Gaelic Games

‘I was caught’: Conn Kilpatrick admits dealing with gambling problem

The Tyrone All-Ireland winner details the financial and personal cost of addiction

Tyrone’s Conn Kilpatrick celebrates the All-Ireland final victory over Mayo. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho

Tue Oct 5 2021 - 11:12

Conn Kilpatrick has spoken publicly about how an intervention from family and friends allowed the Tyrone midfielder to overcome a gambling addiction. Speaking on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live, the All-Ireland winner opened up on the problem and detailed the financial strain the addiction caused, with debts at one point totalling over £10,000.

Three weeks ago Kilpatrick was celebrating All-Ireland success at Croke Park, but it was only three years ago in 2018 that an intervention forced him to confront his addiction.

“Three weeks ago was unbelievable, but compared to three years ago – obviously I had a gambling addiction and that’s when it all kind of came out at home,” Kilpatrick says.

“It was tough to take and tough to kind of admit it, but I’ve had lot of help from a lot of people.”

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“At the start it was quite innocent to be honest.”

“For example, whenever we were 16, 17 you were allowed to go up the town by yourself with your friends.

“My parents gave me a tenner to go to the chippy and maybe I had £2 change and I would go into the bookies. At that time we were kind of sneaking and not letting the staff see us because they knew maybe we were underage.

“We were playing maybe the roulette table and if I got that £2 back up to the tenner I saw that as that I got a free feed.

“That’s how innocent it started off and it just got gradually worse.”

Kilpatrick explains how he was aware of the problem and its ramifications, to the point where he found himself in financial difficulty despite earning money at work.

“At the start, and definitely to the end, it was about having the money to be able to do things and maybe pretend to people that you have all this money and maybe you are working hard” he admits.

“I was borrowing from friends and family, my brother, my granny, different friends and just anywhere where I could get the money.

“I was maybe saying that I needed to pay the car payment or I was going on holidays and was a bit short and I needed a bit more.

“To be honest, I could come up with a lie as quick as I could do anything. Whatever I needed to say to get it, I probably did say it.

“In the back of your mind you know that you have a problem and I have had many a conversation with myself on the way home from the bookies thinking I had that money there, why did I gamble it all again? I had the money to clear my debts and do whatever I wanted and get whatever, a car I wanted or go on a holiday.

“It just obviously never worked out that way.”

It took an intervention from friends three years ago for Kilpatrick to come clean about his addiction.

“In 2018 when it first came out, I didn’t come to the forefront and say ‘I have an addiction’, I was caught” he explains.

“Three of my closest friends landed down to my house and they’d just heard too much. They landed down and told my parents. I was actually at my girlfriend’s house and I got the phone call from my father and he said ‘Come on home here’ and I just knew by the tone of his voice that you’re caught.

“I just remember landing home and my brother turning around to me and goes ‘He (his father) knows everything, you may come clean and just tell.’ I just knew then and I sat in the living room and my father came in and I just knew by him that he knew it all.

“He just said ‘Look, these three boys are landing down and I’ve just been off the phone to them and I just want you to tell us what’s going on.’”

There were bumps along the road to recovery. A year later in 2019, Kilpatrick once again found himself placing a bet. It led to further difficult conversations with his family.

“I just woke up and something kind of took over me, it’s hard to explain but I never had the idea of going back on it the night before, the week before, I just kind of woke up and started again.”

“Again I was caught by one my friends. I just borrowed again from too many people and he had got wind of it.

“He just rang my father and told him, “He was just distraught.

“My mother wasn’t in the house at the time, she was up at my granny’s and I begged and pleaded with him not to tell her and that I would get through it with him. He obviously couldn’t not tell her.

“He rang her and she came down to the house and we sat in the same living room that I sat in the year and a half before and just had to get everything restarted again.”

Fast forward to now, and an All-Ireland winner’s medal is testament to the effect coming clean has had both on Kilpatrick’s football career and his life as a whole.

“I’ve been off it now a year and a half and it has changed my life, both on and off the pitch,” he says.

“I can go to bed sleeping at night without worrying about who I owe money to, about where I’m going to get the money tomorrow.

“I can go to training. In the past I was going to training to probably get away from it and take a break from it but it was still hindering my football.

“Now I can go to training fully focused on the pitch and know what I have to do and know that nobody has anything to say to me.”

“Whenever I was caught it was still a weight lifted off my shoulders and if you’re big enough to own up then you deserve far more credit that you think you’re worth.”