How do I look after my finances?
Key Learnings
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Financial planning is important for everyone but especially for professional athletes as their playing career tends to be relatively short and unstable due to the risk of injuries.
Professional athletes are likely to enjoy peak earning and make 50-75% of their lifetime earnings before age 35.
Financial planning can be complicated. It is important to turn to a professional for financial advice; choosing the right people to advise you could be the difference between growing your wealth and losing everything.
Creating a budget and monitoring it at regular intervals will help you remain financially stable.
Stay out of financial trouble by being careful about your spending and ensuring you are aware of the risks of gambling and illegal sports betting.

The ‘need’ for competitiveness

Due to a number of personality traits that make athletes excel on the field, they are also more vulnerable to the dangers of gambling. Top athletes are actually three times more likely to be problem gamblers than the general public. In addition, for athletes who are unable to financially support themselves when their athletic careers hit a low or they are faced with retirement, gambling may seem like a solution to their financial woes.

Athletes’ competitive nature has the potential to ‘spill over’ from the playing field to their personal lives. Gambling provides athletes with an additional outlet in which they are able to compete. However, it is easy to build up a tolerance to the ‘adrenaline rush’ associated with competition, which can result in the need to remain actively competitive even when the activities are friendly or simply for fun.

Normally, when a loss takes place in gambling, the normal reaction for a person who is simply playing for entertainment, would be to not continue. However, the top athlete may begin to employ specific strategies (in how they gamble, when they gamble, and what they gamble on) with the mind-set that they can create situations which will result in a win.