Ahead of the NFL playoffs in the 2025-26 season, a New England Patriots star wide receiver penned a brave first-person account of his gambling addiction on FanDuel Sportsbook.

Kayshon Boutte wrote about his struggles with an addiction to sports betting during his time at Louisiana State University. He specifically mentioned FanDuel.

“I fell in love with gambling,” the 23-year-old began his article in The Players’ Tribune. “I know that might sound crazy to some people, but every addict out there is nodding their heads, like, Damn, that’s real. You really feel in love with it.”

He continued: “I’d wake up early in the morning, and the first thing I’d do was bet. I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. I had insomnia, so if I woke up in the middle of the night, phone next to the bed, I’d bet. Any little money I had, it was going straight to FanDuel.”

Betting app developers design the product to be habit-forming. Academic research has shown that the industry’s so-called “responsible” gambling tools are ineffective—and they place the blame on the user of a harmful and predatory product.

Below are excerpts of Boutte’s experience with FanDuel and how he managed to get his life on track to become one of the best receivers in the NFL.

On chasing losses

I knew I was addicted. When you lose, and you’re an addict, there’s this voice in the back of your mind like, No, no, no…… I gotta get my money back. I GOTTA get it back.

But even when you win, it’s never enough — you aren’t satisfied just winning $1,000. Don’t get me wrong, a bag is nice. But nobody gambles for that kind of money. Gambling is about the dream. Everybody’s dream is to go to the casino and hit for $100K … $300K … $500K. And a lot of gamblers think that if they quit, it would end up being right before their biggest hit, before they would have tripled up on some parlay.

10x, 20x. Why not? That could be me. That’s the mindset that always kept me hanging on. What if I do quit, but one day, I would’ve hit this, and we’da been on a boat somewhere, living off it [gambling]?

Gambling is a complicated thing, dawg. Especially with the apps.

You know how the casino don’t got no windows, or clocks? It’s all a mind game. They don’t want you thinking about the outside world. They don’t want you to look out the window, see the sun done gone down, and realize how long you been gambling. Well, the phone is like that, too, in its own way. I’d be in my own world. Laying in bed, in the dark, in pain, with the light glowing on my face. It was a lonely experience. 

Like you in an empty casino, alone at the blackjack table. Adding more money to the account, and more money, and more money, with the press of a couple buttons. You lose touch with reality. It gets to a point where it feels like the money ain’t even real. But it is real, because in the real world, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Waiting on NIL checks to clear.

On hitting rock bottom

It’s sad when I think about how, as a kid, my ability to dream was an asset. That’s what got me to LSU, and later, all the way to the NFL. But as a gambling addict, my dreaming was my biggest liability. It was like my own mind was working against me. 

Then one day, I shoveled that last little bit of dirt over my head — I had nothing left. I gambled until I was completely broke. When it was all said and done, I put in around $90,000 of my own money, and lost it all. That’s like taking a duffle bag stuffed with 90 bands and just emptying it over a bridge or something. Throwing it in the wind. Dollars floating away. Gone.

On how a college injury lead him to gambling

So how do you escape when none of the escape routes are working? How do you get that feeling back of competing?  You start gambling.

That’s how I ended up going down a dark road. That’s how I ended up pacing around my apartment at 3 o’clock in the morning, betting on whatever I could bet on at that time of night. I don’t even know….. It honestly didn’t matter. You’re just caught in the cycle.

That’s how I damn near ruined my life.

I wish I could tell you I came to my senses on my own. But honestly, only two things saved me. One was getting healthy enough to play football again. The other was becoming a father, as a junior in college. Nothing wakes you up faster than that.

On the Patriots drafting him despite an underage gambling charge

And I owe the Patriots organization everything, because after the season ended, my past came back on me. I had to deal with the gambling stuff resurfacing. I got arrested for gambling underage while I was at LSU, and before the charges got dismissed, they cuffed me and everything. 

Look, I take full responsibility for my own actions, but I won’t lie, it felt like they were making an example out of me. That part didn’t feel good, just knowing how bad I had been struggling. Especially thinking about how this type of thing is happening on campuses all over, and other kids are probably struggling, too. But I did what I did, so I took it on the chin.

How many of those 32 teams would’ve just walked away at that point? Especially from a sixth-round pick. But the organization knew my heart, and they stuck by me.

On empathy for problem gambling

So if I have a message for the football world, I guess it’s this: Don’t give up on these kids, man. I know there’s more stories like mine out there. Betting is just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger. Gambling is what it is. I’m not here to preach. It’s going to exist. But people who are in a dark place, they’re gonna use it to escape.

I’m not one to usually do this much talking, and now, I’ve said a whole lot. So I’ll just wrap this up here and leave y’all with this: The next time you see a headline about a gambling story, and somebody going down for it….. Just remember that there’s a person behind that headline.

When you ask yourself, “How could they do something like that? How could they risk it all? What were they thinking?” The sad part is, they weren’t thinking. They were going through something. Don’t give up on them.  Maybe they just need some help.