{"id":532397,"date":"2026-06-12T23:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/532397\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T23:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T23:15:13","slug":"nrl-referee-ashley-klein-confirms-he-had-a-gambling-problem-after-report-claims-he-lost-400000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/532397\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL referee Ashley Klein confirms he had a gambling problem after report claims he lost $400,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top NRL referee Ashley Klein has confirmed he battled through a gambling addiction after a report suggested he had lost up to $400,000.<\/p>\n

Klein, who was responding to a report in the SMH<\/a>, said his gambling was only on horses and greyhounds and that he had never gambled on rugby league.<\/p>\n

“Many years ago I developed a problem with gambling on horse racing and greyhound racing,” Klein said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“This gambling was not related to any betting on rugby league, and my job as a referee has never been impacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I received help to deal with the problem and closed all associated betting accounts. This was a difficult period of my life but one which did not in any way influence my job as a match official.”<\/p>\n

Klein is set to referee State of Origin II on Wednesday in Melbourne, his 14th Origin in a row.<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages-2246774962\"<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein attending the Sydney Racing at Newcastle Racecourse in November 2025.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Jeremy Ng)<\/p>\n

There is no suggestion Klein ever gambled on rugby league and the NRL said it was aware of his situation.<\/p>\n

“The NRL first became aware of this matter in 2019, at which time it was investigated to the satisfaction of NRL management at the time,” the NRL said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The NRL subsequently took appropriate steps to ensure there were no breaches of NRL rules and policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“At no stage has Ashley Klein’s position as an NRL match official been impacted. The NRL takes proactive steps as a matter of course to provide education relating to rules and policy. Given this is an employment matter, it would not be appropriate to comment further.”<\/p>\n

NRL referees are banned from gambling on rugby league matches, but are free to gamble on other sports.<\/p>\n

The issue comes after the AFL was forced to act when it was revealed earlier in the year that umpire Nick Foot was employed by Sportsbet as a racing analyst<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Foot eventually stood down from his job<\/a> at Sportsbet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top NRL referee Ashley Klein has confirmed he battled through a gambling addiction after a report suggested he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[229147,18,5256,135,21050,19,17,167,502,31665,109935],"class_list":["post-532397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ashley-klein","tag-eire","tag-gambling","tag-health","tag-horse-racing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-nrl","tag-origin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116739685335359480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}