relationship at the peak of his addiction.
Now 32 years of age, Bateman played 71 NRL games for the Canberra Raiders between 2015 and 2019.
Bateman, at his peak, was losing five figures a month and was essentially broke despite being an NRL player.
He has been vocal against gambling since his retirement from the NRL due to injury, and told a senate inquiry this week that the lengths companies were going to to keep his business.
“On Wednesdays and Saturdays, which are your two main race days, I would receive direct offers customised for me that basically said if you deposit $1000, we will give you $1000 in bonus bets,” Bateman alleged at the inquiry per The Sydney Morning Herald.
“There were times where I would be flown interstate and taken to race days, put in marquees with alcohol and food provided all day, things like that.
“Before getting there, the VIP manager would offer: hey mate, what drugs do you want? Do you want a couple of bags for this weekend? We'll organise that for you. We'll have that ready for you when you get here.
“And the entire C-suite of the company was there. All the management team administration, and they were all in a backroom doing drugs together. And I was out in this room doing drugs with all of them. This is like the CEO, the founders, the VIP managers.
“I would have been, you know, 23 years old. So while I was absolutely ... I would put my hand up and say I was a willing participant of that. These are men in positions of power with influence who should be looking out for your welfare.”
The timing of Bateman's comments come at a time when new laws banning advertising around sports gambling are being discussed in federal parliament.
Last year, he spoke on Triple J's Hack about his crippling gambling addiction during the peak of his career, admitting the state of gambling was a problem among NRL players.
"Over the space of probably two or three years, I would have lost $500,000. I was on $400,000 per year in the NRL, and I was broke. My mum was paying my mortgage, and I couldn't buy groceries because I literally had no money. It was debilitating and horrible," he said at the time.
"I would say half of the team had gambling addictions, probably not to the severity that I had it. As an 18-year-old, that's what we went and did. As a football team, when we had spare time, it was like let's go to the races or let's go down to the pub and have a beer and a bet.
"I developed those behaviours, and then when I had larger issues, those behaviours deepened or accelerated at the same rate that my pain accelerated."
