The problem with betting on sports, as an individual engaged in the sport itself somehow, is the potential for influencing the result. Famously in the US, one of baseball's greatest players has been "banned" for life - excluding him from Hall of Fame recognition - because he bet on baseball as a player and later a manager. His defense is that he only bet on his own team to win.

Here's why that's a problem. Unless you bet on your team every game, you have the ability to adjust tactics and players, saving them for the games you've bet on and sacrificing games you haven't. In Barton's case, maybe he coasts in a game he didn't bet on, saving himself for the next one that he did. Maybe he tries to crock an opposition player whose team he bet against in their next game.

Of course, Barton is right when he accuses football of hypocrisy in its relationship with betting. Doesn't mean he's not a t*** for breaking the rules, but football shouldn't be slapping players for betting with one hand and accepting bookies' sponsorship money with the other.

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

I will get roasted for this, but i have always liked Barton. Passionate player who is sometimes an idiot, like everyone else. I even bought a GQ with him on the cover

When you’re knocked on your back and your life’s a flop...

He didn't abide by the rules. And did so in a way that has been caught (plenty of footballers are known to be gamblers, including on football). So he got banned.

The problem is that football does have a very unhealthy and ambiguous relationship with gambling. The companies are clubs involved are happy to get in bed with the big betting firms and get their players involved with the betting firms at all levels, but then hypocritically expect their players to not indulge.

Still he was stupid. And his ban has effectively ended his career.

"It's almost like a moral decision. Except not really cos noone is going to find out," Jez, Peep Show

I am with you Michaela Barton is a Prize Grade A Tosser.
He always commenting on everybody else's business, loves twitter and thinks he's F*^king clever!
Now he trying to plead against breaking betting rules.
Surely Barton should have said years ago I am a gambling addict I need some help, professional advice please. That's being Clever!
But no just wait another 9 years place another 1,100 bets and wait till somebody notices. That's being a Tosser!
Trouble is I bet (and I can as I am not a footballer) he will now end up as a football pundit on TV dragging down the glamour (even more) of the pre-match entertaiment!!

I love that, as if somehow a legal betting company, which is not involved in any criminal activity, is somehow worse.

Only if Bet365 have violated the UK gambling laws, put a cigar out in a kids eyes, been convicted of two assaults so on and so forth....

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Yep and part and parcel of the whole celebrity culture we live in now. Everything is on Twitter, commented on and out there

When I was a young girl my Mother said to me.. You listen here kid you're CPFC