Luke Bateman earned $400K a year and gambled away every cent

$250K down, Luke Bateman reveals how he survived a 'shameful' gambling addiction Mon 27 Jul 2026 at 4:42am During his darkest chapter, things would go missing from Luke Bateman's apartment. "My partner would come home from work and be like, 'Where's this?' "I would've taken it to Cash Converters and sold it for cash so I could go and gamble," the former NRL player-turned-fantasy writer tells Australian Story. It was 2019, and Bateman was at the height of a debilitating gambling addiction so severe he couldn't afford to feed himself. He was a professional NRL player with the Canberra Raiders at the time, earning $400,000 a year. "I was so broke … I couldn't pay for anything. I couldn't buy groceries," Bateman says. "My gambling slowly progressed [until] it consumed my life. Every single thing I did revolved around that gambling app on my phone." Bateman says he felt in control of his habit until his gambling saw him lose tens of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks. "I had $70,000 or $80,000 in my bank account, and in the space of a month, I had nothing." Hitting rock bottom with his addiction and mental health, and then finding his way back again, has compelled Bateman to speak out about the federal government's gambling changes, which aim to limit gambling advertising. He says they would not have helped him through his hardest moments. "I was in so much debt … I was earning $400,000 a year, and I couldn't afford a lollipop," Bateman admits. "I don't think they [the proposed laws] will move the needle at all when it comes to gambling harm, " he says. "I'd love to call it the bare minimum, but I don't think they got even there." The legislation, which would cap the number of gambling ads broadcast per hour and ban advertising during live matches, was introduced into parliament earlier this month and is being scrutinised in a Senate inquiry. Bateman says the proposed changes do not "even come close" to reflecting community concerns on gambling, with researchers finding that the majority of Australians believe gambling is too easily accessible. "I would love to see all gambling advertising phased out, and for all incentives that gambling companies can offer a customer [to continue betting] to be banned," Bateman says. Australia has the highest per capita gambling losses in the world, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Bateman's passion for the issue could be enough to see him run for parliament one day. He tells Australian Story that a run at politics is "definitely a possibility". "I don't think parliamentarians are doing anywhere near enough in terms of protecting … young people from the harms that gambling companies and gambling itself causes." Loading...'Rugby league like a religion' Bateman grew up in the small town of Miles, about 400 kilometres west of Brisbane. He showed exceptional athletic ability from a young age, playing his first game of rugby league when he was four. "He was probably one of the better players in under-7s at four years old," his stepfather Don Hills says. "I remember his PE teacher saying to me, 'We'll be reading about this kid in later life. He's destined for big things,'" mum Leanne Bateman recalls. By the time he was 12, Bateman had represented Queensland in rugby league, touch football and swimming. It was around the same time that Bateman was scouted by NRL clubs at the state rugby league carnival. "We were approached by a couple of different scouts for different NRL teams. One was the Canberra Raiders," Leanne says. When the Raiders signed 12-year-old Bateman it was a big deal, not only for his family, but the whole community. "Growing up in the country, rugby league is like a religion out there," brother Sam Bateman says. "It would've been like extremely exciting for him, but also probably a lot of pressure for him as well." $80K gone: Luke's 'shameful' gambling habit Despite having an early aptitude for all things sport-related, Bateman says he was a "soft and gentle kid" who found solace in fantasy books. "I think what really drew me to those specific books was the sense of wonder … my world on the farm is so small, but my world in books is so big." But Bateman kept his love of reading hidden. "It was not something that men did. I never saw any of my male role models, my male heroes, reading books." So Bateman leant into sport instead. "Growing up I saw one dream as possible and that was the NRL dream. "I think all the other parts of myself really took a back seat to the athlete and the sporting part of me, because they weren't things that received praise," he says. The beginning of his NRL career was an exciting time for Bateman, now 31. "I was really just happy to be a part of the team," he says. But a feeling of doubt slowly crept in, and Bateman's 2015 NRL debut at the age of 20 brought up some unexpected feelings. "I'd worked my entire life to get to this moment … then I played the game and I remember thinking, 'Huh, that was really underwhelming.' "I thought that was a thing that would complete me. And then I came off the field and I thought, 'Oh, I'm still exactly the same.'" Bateman was enjoying the benefits of being a cashed-up, young sports star. But his gambling addiction, and the mental health impacts that went alongside it, were getting worse. After losing nearly $80,000 in one month, Bateman rang his mother and asked her to take control of his bank accounts. "Luke's gambling got really bad. He had no money. He would literally be borrowing off family and friends. He would regularly ask me to take control of his money and take it back again," she says. "They were very dark, hard times." Bateman's mental health deteriorated and he contemplated suicide. "I was just so filled with shame and I couldn't share it," Bateman says. "I was just in so much pain. I saw no way out." Leanne noticed the deterioration, too. "I rang the police in Canberra on two different occasions to go and do welfare checks on him. I rang the Canberra Raiders [welfare officer] on a couple of occasions." Leanne says Luke "did not appreciate" the checks and was in denial about needing help. Bateman acknowledges that he hid the worst of his addiction and mental health problems from the Raiders and did not seek support, believing that disclosing them could see him removed from the team. The Canberra Raiders would not comment on this story. Bateman goes bush to pay $130K debt One Monday in 2020, Bateman woke up in Newcastle after a three-day bender with no idea what happened or how he got there. "Something just broke within me and I [thought] I have two options: I either end my life, or I get help," he remembers. Instead of driving back to Canberra, Bateman headed north to Brisbane, straight to Leanne and Don's house. "I collapsed into her arms and I said, 'I need help.'" After years of resisting and insisting he could cope with his addiction on his own, Bateman agreed to go to rehab. It was around this time that he returned to one of his first loves, books. "I started reading because I was doing a lot of therapy and I was starting to try and change my life," Bateman says. After coming out of rehab, Leanne and Don sat Bateman down and gave him an ultimatum: they would absorb his debts, and he would go and work for Don in his logging business, which operated in remote locations in Queensland, to repay them. Bateman estimates his parents took on about $130,000 of his debt, which he recently paid off. "It was a turning point that he was then out of Canberra, out of the culture [of gambling and drug-taking]," Leanne says. Living outside of the city came with unexpected benefits: it would take several years before Bateman had access to the internet from his campsite. "All my gambling was done on my phone. So in the beginning, even if I wanted to gamble, I couldn't. [It] was fantastic for my recovery," he says. #BookTok success and controversy Bateman bought a campervan and buried himself in work. To pass the time, he'd listen to audio books in his tractor. It was here that his next big career move was made. He recorded a TikTok video for a part of the platform dedicated to lovers of reading, called #BookTok, from the tractor. "I made my first BookTok video because I literally just wanted some friends to talk about books with," he says. He uploaded the video at 8pm, hoping to wake up to a few comments from like-minded people. Instead, his video went viral. "I woke up the next morning and it had a million views," Bateman says. Loading...The #BookTok videos caught the eye of publisher Anthea Bariamis. "After seeing some of his content for several weeks, I thought it might be worth reaching out to see if he had written or was writing a book," she says. In the meeting, Bateman and Bariamis ended up speaking for hours about their shared love of fantasy. "He sent me a sample of his writing and I could absolutely see the potential … it certainly wasn't something he had come up with on a whim," Bariamis says. Bateman was working on his tractor when he found out he would be offered a book deal. "I just bawled my eyes out because I was so happy. It was the culmination of decades of something that I kept really secret and felt a lot of shame around." Bateman posted the news on #BookTok, eager to share the win with the community. But the reaction was not what he expected. "When I first announced my book deal, it received a heap of criticism and backlash," Bateman says. "People filled my comment section with really hateful, spiteful, vile comments." People had wrongly assumed Bateman was using a ghostwriter for his work and had been offered a deal without a fully sketched-out proposal. They also pointed out how difficult it can be for writers of colour to get book deals, a criticism Bateman acknowledges as fair. Bateman now has a three-book deal, with the first novel due in 2027. He says his "north star" is to help young men and boys through the power of storytelling, and he wants to use his platform to advocate for change, including reducing gambling harm. "I understand that I have the position, the power, and the voice that can create change, that can change people's lives, and I don't want to squander that." Watch Luke Bateman's Australian Story "Turning the Page" Monday 8pm (AEST) on ABC TV and ABC iview. Loading...