English Premier League legend reveals his shocking betting addiction, admits going bankrupt

Kieron Dyer [Photo: Courtesy]

“I have won.” This three-word sentence is not only common on the lips of the gamers such as golf or

tennis stars, but there is another group that adores this phrase-gamblers.

Gambling is a fever that penetrates human thinking with heavenly promises as the pockets dry up in certain occasions. A confessional given by English Premier League legend Kieron Dyer to the British media outlet Daily Mail reveals the rotten underbelly of gambling, which has sucked up some of soccer’s elites.

“My mum paid my debts and gave me £10-a-day limit to stop me gambling,” screams part of the headline on DailyMail. In the article is Dyer’s elaborate narration of how betting ate into his income and threatened to reduce him to a pauper, even though he was among the affluent ones.

Born in one of England’s small cities, Ipswich 40 years ago, Kieron Dyer blossomed into an active boy that fell in love with football. According to the picture he paints about his family, his parents were below middle-income earning caliber.

“My mother’s side of the family worked in the fish markets in Lowestoft and my dad’s mum picked mushrooms for a living,” he said.

Dyer played for Ipswich and broke into the Norwich City team to breathe life into his career, before moving to various other English teams such as West Ham and Middleborough.

 

As he narrates, he was mounting his hopes on his legs and he believed that such would pay dividends. On the parallel side, his love for gambling was becoming overwhelming.

At tender age in the 1990s, Dyer was sniffing the life of earning big, and his £500 week salary was perhaps his looming financial jeopardy.

“After training, a few of us would spend whole afternoons at the bookmakers. Then, we would go back to one of our houses and bet on the dogs on Teletext.” He said.

Dyer says that he made it a tradition to frequent the Casino joints where they could be handed heroic welcomes, with free food.

But the reality that his pockets were leaking would later set in. He later confesses that his habit was draining his finances.  Much to the extent that his mother had to intervene for him to set the limit for his daily spending, despite racking up goals in English top flight football.

When he moved from Norwich City to Blackburn Rovers, Dyer says that he was already trying to overcome his flaws. Though the allure of gambling would just be too tantalizing. He was not just prepared to shred the ‘huge amount of money’ his club was paying him.

He concedes that there are players who are suffering in silence at while chained by gambling addiction.

Dyer sums up his story by thanking his parents for intervention. As a matter of fact, the English former soccer star does not rue the days he had to live on £ 10 a day.