The ex-striker made 60 Premier League appearances (Picture: Getty)
Former Premier League and Championship striker Michael Chopra lost up to £2m gambling and says a team-mate stopped him from placing a £120,000 bet on one match.
Chopra has spoken openly about his battles with gambling addiction, previously revealing he had a spell at the Sporting Chance Clinic to address the problem.
The ex-Newcastle United, Cardiff City, Ipswich Town and Sunderland star has estimated he gambled away up to £2m and has said at times he played through injury to cover his debts.
Looking back at a ‘really bad’ period with his addition, Chopra revealed he once asked Newcastle team-mate Kieron Dyer to place a £120,000 bet on a Juventus game as he was already in debt with the bookmaker.
Dyer, a former England international, refused to place the wager and then told Newcastle and then-captain Alan Shearer that Chopra needed help.
‘Juventus were playing someone and I said to Kieron, “put £120 grand on”,’ Chopra recalled on The Central Club podcast.
‘He said, ‘I’m not doing it”. I was like, “Put it on!”. He said, “I can’t do it for you. If they lose, you’re £170,000 in debt.”
Michael Chopra played for several EFL clubs (Picture: Getty)
‘Juventus won. I came in and said, “That would have cleared the balance on my debt”. But he was looking out for me and not putting that much of a bet on for me.
‘I had the same agent as [Alan] Shearer so Kieron told him about it and said, “I think Chops has a problem with gambling… he has asked me to do this and that and owes a bookmaker this amount.”
‘I was £50,000 in debt with the bookmaker. Every player would have a different limit that they would pay off at the end of every month.
Kieron Dyer refused to put a £120k bet on for Chopra (Picture: Getty)
‘I was only on £2,000 a week at Newcastle. You chase it [the losses]. It didn’t help when you’re 17 and you’re on a plane going to Malaysia for pre-season and you’re watching all the lads play cards and there’s £40,000 or £50,000 in fifties on the table.
‘You’re thinking, it’s just the luck of cards. You could have three threes, the best hand, and walk away with £50,000. Little things like that probably got me attached to it.’
Chopra said he finally paid off his debt to the bookmaker with the signing-on fee he received following his move to Sunderland in 2007.
Chopra went into rehab for his gambling addiction (Picture: Getty)
After checking in to rehab during his career, Chopra said he was gambling ‘up to £20,000 a day’.
‘As the years have come along and I’ve earned more money I’ve started to gamble more,’ he said. ‘I was gambling up to £20,000 a day at times.
‘As soon as I’d step over the white line I would focus on football – but as soon as I got to the dressing room I would check my phone to see if I’d won.
‘As a gambler you want to be playing to get the appearance money. I was playing through injury to cover a debt.’
‘In my first season at Cardiff I had a gambling debt from when I was at Newcastle. I had to leave Cardiff and sign for another team to pay that debt off. I have probably lost between £1.5m and £2m on gambling.’
Chopra spent most of his career in the Championship but also played 60 games in the Premier League, scoring nine goals.
The most fruitful periods of his career came across two spells at Cardiff City, where he scored over 50 goals. Chopra was a regular for England at youth level but never earned a senior cap.
For more stories like this, check our sport page.
Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
