Former Canberra Raider Luke Bateman has opened up about his severe gambling addiction that saw him lose tens of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks.
At the time, the 31-year-old was at the peak of his rugby powers earning $400,000-a-year when the addiction had its claws in him.
During that period, he admitted that things would ‘go missing’ from the apartment he lived in.
Bateman also confessed he initially felt he was in control of his gambling habit, that was until he lost tens of thousands of dollars in a few weeks.
‘I was so broke … I couldn’t pay for anything. I couldn’t buy groceries,’ Bateman says.
‘My gambling slowly progressed [until] it consumed my life. Every single thing I did revolved around that gambling app on my phone.
Luke Bateman has opened up on his devastating gambling addiction
Batemman revealed he lost as much as $80,000 in a single month from gambling
He also told of how he would take items from his apartment to cash converters in order to get more money to gamble
‘I had $70,000 or $80,000 in my bank account, and in the space of a month, I had nothing.’
‘I was in so much debt … I was earning $400,000 a year, and I couldn’t afford a lollipop.’
Bateman also opened up about his future goals when he was younger, despite being a sporting prodigy, he said he was a ‘soft and gentle’ kid who found solace in fantasy books.
But that was something he kept hidden as he pushed towards the one dream he saw possible, playing in the NRL.
‘I think what really drew me to those specific books was the sense of wonder … my world on the farm is so small, but my world in books is so big,’ he said.
‘It was not something that men did. I never saw any of my male role models, my male heroes, reading books.’
‘I think all the other parts of myself really took a back seat to the athlete and the sporting part of me because they weren’t things that received praise.’
He would eventually make that NRL dream come true, signing for the Canberra Raiders in 2015, but it didn’t feel the way he imagined it would.
‘I was really just happy to be a part of the team,’ he said.
‘I’d worked my entire life to get to this moment … then I played the game, and I remember thinking, ‘Huh, that was really underwhelming.’
‘I thought that was a thing that would complete me. And then I came off the field, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m still exactly the same.’
He was suddenly making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but his addiction was worsening and so were the mental health impacts that went along with it.
Bateman revealed he had hit rock-bottom and was contemplating suicide, ‘I was just so filled with shame, and I couldn’t share it,’ Bateman says. ‘I was just in so much pain. I saw no way out.’
Bateman has since been to rehab and kicked his addiction while working for his father’s Don’ logging company
Bateman has also signed a book deal after he reconnected with his childhood love of reading
Bateman then turned to his parents for help after a three-day bender in 2020.
‘Something just broke within me and I [thought] I have two options: I either end my life or I get help,’ he said.
That led Bateman to head to his parents in Brisbane instead of returning to Canberra from his bender in Newcastle.
After years of insisting he could cope with his addiction, the 31-year-old eventually agreed to go to rehab where he was able to reconnect with his love of reading.
And when he finally completed his time in rehab his parents sat him down and offered him a deal – they would absorb his debts if Bateman would go and work for his father Don in his logging business to repay them.
He estimates that his parents took on around $130,000 of his debts which he has recently paid off.
But his move out of the city also came with an unexpected benefit, the lack of internet made it impossible for Bateman to gamble.
‘All my gambling was done on my phone. So in the beginning, even if I wanted to gamble, I couldn’t. [It] was fantastic for my recovery,’ he said.
