Tyrone GAA star Conn Kilpatrick has opened up on the crippling gambling addiction which led to him stealing and borrowing money from friends and family.
The Edendork clubman, who won an All-Ireland senior title with Tyrone in 2021 in an impressive debut season for the Red Hands, spoke on the BBC’s GAA social podcast about his addiction this week.
Kilpatrick told Thomas Niblock on the podcast that gambling took over his life at the age of just 20 and led to him being £20,000 in debt.
“The gambling did take over my life, from a young age probably like 15 or 16 whenever I started,” the Tyrone star said.
“It started as simple as a couple of pound bet with my father and my brother, it was just a bit of craic between the boys in the house. There was no malice in it, it was a bit of bonding really more than anything.
“But as I got older it became more apparent, I was going into the bookies by myself and it did get a real hold on me where I was gambling every penny that I had.
“I was stealing money, I was borrowing money, I just went down the wrong path.
“It all came to a halt whenever three of my friends basically called over to my house and told my dad everything that they knew."
The midfielder was joined by fellow podcast guest and former Armagh GAA player Oisin McConville, who himself had gone through his own gambling problems.
Talking about having met Oisin to discuss his gambling addiction, Conn says he stopped gambling for more than a year before relapsing.
“I woke up in my bed one day and downloaded an app and started gambling again,” he said.
“I didn’t go to bed the night before thinking, I’m going to get up tomorrow and do this race.
“It’s not like something took over me but I just woke up and said I’m going to do a bet here today.
“I had stopped for about a year and a bit and then went back on it.
“The second time around, all online, I knew that I couldn’t go into the bookies because people already knew from the first time.
“Seeing the hurt again was probably the main thing, my mother and father going through it all over again when they thought everything was not too bad.”
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