“Every club has boys playing poker in the back of a bus or plane to an away game, betting £100 or £200,” Steven Caulker tells The Athletic. “I was 19 when I was at Swansea City and we had a big gambling culture. We would go into casinos and play online in our (hotel) rooms.
“I remember sharing a room with someone who had been gambling. He had won, gone to bed and left me with his account. I said ‘I will transfer you £1,000 tomorrow’. By the time he woke up, the £25,000 in his account had gone.”
The former Liverpool and England defender Caulker’s anecdote is just one example of football’s relationship with gambling.
