‘Go and die’: AFL urged to protect players from gambling abuse as horrific messages come to light

Punters flooded Josh Bruce’s Instagram messages with horrific abuse after games – and even his ACL injury. He and anti-gambling campaigners are calling on the AFL to step in to protect players.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – July 29, 2023. AFL . Bulldog Josh Bruce is helped to the rooms after appearing to in sure his knee in the 3rd qtr during the round 20 match between Western Bulldogs and GWS Giants at the Mars Stadium on July 29, 2023, in Ballarat, Australia. Photo by Michael Klein.

Josh Bruce didn’t think he could sink much lower after tearing his ACL last July but when he scanned his Instagram mentions he had another thing coming.

Bruce had endured mental health issues across much of a career spanning 11 years with the Giants, St Kilda and Western Bulldogs so the dark thoughts were never far away.

“When I did my knee I had a lot of messages from fans saying, “We love everything you have done for the club this year,” Bruce told this masthead on Wednesday.

“Then one comes in – ‘I am f***ing glad you have done your knee’. It was like, ‘Jesus Christ”.

Like so many AFL players Bruce was bombarded with negative messages immediately after games – even if he hadn’t played badly.

No matter the over-under line for a Josh Bruce goal tally that might boost a multi-bet, someone was always going to lose.

Former Bulldog Josh Bruce is helped to the rooms after appearing to in sure his knee in Round 20, 2023. Bruce said he copped abuse from fans all through his career. Picture: Michael Klein.

“For me the worst of it was in Covid because there was a lot of gambling with nothing else to do. The horse racing stayed on and the footy stayed on. And that was certainly when I was going through bad patches of form so I absolutely copped it. Abusive messages towards you, towards your family. Go and die, you are a sh** c***. A few funny ones as well. Here are my bank details. You owe me $100 for my multi.

“I have had pretty significant mental health issues across most of my career and it didn’t help. The bad patches, it exacerbated them. It cemented your worst thoughts about yourself.

“Everyone tells you, ‘Don’t read it’, but you are sitting there with your Instagram account and what else are you going to do?

“There is an option to filter out specific words so one day I went through and had to write the words that were hurting me. Whatever the explicit words were, Instagram can bar them. So I had to physically type them in about myself.”

Asked what the AFL’s responsibility was to try to help players out, Bruce was clear.

“You just nailed it. What are they going to do? They are making so much money off it, so it’s a massive catch 22 from my point of view. Even from outside looking in this year, it is crazy how much exposure there is to kids and little kids with betting ads. Even when you are doing your footy tipping there are odds up there,” he said.

“I had one guy messaging me which I screen-shotted. He was spraying me about what a bad game I had played and I looked back and the last message he had sent me was how apologetic he was about my knee injury. You can’t access horses or jockeys but you can hop on your phone and access players individually.”

ANTI-GAMBLING CAMPAIGNERS PUSH AFL TO ACT

Anti-gambling campaigners Easton Wood and Tim Costello have urged the AFL to do more to protect players from the assault of offensive messages directed at them over failed multi-bets every single weekend.

Collingwood pair Jack Crisp and Lachie Schultz have both highlighted the stream of offensive and abusive messages that players receive after punters fail to hit multi-leg bets involving players’ stats or goals.

Costello said on Wednesday just as social media had led to the “pornification” of society, AFL players were now being targeted as part of the “pornification” of the AFL.

He has pushed hard to stop all advertising of sports gambling but said the AFL should consider whether to stop multi-bets involving players given the persistent level of abuse.

Former Western Bulldogs captain Easton Wood told this masthead the persistent drip-feed of abuse took its toll on players.

Bulldogs premiership captain Easton Wood says the constant abuse of players was harming players’ mental health. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images.

“It’s the kind of thing that just builds up over time. We are so heavily scrutinised for our performance and the last thing you want when you are trying to play a team role is copping abuse from people who don’t care about you and are in it for a quick buck,” he said.

“It’s a sad development. Social media is at fever pitch and when you feel the weight and volume of that amount of abuse it has to have an impact.”

Former Collingwood star Travis Cloke warned recently he feared a player might self-harm over the persistent social media trolling and the proliferation of multi-bets has only added to the likelihood of a player being targeted.

Costello said the league needed to consider its obligations to players

“The AFL is failing in their duty of care to protect their own players. They have a duty of care to protect them from copping that abuse. It’s immoral,” he said.

“The AFL gets three bites from the gambling dollar. Free to air broadcasting rights pumped up by sports betting, they get a clip on every bet and they get sponsorship from the gambling companies.

“If you are a gambling addict and love your footy you are triggered by gambling advertisements. The lure for those people who are addicted is as strong as heroin. So where does a person who is gambling fall back on to direct their anger – the footballers? They are sadly as mistreated as greyhounds and horses.”

Tim Costellosays the AFL is failing its duty of care to players. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

The AFL and AFLPA conduct induction sessions and have welfare staff who help players block private messages and put on filters to try to reduce the torrent of abuse.

But players are also desperate to monetise their social media accounts _ often with paid promotions _ so are keen to build followers without making their accounts private.

Clubs do have success when they elevate concerns to the AFL’s integrity team with racist abuse and accounts pretending to be players.

But the league is aware there is only so much it can do to track down accounts with fake names given the trouble finding those involved.

The AFL has had some success with the E-safety commissioner tackling levels of online vilification but continues to run into barriers with social media giants like Instagram and X.

The AFL is also aware if it did ban multi-bets involving players it might drive that market underground.

Schultz told the Herald Sun last week his new-found profile at Collingwood saw him targeted given he had missed out on kicking goals in some early games.

“People read so much into stats and don’t know enough about what certain roles are on the field so, yeah I had to turn off my messages to the public. As soon as I didn’t kick a goal my inbox would just light up.”

The AFL’s inclusion and social policy general manager Tanya Hosch said in 2022 the prevalence of fake accounts made it “incredibly hard” to trace people online.

“We put our reports of this material through our integrity department which is staffed almost entirely by former police who have got significant experience in investigation work … It frequently leads us to a dead-end because of the identities not known to us.”

Originally published as ‘Go and die’: AFL urged to protect players from gambling abuse as horrific messages come to light