Schwarz Tells His Story To Help Others

The Age

Wednesday August 22, 2007

Dan Silkstone

FORMER Melbourne forward and reformed gambling addict David Schwarz is finally out of debt - using his own story to prevent other sports stars from succumbing to "the punt".

Schwarz yesterday told a gathering of top sporting administrators that - more than two years after his last bet - in the past month, he finally had cleared the last of his seven-figure gambling debts. "It was a tremendous relief," he said.

After earning and squandering millions over a 13-year career, Schwarz is now rebuilding his life and his finances.

The one-time best-and-fairest winner revealed details of his fight against addiction at the Elite Sports Gambling Taskforce, a shared initiative between the State Government and the Essendon Football Club.

Administrators from several sports admitted that they needed to improve processes for identifying and helping athletes with gambling problems.

Collingwood's Eugene Arocca told the gathering: "Somewhat embarrassingly, we've got a responsible gambling policy for our (poker machine) venues but not our players."

After yesterday's meeting, several sports are set to collaborate on a strategy for tackling problem gambling. Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson suggested such an approach would be better than individual clubs trying to tackle the problem on their own.

"We've got to find a way of providing some independent expertise," Jackson said. "It's all about providing education first and then rehabilitation second."

He said athletes might be reluctant to seek help from within their club but would be less likely to hide their problem from independent people or organisations. He said gambling experts, as well as groups such as the AFL Players Association, would be ideal partners for such an initiative.

Schwarz now works as a television and radio commentator as well as an ambassador for a problem gambling initiative funded by the hotel and poker-machine baron Bruce Mathieson.

It is not easy to disentangle the world of elite sport from that of punting. Yesterday's event took place at Essendon's Windy Hill Social Club, which is full of poker machines.

Schwarz works for radio station SEN that advertises many leading bookmakers and betting agencies. But, he said, the station does not run such advertisements while he is on air.

He said during his time at Melbourne, he had never paid his own bills. The former Demon said that when his future wife moved into his house in 2003, he had no food in the fridge, the electricity had been cut off and his car was about to be repossessed. In a box on the floor were 6000 unopened bills.

© 2007 The Age

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