Abstract
An Interview with Mark Potter, Head of Delivery at EPIC Risk Management. Mark was a professional Rugby Union player from 1999 to 2011, playing in the UK and Ireland until a twelve-year gambling disorder eventually ruined his sports career. Mark's lived experience and powerful story of overcoming addiction demand an audience's attention and equip him with the knowledge and gravitas to truly help prevent others from following the same path.
The Interview was conducted by Jamie Salsburg. Jamie is a responsible gambling advocate and consultant and the founder of Dyve Agency, a firm dedicated to “Assisting stakeholders in navigating & improving responsible gambling efforts.”
So, the whole amateur thing is, in essence, I'm a bit torn between it because at the high level of D1 sport in college, it's basically professional without them getting paid. And I know that that's obviously a bone of contention for some of them at the moment given the court things. But in every way they're professional athletes. They train like professional athletes. The structure is like one. They play in front of fans like one. The coaches are paid infinite amounts of money. Everything about their lives is professional athlete without the remuneration, I guess. So, it was different and I was shocked by how good the standard, A, of the sport is, but B, of the facilities and what goes into it all and how many dollars go into it through ESPN deals and various other things.
So outside of the fact that it is essentially amateur, it's not in any way and that's kind of what I've seen, but obviously the further you go down, sort of D2, D3, I guess the standard drops a little bit. The facility standards dropped a little bit. The resources they got dropped a little bit. So, I suppose from the high-end point of view where I've been going to a lot, it's unbelievable.
And we kind of talked about various things, obviously, the personal welfare side of things and obviously the legalization of sports wager and what that means to them. What kind of the knock-on impact of that as well about potential that they might get abused by betters online. Things that they never really thought of and never really considered, I guess now are very much more in the spotlight and things that they're going to have to deal with. And it's a kind of big gray area, the whole integrity thing because they obviously can't bet on their own sports or sports that they have, varsity sports.
And there's obviously the example of the kid, I think, Alan Tisdale from Virginia Tech. He was banned last year or the year before for nine games for putting a total of $400 worth of bets on the NBA. Now he plays college football and he was betting on the NBA and didn't have an understanding of what that means in terms of links. So, there are a lot of gray areas ultimately. But I think from what we're doing and the kind of response that we've had, I think it's very much needed. We have been able to identify certain things. We have been able to help certain people. I think the education awareness piece is great across the board. Most people are going away with a far better knowledge and understanding of what is needed to mitigate all of these issues.
So, I think it's great, and I think it's new, so there's a lot of people that don't know a huge amount of information about it other than that they can't bet on certain sports. But the whole gray areas go into the fact that they can go into a casino. They can play PlayStation in their dorms with their teammates. So, it's not just , “This is a mobile sport book and this is what you have to know.” It's like the all-encompassing, “This is wagering. This is sports wagering. These are the things you can and can't do. These are the risks of all of those. This is how easy it is for an athlete as such to get into issues with gambling because as we know there are loads of triggers and circumstances and environmental factors that means that athletes are more likely to struggle with this.”
And we cover all of those topics and hopefully leave them with a better understanding of what it means and how it can impact them both negatively and, obviously, with the whole exposure marketing. And hopefully they'll understand a bit more going forward and not let it be the thing that derails them in any way, I suppose.
So, we use the whole lived experience to give the authenticity about it, but put some meat to the educational aspects of it and talk about circumstances and factors such as being away from home for the first time, having access to money for the first time, college, some injury. Things like that, that you would typically sort of look at an athlete, and most of those things they're going to have to deal with and learn about at some point, can easily be the driver that ticks them towards the betting side of things. Cover that with the integrity thing. Cover that with the knock-on impact that it can have. Looking at NIL (name, image, likeness), various things.
So, in an hour we're essentially covering a lot of information. And then we also do a half-day Train the Observer Program, which is designed for staff, coaches, welfare officers, compliance people, athletic trainers, which is more an interactive piece around how to identify vulnerable athletes. And if it does come up as a conversation, how you converse with somebody that you think may have an issue and looking at the knock-on impacts of the team environment, the organizational environment thing, impacts that it can have on the college, I guess recruitment, various things. So, we delve deeper into it with the staff, which will hopefully give them the tools and a workbook to take away, which will help them better deal with this when it inevitably, I would assume, becomes an issue at some point for them in college. So that's kind of what we do.
So, it's giving them a base knowledge of all of the impacts that means. And then obviously we'll grow and flesh that out as we go along. I think the first two, three years are essentially us going around all of the colleges, as many as we can, providing that base level of education, information awareness. And then building that out through, I guess, the Train the Observer Program, potentially some e-learning as things evolve and as things start to happen using examples, using real-life experiences of things that have maybe gone well and not so well. And building that out to hopefully help people have a very much broader understanding of it. Because things will start to happen. It will have an impact on people negatively. More colleges are going to enter into partnerships with betting operators, let's be honest. So, with LSU, Colorado, Maryland, already that's happening.
The amount of dollars that people are prepared to give in that sort of sponsorship and marketing environment is going to be significant. It's going to be difficult for colleges to turn that down for fear of getting left behind. So, it's about building that out, helping them understand the risks of that. And I suppose it's like any sport, the NFL, the NBA, Premier League, soccer, rugby, whatever it is, most sporting organizations now have both betting sponsors and betting partners. That's the reality of the world. So, it's not embracing it as such, but it's accepting it and understanding that that's going to be part of the furniture going forward and providing enough information and enough education to not let it become an issue or be managed negatively. And I think that's the way I'd see it.
So, it'll very much get fleshed out as we go along. But I think to give everyone a baseline knowledge, educational awareness is really important. To make the athletes go away and think, “Actually, this is a short career for me, four, five years, whatever it is. I don't need to be involved in this while I'm trying to be successful because actually, I've just heard an example of somebody that absolutely wasn't because of that.” So, I think that initial knowledge is really important, but then you're right, it's got to be flushed out. And it's got to be expanded on to give more context and help people understand more from everyone really.
I got injured at 19, didn't really know how to deal with that. Everything I liked, needed and enjoyed out of sports, who I was as a competitive person. I loved the ups and downs of winning and losing. I loved being around my teammates every day. When I didn't have it, it almost left quite a big void to fill. So at a very base level, everyone who plays sports at any level is super competitive. Whether you play football in the garden with your brother or sister, you want to win. But to get to a level of elite sport, whether that's professional sport or D1 college athletics, they don't get there if they don't have those competitive drivers.
My issue was I was like that all of the time. And when I started to gamble, it was the same. I loved winning, and I hated losing and more actually when I started to lose, I didn't like the feeling of being a loser. And I thought, for me as a competitive person, there was never really a time when I could put my hands up and say, “Actually, I'm not very good at this, and I need to give it up.” It was more that, “Actually, I'm not going to be beaten by this. I'm going to carry on until I'm successful.” And that started you off on the path.
Then I suppose there was a level of arrogance because I was involved in sports, which led me to believe I had a reasonably good knowledge of sports so I could use that knowledge to win at sports betting. And for a period at the beginning, probably could to a low level, but then obviously things started to escalate, became more manageable. Started to bet more on more products with more money. It started to become more than just having something to do to fill your time for fun and enjoyment.
And then I got injured and obviously that was the worst thing that has ever happened because, as I said, it took me away from everything I needed and left me without that and looking for something to fill it. Started to gamble, won a lot of money. Nineteen-year-old kid won $17,000 in the space of 20 hours from $50, which essentially turned me from a low-level better who had a successful day, to somebody who was betting realistically more than I could afford. And when the money ran out, the winnings, because I didn't have a knowledge or understanding of what that meant or what the risks were, I just thought I could spend it how I wanted. But what it did was it created that environment for me that would obviously be completely unsustainable when it was time to go back to spending my own money, which obviously a few months after it did.
And when you get used to $200 and $300 bets on horses rather than $2 or $3 bets, everything increases: the excitement level, your adrenaline level, the amount you want to win. I was coming home early from practice. I was skipping hospital appointments. It all started to escalate from there. And then ultimately it became about what it's never supposed to be because it was about giving me what I wasn't getting out of sports or trying to feel as good as it felt when I initially won that money. And then I started to use it for escapism. When shit started to go wrong, contracts, pregnancies, not being in the team, injuries, I never learned to deal with any of that stuff that athletes have to deal with. And I never learned how to. I just used to go to the bookies and for me that was a place where I didn't have to worry or stress about all of the things that were going on.
So, in many ways, most of the things that I did were in some way directly related to what I was as an athlete, whether it was the competitive drivers, the sporting knowledge, the injuries, the buzz replication, all of those things almost, not made me go down that route, but played a significant part in how and why. So, I think that's the important thing, and when people come and talk to you after, it's like I can easily see those traits in myself. I'm not saying that is the vehicle that I've used. Because ultimately whatever issue you have, whether it be this or alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, whatever it may be, doesn't matter, it is usually a vehicle of portraying something that isn't going particularly well lifestyle-wise. And, for me, there was a lot of that, and I just clung to this and used it for all of the wrong things, but part of it by being an athlete just led me down that trap, and most people can see that after the session.
It's like, “I can easily see why that happened to you. Hopefully I now know more information to prevent it from happening to me.” Because we are not in any way going into these sessions hoping to catch people who are in the same spot as I was or anybody else was. It's more “look at the things that can happen.” There's a certain number of environmental factors, circumstances, triggers because of who you are and the environment that you're in that can lead you down that road. And I think that's part of it, and that's the main thing. And hopefully get them to explore their relationship with gambling. Hopefully it's nothing. Because the reality is we're never going to go into a college environment and say, “Right, lads, we advocate that you all start to gamble,” because we're never going to do that. But you've also got to be mindful of the fact that, in the real world, this kind of stuff happens, and they're only banned from doing a certain amount of things. That doesn't cover everything.
And, in reality, most people in the world will have some sort of a relationship with gambling at some point. So, it's really important to provide context to what that looks like, how it can change. And ultimately provide an example of how easy it is for that to happen to an athlete, but also get them to explore their relationship with it. Because you don't go from non-gambler to problem gambler within two minutes. It's a kind of gradual process that happens. It just so happened for me, the injury and the big win sort of accelerated that greatly, and a lot of that was down to who I was. So, I think all of those reasons being, I would hope that athletes and staff go away with a better understanding of, actually, it does relate to them. It is relevant. Not everybody is going to go down the same path, but actually there are reasons why there's an increased chance of that happening because of who they are and what they are as athletes.
And I think that's the main message. It's just understand what the risks are rather than don't do this or don't do that because that never works. If I tell my kids not to pick up a glass, they'll be like, “Ooh,” trying to get to it straightaway. So, the whole anti-message I don't think ever works. It's, look, we are all adults here. Here are the risks. Here's what happened to me, and here's why we think a lot of those things happened. And here are some educational tools and pieces that will help you, A, better understand who you are and what point you're at. But hopefully, B, be able to manage yourselves away from any issues that you might have and promote positive conversation.
Because, let's be honest, 20 years ago when I was playing rugby, mental health was nowhere near where it is now. And I was worried that by being an athlete, I would be like non-selection. My teammates would call me a pussy. I wouldn't get another contract. Loads of things stopped me from being honest. And I think another part of the session is, look, it's okay now to struggle with things, mental health and mental performance are if not a bigger part of athletics than the actual competition and tactical stuff is.
So, it's all of that combined with the whole lived experience story, with the educational piece and getting them to explore their relationship, which will hopefully stop them from doing the same things. But it's more of a, look, this is a broad picture of what it can be. This is what happened to me and actually, this is how you can look after yourselves and your teammates.
Then when they hit us, and many times, especially the higher level you go to, I mean those D1 athletes. I mean, you see the swanky places they're working out at. I mean they have the trainer. They have the nutritionist. They have all these things that are set up to help them with the successful side of things and prepare them for success. In a lot of ways it leads to more and more success.
But I think that was the thing that always got me, and I think that's what gets a lot of us athletes or just highly successful businesspeople, whatever, with gambling or other things is it's often one of the first times we face failure. Like you say, we just don't know how to deal with it. We have no concept of it because we just really haven't experienced it. So, I think that's a valuable thing that you guys are presenting.
So, you're right. It actually just made me think about that then, everything was geared towards being successful and made me get up at the end of the day and say, “Actually, this session is going to be a little bit different because what I'm going to do is talk to you from somebody who hasn't had a successful career. There are a number of reasons why that was. What I'm going to talk to you about is not preparing for success, but actually it's giving you an understanding of how easy it is to fail.” I think that isn't talked about enough. I actually like to use that as an example of, “Look, here is a perfect example of somebody that had the chance to be successful. Ultimately, he wasn't. These are understandings of the reasons why. Don't let that be the thing that stops you from having a career that you want.”
I think you're right. It one hundred percent made me think about that then. Nobody ever prefers for things to go wrong. I think as hard as that is to do, it probably needs more of that because that is reality. Let's be honest. How much percentage of those college athletes are going to go on and play in the NFL or the NBA? So actually, they're almost setting them up to fail by giving them such an elite environment to be around.
I think that feeds into the question of how hard it is when you retire from sports. Because I look back to when I stopped playing in my mid-thirties. It was hard then. For somebody that essentially comes out of sport and doesn't make elite professional environments at 22 as a college athlete, not ready to pack in, not ready to stop, is used to that really structured environment getting everything done for you, having the best facilities, getting fed, suddenly you have to do all of those things yourself and start living like a normal human being. That's really hard.
Actually, I think there's a stat from the Sporting Chance where I went to, the treatment facility I went to. There's a huge percentage of people that turn up to that facility within three years of transition out of their career. I can totally understand why that is, because actually you're right in what you say. Nothing about your career prepares you for that and for things that go wrong. I think for an athlete, you probably need some of that because nothing is ever going to go according to plan one hundred percent of the time. We almost like to assume it will sometimes. So, it's a great point.
Obviously, both of us having been in athletics and probably both of us understand what it's like to fail, it's quite humbling. But if you're not ready to do that or you're not educated or you're not understanding of what that means, it's really easy for that to impact you mentally and struggle from then on in greatly, I would think.
We sort of know this. We study film. When you get your ass kicked, you have to go study the film. The coaches make us go study the film. But if left to our own devices, none of us athletes would go watch the film where we just get absolutely smoked. That would be one we just put in the bin, delete that, never look at that thing again. Yet, that sets us up for losing that exact same way again in the future. But if you say, “Hey, we just won 70 to nothing last week, guys. Hey, who wants to come in and watch film study?” I mean there would be a line at the door, I mean high-fives and hey, look at how great I was there. Look at this. Which ultimately there's value in studying the successes and the failures, but it's just interesting. I think it's probably human that we just don't want to look at our failures, but especially athletes.
I think any coach worth his salt would tell you that, ultimately losing teaches you more than winning can ever do. But I think that's very much linked to the actual events of the sport or the performance factor. It's not really a life skill, but actually it should be because not everything is ever going to go according to plan all of the time, as we said. But if you're not prepared for that or you can't deal with that or if you bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't happen or it didn't exist, then you're almost not preparing yourself for the time that it happens inevitably again.
So, I think probably for me, one of the best things when I went to treatment, I always remember I absolutely needed that. I needed everything that I'd got, counselor, the psychotherapy, all of that. But one of the best things about it was I learned to understand, A, why I did some of the things that I did and put some context to it. And actually, that's what brought me back to the whole competitive edge, sporting knowledge, injuries. Things that happened that you don't really pay attention to at the time or you don't really see how much it's impacting you negatively, because all I did was just bet more.
That was ultimately what I did or tried to get money. I never thought gambling was a problem for me all the way through my whole career. I thought getting money was my problem. Actually, only when I went and understood it and was ready to come out on the other side did I put it all together and realize that was the problem. My lack of awareness, understanding, honesty, all of those things were to blame and who I was because I just was never really comfortable with wearing the hat of a loser. Because of who I was, I was like, well, everything about sport is about winning. Losing's terrible. Winning's great. I'm not winning at this. So actually, it's not very good. I don't feel good. I actually don't want to tell anyone about it.
A lot of that, it almost made me more insular, and I think made me less likely to talk to somebody about it because I didn't want my teammates knowing I was broke. I didn't want my friends knowing I had no money. You're trying to paint this picture of a successful athlete, when actually it's just a load of smoke and mirrors. That's what it was for me. Where I'm like, actually, I'm pretending to be somebody here because that's who I think I have to be. Whereas I wish I'd have thought, do you know what? I'm not enjoying this in any way. I'm not enjoying playing sports. I'm actually only doing it as a means to an end of getting paid, so I could top up my betting accounts. Nothing about my life and career is going according to plan.
I wish I'd have known that now. It's only having the experience and understanding of it afterwards and being able to look back. It's like, I'd love to have another go at that and do things differently. But you're right, it's like nobody's ever prepared for that. And almost when you're involved in it, it's easy to pretend it doesn't exist or there's a different reason for it. So yeah, it probably made me think about that actually. You're right.
I would spend a lot of time probably focusing on, oh yeah, things went well. I just shot well and the confidence things. But I wouldn't go back. I mean, this was definitely something I wouldn't do, go back and look at those tapes. That's really what you're saying right now, is you've gone back and looked at it. In hindsight, you wish you would've done that sooner. It's this concept of taking the loss. It's same as chasing wins, but it's just admitting the loss. Because once you do that, once you say, “Hey, I got my ass kicked today,” then you can go look at the film and start to see it and say “Why?”
Because maybe it is. I mean, in basketball, maybe you took two extra dribbles before you shot the last foul shot and that's why you missed it. You got out of your rhythm. So, it's like, okay, seeing those things. Or maybe you're setting up and you don't see the guys lined up in the same spot every time. Just when you're on the field, you didn't even notice he was there. So, he blindsided you every time. That's where stepping away and being able to see the film and having coaches help guide through and that's where I think mental coaches help. Right?
But yet, if everybody else has seen it, that's the reality. Like gambling, at some point everybody else sees it. I mean on the field, when they're calling it from the press box and the coaches see it, the announcers see it, they're like, “Wow, they're lining up in the same formation every time and they just are not reacting.” We just have to admit that loss. We get in our own way.
That's the reality of what it is. You're right in every way. It's really easy to talk about and deal with successes. It's really hard or it's uncomfortable to talk about things that don't go as well.
That should be across the board in all aspects of life really, but it's a really good sporting analogy, to concentrate on things that don't go as well because that's what helps you get better.
If you sit and reflect on it and say, “Look, what needs to change? Was it a performance thing? Is it a skill thing? Is it a confidence thing?” Whatever it is, it's looking at it and unpacking it and understanding it. Betting is in many ways the same. You will know when you've got stressed or feel anxious or you're chasing something because you have all that cloud of adrenaline and everything. Ultimately, that's when everything usually goes wrong. It's really easy to always look for the positives. Like most people say, people only talk about the wins.
All my teammates used to come in, “Oh, look at this. Look at this accumulator,” or parlay you would call it. “I hit this last night. I won $750 from $5.” No way are they ever walking into practice and going, “Look at my parlay from last night. I lost $5 because eight out of 10 of the teams lost.” It's not interesting and nobody wants to talk about it. They only want to talk about the successful things. That's why you get a lot of shouting about people that do win. I suppose operators in many ways portray that, how much you can win. So, I think there is a lot of synergy and a lot of links between the sporting stuff and other things, especially this. But yeah, very easy to talk about winnings, very easy.
It's no different as a golfer. It's like, oh, the last hole, the wind came up and I got unlucky. It knocked the ball down and put it in the water. That's why I lost by two. It's like, well, who pulled the club? Who didn't measure the wind? Who didn't plan ahead? That was me.
It's a lot easier to point fingers elsewhere. I think that's the common thing. It's hard to take that full accountability and to take those losses and especially when we start getting the ego in as athletes and everybody's telling us how great we are. It's tough.
I talk about this in my sessions when trying to help people understand actually how it feels to have this as an issue, because that's really hard when we're looking to identify this in a person. You can easily see when somebody starts being late for practice or they have an argument with a coach or a teammate, normal things which are very normal in sport and in life. Those things, they've happened all of the time. Then you've got people on the phones constantly, getting overly emotional watching sport, whatever it is. Suddenly a little bit more, I wonder why that may be happening.
It's really easy to say and to see those things and to see what people are doing, but it's really hard to understand how they feel. That's the thing that I think stops people from having positive conversations, because it's really hard to empathize with something that you don't understand. I talk about that a lot. If you ask somebody, “How would you feel as a problem gambler?,” and 99.9% of people I think would say, “Oh, you must feel stressed, irritable, anxiety,” all of those negative things. I'm like, “Yeah. Most of the time that's where I sat. I sat in that place of horror,” but what kept me going was the occasional upshot. I think that's where this is different than any other issue.
I don't know if you have an issue with alcohol, for example, the more you take it, the more you need it. When it starts to become a problem, it only generally tends to get worse. With this, I think I always thought I could solve all my problems with it because all I needed to have is your day in the sun, where everything hits and you can pay all of your debts off and your problems are solved.
I think that's a very different scenario than other issues. I say, “Yes, absolutely. All of the shitty stuff that you can see on that board, I felt the majority of the time. But you know what? I could cope with that because every now and again, I'd have that feeling of euphoria or replicating the buzz of how good it felt to win my money or what I wasn't getting out of sports.” So, as bad as it is and how hard it makes you feel, and in many ways it's almost by bipolar because you can be up and down, up and down, up and down all the time, emotionally that's really hard to deal with.
But people understand that you can almost cope with the negative side of stuff because of the occasional positive. That's like that in many things. We always look for the good stuff and hide from the bad stuff. So yeah, I think it's a very valuable learning skill, I guess, is to understand and talk about the things that don't go well and try and find ways of mitigating those and improving those and make sure it doesn't happen again. This is something that absolutely falls under that banner, I think.
With gambling, it is a possible way out. Every gambler's thought is, I'm going to get back to even, I'm going to quit and I'm never going to do this again. In the head of the gambler, that makes a lot of sense. The flaw in that is the moment that you win and get back to even, nobody's ever going to quit. Now it's like, “Hey, I'm brilliant. I'm on a heater. I'm really, really good at this.” So, that's just a fantasy. That's where, if you can plan, it's almost like having a game plan and saying, “All right, if we get down to the one, we're going to run this play.” But then you realize that there's zero chance in hell that the play is ever going to be successful because the other team knows exactly what you're going to do at that point and you're not going to change up your strategy. You're just going to keep going ahead.
It's the same thing. When we play it forward, run the tape forward, try and project in the future, I mean that's what's always helped me to understand. There's never going to be a winning big enough. I mean, at that point then I'll just keep going. So, you just keep increasing the risk. You don't drink more to help quit. You don't take more opioids to get off them. It's tough.
That was a really weird feeling because, A, I almost tried to delude myself into the fact that I didn't have it anyway. It wasn't my money, so it didn't really matter. But also, the fact that the reality is if I'd have gotten to $220,000 that we all know that there was no way that I would stop and pay my mortgage off. That was the end.
Again, the whole stress and anxiety of debt-hiding behaviors, all of those things, I ended up also taking sleeping pills to try and turn my brain off. Which again, was so detrimental to both my mental health and my athletic performance, but they were just all interlinked. I'll never forget it is, but I never really understood that until treatment and getting to the other side of it.
When you're involved in it, it's really difficult to have to think in the right way, think in a normal way and think ethically, that makes you make the right decisions.
Ethically, that makes you make the right decisions because I always made the wrong decision. But you're right, it's some hell of a drug because when you've got it, you're like, “Oh, my God. I've got $100,000.” But it's not enough, is it? It's like I need more. I want to make X. And there's always a figure. There's always a figure though. I was like, make it that.
And even with that, you look at the billionaires of the world and they're trying to outdo each other and try and just keep going. So, it's a drug that enough is such a powerful thing. I was listening to a podcast and the guy, he was an investor and had made a ton of money investing, and he was talking about these guys and they're all comparing their yachts and their boats. And he looked at the one guy and he said, “I have something you'll never have.” And the guy looked at him and says, “Well, what's that?” Because the guy had this bigger boat and everything. He goes, “I have enough.” He's like, “I'm good. I will continue to make things, but I don't need it.” And that's like a lesson that's part of this with gambling. But I think that's a way we could build a bridge and understand because we look at our friends. Why are we concerned about our young kids and Instagram?
Because they look at their friends and they're like, “Oh, they're traveling.” I'm 40. We just came back from a trip and within weeks, not even a week, we have a friend that's booked the exact same trip. Now, hopefully that's because they just enjoy it. And it was a hell of a good time. We were hiking and doing all that. But you have to stop and say, “Why am I doing this?” Is it just because you want to? And I don't know, I think there's a lot there that we all could kind of see something in our lives where we're trying to improve, level up. Right?
The money was just a kind of added, well, bonus on occasions, but most of the time it was something that I didn't have any of. So yeah, I do think about that. And I sat there and for 20 minutes thought, “I wonder why they just are never happy or I wonder why it's never enough?” But then I thought about my own stuff and kind of understand because it must be the individual, an obsession or obsessive wanting to be successful, whatever it is, to kind of keep you going. And in many ways, I suppose this is similar, it's just a desire to not be a failure, or desire to be successful, or desire for people to look at you in a certain way. I don't know. It's quite sad, I think actually. It's a really sad thing for people never to be content.
And I think it's just a matter of almost if we understand it. Going back to the playbook, if we understand it, we understand where it goes really south, where it goes off the tracks, and goes really wrong, and where it can go really well. And just constantly, it's almost like this tightrope we're walking where we're all on it and we just have to keep balancing and keep checking in with ourselves, with people around us.
And only we can decide what is enough for us and what we're trying to achieve. But I don't know, it's challenging in my opinion, one of the most challenging things we have as humans is trying to figure out this equation. Why do we drive for these things? And yet also why wouldn't we drive for these things? Why wouldn't we try to improve? Because we want to live a better life. We want to be a better person for our spouse, for our kids, for our community. And so, it's that same damn thing. And maybe that's it in a lot of ways. When I was gambling, it was so selfish. In a lot of ways, it was all about my ego and filling my things. And when we started doing things as community, I think that maybe that's one of the things that's different.
So, there are all these trade-offs that we have. And I don't know, it's just such a fascinating thing. And I'm a firm believer, and that's why I really like what you're talking about, connecting and creating empathy with these kids because they're not going to be able to understand the gambling stuff unless they've had it. But the more that we can identify these and tell stories that they connect with as athletes, you guys have just a real deep connection I think you can form quickly because you have that shared connection of being an athlete. So that's cool. It'll be interesting to see as you continue to develop and grow with it.
I can now comprehend why it can happen to somebody in our shoes.” And that's all you can really hope for and ask for. And then say, “Look, here is how things can change if you do start to bet. these are the things to look out for. Are you doing any of these things? Sit and take it in. Look at this whole spectrum of how gamblers are. And if you are at this side and it doesn't mean anything to you, if you are doing your $10 parlay once a week on a Friday and if it wins you go treat everybody to dinner or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Well, actually it's real easy for that to change.” And obviously, for one person it can be an injury or a big win. For somebody else, it can be a bereavement or a relationship breaker, it could be anything.
Reality is it's like a lot of these life events that happen and are likely to happen for people that you don't deal with very well, or you try and block out, or escape from that lead you down that path. And I think it is cool to see people resonating with it even though they might not truly understand the ins and outs of what a gambler's mind works like. Because let's be honest, none of them are counselors or psychotherapists as are the coaches that we're trying to give this information to. And it's almost like, here is enough information for you to better understand. And for a coach what is a positive outcome to spot somebody who might be struggling with it? It might actually just be the little conversation that you have that triggers something in the thought to make them go and talk to somebody about it.
You're not going to be the person that cures all the problems. But actually, if there is anything going on, you create that empathetic environment where it's okay to talk about things and it's okay to talk about emotions, that kind of thing. Then if you create that environment from the start, you've got a better chance of engaging with people who are struggling, whether it's with this or anything. And if you get there and you get to that point, it might be just, “Hey, look I can see something's not quite right here. Just want to let you know that I'm here to listen, and to understand, and hopefully we can, whatever it is that you've got going on, we can work together to find a solution.” Imagine if somebody says that to you. The reality is that you're involved in sports, if you are doing something you shouldn't be, you're not performing, you're struggling, the finger comes straight out, it's like you are causing me a problem.
And that's the way sport is and it's the way sport has always been. And that makes people who are struggling with certain things potentially run away and almost make them more vulnerable. So, it's almost creating that understanding supportive network that makes people go, “Actually, I feel comfortable if I have got an issue talking about it. And maybe by talking about it we can make a few changes and then everything will be fine.” Before ultimately trying to deal with everything yourself, getting yourself right in the sheet, and then having to go to treatment to be able to understand it. And I think that's what we're trying to achieve, a supportive environment, culture. Also, give people enough information to understand the relationship with betting, if it is anything at all. And how easy it is to change. And if it does, then there's a network of people around them that makes it okay to talk about.
Because that's the environment you want. I want to create an environment for my kids that if they've got an issue they can come to me, and we can talk about it, and we can hopefully find a solution. I don't want them to be scared of coming to me because they think I'll shout at them or they'll think I'll be disappointed. I think that's almost transferable to sport, it's transferable to life. If you can create an environment where it's okay, and you're trying to deal with things in the right way, and be supportive and empathetic, then most of these things can be dealt with. And I think that's probably where we are and what we're trying to get to.
In a lot of ways, and this is something I've been on recently, is there's a concern of normalizing gambling. But it's almost like we need to normalize gambling and we need to normalize healthy understanding of gambling. For some people that's going to be to not gamble at all. For other people, it's going to be a little bit. But having that conversation, understanding it, this is not going away. And so, we do need to come up with what are the best strategies and preparing coaches to look for problems, preparing parents to look for problems.
Not only just look for problems, but understand how to have effective interventions, or interactions is probably a better word, because it's really hard. I think that's the thing that I get the most incoming requests for is how do I deal with this? And usually you ask, “Okay, what are you doing?” And it's all the wrong things first of all. And so, that educational piece is a huge part of it. Do you notice that the coaches and the support staff around the university, they're probably the most engaged? Not that the kids aren't, but they really get that. Do they start to see how that can really help them?
It's almost saying to them, “Look, this is actually part of that, and this is something that can massively derail that whole mental performance if you don't understand it. So, we're not trying to tell you that all of the other stuff isn't important. But what we are saying is if you've got one or more of these people, such as myself, that you are coaching, it's got a very, very high chance of that impacting both you, your environment, your team environment, and the organization that the kid represents.” I said, “Because of all these reasons, I was borrowing money off all my teammates. There was terrible mistrust amongst the group. That is not conducive to good performance. All of those things, I was taking sleeping pills, all of those things, my mental health was in the bin. I didn't want to come to practice.”
I knew all the people that were struggling with other things. But it's hard to say that when you are involved in your own stuff. So, I think what you're trying to get to with the coaches is a place where, “Look, performance is usually important and we get that. However, what we are saying is negative relationships with this can hugely impact that. And this is why, this is how. This is how it impacted me. This is how it can impact the team.” All of that which we've seen and we have examples of. And actually, a successful environment is that culture where people can be honest and upfront about their issues. And it's creating that cultural space where it's supportive, and empathetic, and not the old iron fist. I think the kind of message you're trying to give to the coaches and the athletic guys is, “Look, it's important because it's life and it's part of life.”
It's been legalized here. Obviously, we just being up so high it's been legalized here. That is going to change things for you. Do you want your kids walking off the field and being abused by somebody that's lost money? Probably not. Or do you need to prepare them for that? Absolutely. So, it's almost like, “Look, we're trying to give you enough information to prepare you for these eventualities and actually also tell you how negatively it can impact you.” So, I think from that perspective, it's doing its job. Because I did sort of worry that everything about a coach wants to just coach. Like you say, some people in sport, we like blocking out the bad stuff, but we like dealing with the good stuff. It's the same in many ways. So, I think we found a nice niche where we could go in and sort of say, “Look, this is the reality. And if you've got people like that, then it's going to impact you. And the better of an environment you can create then the more chance you've got.” I think we're doing all right up to now.
I think all of those for me have been far more beneficial than telling me to never carry more than a dollar if I go out. Because ultimately somebody that wants to find money to gamble with will find money to gamble with no matter how many things. So, I struggle with it in many ways because I think you're right, all we can do is provide information. And say, “Look, here is all the information I have. Make your own choice in what you're going to do with it because that's life.”
Everybody's got to make their own decisions. Hopefully, by informing them, and giving them things to think about, and talking about the risks, and how things happen for you helps them put context to that. Because it's never going to work if the NCAA tomorrow just went, “Nobody can bet on anything ever again.” That isn't going to solve every issue. It's not. If every pub got closed tomorrow, it's not going to solve every alcohol abuser. So, what you've got to do is you've got to give context, you've got to give information, and you've got to allow people to be adults and make their own choices. And I think that's where it gets lost sometimes.
And for me, that's the key thing is just talk. Having open dialogue with people. Everybody can have a different opinion, of course they can. I'm just saying, everybody's going to go about this their own way. This is just my experience and things I've learned from a long many years of having this as an issue and reflecting and getting support, and this is what I've come up with. Outside of that, it's just take what you can out of this. You don't have to take every single piece of information I give you on board, but if there's one thing that helps you make a change or there's one thing that appeals to you or you can resonate with, go with it. If that makes a positive change for you then great. Its job's done, isn't it? Because you can't just completely change the world. You can't ban everything. You can't ask people not to do things. It just doesn't work that way.
For me it's more about information and almost giving people choices, but choices with better information at hand where they can hopefully make better choices. I think that's where we are. I know you're very much in the same sort of boat from looking at your social media and your opinions, but I think we're in agreement on a lot of this stuff, it's just about having conversation, having debates, sharing opinions, and hopefully people finding their own way that works for them, which is all you need to do.
It will take, I don't know, X amount of prison sentences, suicides, whatever it may be. Unfortunately, that's the reality because what you can't see doesn't hurt you. I think that's an unfortunate fact of life, it's very easy to block out things that aren't impacting you directly. I think until it does for sports organizations, betting operators, the betting public, whoever it is, until it impacts them in a negative way, whether that be negative press, whether it's sanctions, whether it's integrity issues, I almost think it's going to take that for people to take it seriously, for it to become more in the spotlight, for it to be dealt with properly, to make progress. I think that's probably what will happen.
Hopefully we're at the place where we can provide this information now where everything's really new, especially in colleges and obviously going to do some work with the NFL Players Association and Major League Soccer as well and potentially baseball, basketball down the line. I think it's important that we've got that base to work from where, like we said before, we can provide a base level of knowledge and understanding to stop that many people getting to that point. I think that's all we can really do and hope for at the moment.
But that's where I think the education is a big thing and I think it's just going to come down to more and more people that just have to put this on the radar like drugs, like sex, everything else. It's like, “Hey, this is something on the radar. We've got to deal with that at a family level. We have to educate, we have to understand and continuously go to that playbook of what's working well, what's not working, go listen to what you guys are presenting, go check out these different things.” The more that we as a public kind of embrace the reality that this isn't something you can just ignore, that it's something that is here and at a family level, at a personal level, the more that we prepare for it, the better we are. Does it mean we're going to erase it from our family? No. Does it mean that we're going to have more tools? Absolutely. And that's really the thing that excites me about the kind of the work that you do because it's just bringing more and more awareness to it. You're putting a name and a face to it, but you're also just at that very individualistic level starting to kind of create an awareness and providing resources for people to go to learn more.
You're almost better off putting it out saying, “Look, this is some of the things we need to talk about. These are some of the risks. These are some of the things that can happen. Nobody's telling you that you can and can't do any of these things, but you need to understand what it means.” I'll do the same with betting. I'm never going to tell my kids that they can't do anything, but what I will do is I will provide my understanding and knowledge on the topic and say, “If you want to do it, I'm always here to talk to you about it because that's the reality, and I will talk to you about how it impacted me. I will talk to you about how easy it could impact you, but then you go off and make your own decision on it because, ultimately, you will soon be adults and that will be the reality. I can only give advice. When you leave this house, you go and do your own thing anyway.”
That's my philosophy. I think it should be the same as every other vice, every other risky sort of pastime that there may be. Most people will do it and it won't be an issue, but if you give people enough information there is less chance of that happening, and create a positive and supportive environment that people, if you've got issues and struggles, they don't hide it because I was very good at that. That's the one thing I wish I'd had done better is being comfortable talking to people about various things because I wasn't very good at talking to anybody about anything, really. I was very much, “I'll deal with everything myself.” Because that's the macho and ego driven thing to do, which again comes back to the sports analogy.
That's the way it works. That's the way anything works is, “Here's information. You go and put your own spin on it and work with it.” I think that's the way, I feel that that's the way. That's a positive way of going about most things. Rather than saying, “This is what you have to do. This is the only way you'll ever learn more about it or learn how to deal with things better.” It's, “Look, let's converse. Let's talk about all our experiences, share them, understand what they mean, have a conversation, find a pathway, find a sort of process and away you go.”
That's what we do because everybody's going to deal with this differently. Going to Auburn is going to be different than going to Cincinnati, than going to Ohio, than going to Clemson, than going to Miami. They're all going to want to deal with things differently. If everybody did the same thing, we'd live in a very weird world. I almost say, “Look, here is a number of things and here is a lot of information. Put your own spin on it and deal with this going forward in the best way you see fit. Any time you want to have a conversation or you're struggling with something, we're always here to talk.” That for me is the way to go. I think it'll hopefully be successful.
A lot of the things that you said really resonated with me given sort of some of the examples I've given. I was like, “Right, actually, yeah.” That whole success thing I think is huge, and I'm going to look into that and I think I'm going to start talking about that more as we go into do more of the educational pieces because actually that's a really important topic, especially to talk to the staff about it because everything that you do, and everything that you do as a parent, really, I suppose, is trying to prefer somebody to live as good of a life, as happy of a life, as successful of a life that they can. But actually, part of that is to talk about the risks and the negative impact and that's never the easiest thing.
I think the one thing I've took away from this is to, look, talk more about that and actually be okay with that, to say, “Look, I'm going to talk to you about some things that might not be comfortable, that aren't going to prepare you to be the greatest athlete in the world, but what it might do is it might prevent you from doing some of the same things we did, which ultimately wasn't hugely successful.” That in many ways is just as impactful and just as important as all of the success stuff. Yeah. Great.