{"id":293545,"date":"2023-10-19T18:23:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T18:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=293545"},"modified":"2023-10-19T18:23:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T18:23:59","slug":"gabriel-agbonlahor-reveals-he-became-addicted-to-poker-while-at-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/gabriel-agbonlahor-reveals-he-became-addicted-to-poker-while-at-villa\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while at Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while Aston Villa as he was &#8216;BORED&#8217; after training and claims a &#8216;lot of players at the club&#8217; suffered from the same issue<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gabriel Agbonlahor started playing poker to kill time after training<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The former Aston Villa player claims several of his teammates did the same<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s podcast &#8216;It&#8217;s All Kicking Off!&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Gabriel\u00a0Agbonlahor has revealed he became addicted to poker when he played at Aston Villa and that several of his teammates suffered the same issue.<\/p>\n<p>The former England striker told talkSPORT on Thursday that he started playing poker online due to being bored after returning home from training.<\/p>\n<p>Players used to finish training at around 12:30pm-12:45pm during Martin O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s five-year spell in charge of Villa, and some of them turned to online casinos to pass the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I was on good money at Aston Villa at the time. It was more about being single with no kids and living with a couple of kids,&#8217;\u00a0Agbonlahor said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Coming back from training, we used to finish quite early with Martin O&#8217;Neill at around 12:30pm &#8211; 12:45pm.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/19\/14\/76753877-12649367-Gabriel_Agbonlahor_has_revealed_he_became_addicted_to_poker_whil-a-19_1697722307375.jpg\" height=\"553\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Agbonlahor has revealed he became addicted to poker while at Aston Villa<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;You&#8217;ll be bored, you&#8217;ll get your laptop and play your poker online.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Agbonlahor, who scored 86 goals in 391 appearances for Villa in all competitions, added the online platforms soon turned to real life casinos.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Then you may go to the casinos in the evening and before you know it you are playing with the big dogs,&#8217; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It becomes an addiction, it happened to a lot of players at the club.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;For me it was never [about] betting on football. It was more the poker.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Agbonlahor&#8217;s comments come as a betting scandal has rocked Italian football over the past week involving Juventus midfielder Nicolo Fagioli, Newcastle&#8217;s \u00a352million summer signing Sandro Tonali and Aston Villa star Nicolo Zaniolo.<\/p>\n<p><span>Fagioli became the first player to speak directly to prosecutors after news broke last week, and on Tuesday, the 22-year-old was handed <\/span>a seven-month ban<span>\u00a0from football.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Under Italian regulations athletes are forbidden from betting on the sports in which they participate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/19\/14\/76753987-12649367-image-a-17_1697722209018.jpg\" height=\"409\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The former Villa striker said several of his teammates suffered from the same issue<\/p>\n<p> The trio\u00a0had their electronics confiscated \u00a0last week as part of the investigation, which also saw the Italian national team&#8217;s training camp raided by the authorities as they sought to interview Zaniolo and Tonali.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As reported by <span>Mail Sport<\/span>, Tonali could learn the length of his ban for illegal betting as early as next week but remains available for Newcastle&#8217;s clash against Crystal Palace on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Italy international faces up to a year-long ban if found guilty after\u00a0admitting on Tuesday to placing bets on former club AC Milan\u00a0to win games.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/19\/14\/76753883-12649367-image-a-7_1697722071068.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali faces a lengthy ban for betting on games in Italy<\/p>\n<p>Tonali flew to Italy on Tuesday to cooperate with the prosecutors heading the investigation, while his agent admitted the Newcastle midfielder was addicted to gambling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Sandro is playing an important game against gambling addiction &#8211; he will win this one too,&#8217;\u00a0Giuseppe Riso said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;d like to thank Newcastle who have always stood by Sandro. He is in shock, shaken and sad.<\/p>\n<p>Zaniolo, meanwhile, has steadfastly maintained he has not taken part in illegal betting and returned to training ahead of Villa&#8217;s home game against West Ham on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12649367\/Gabriel-Agbonlahor-raddicted-poker-Aston-Villa-BORED.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while Aston Villa as he was &#8216;BORED&#8217; after training and claims a &#8216;lot of players at the club&#8217; suffered from the same issue Gabriel Agbonlahor started playing poker to kill time after training The former Aston Villa player claims several of his teammates did the same Listen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while at Villa - Sports Life Tale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/gabriel-agbonlahor-reveals-he-became-addicted-to-poker-while-at-villa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while at Villa - Sports Life Tale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gabriel Agbonlahor reveals he became addicted to poker while Aston Villa as he was &#8216;BORED&#8217; 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