Patriots’ Kayshon Boutte opens up on gambling addiction

Patriots wide receiver Kayshon Boutte candidly detailed the gambling addiction that nearly cost him his football career in an essay published in The Players’ Tribune on Wednesday. 

The third-year NFL player described how he had become addicted to gambling while playing for LSU after he suffered an injury, and that it cost him $90,000 and nearly denied him from his NFL dream. 

“I was 20. I was at LSU. Full ride. Whole future ahead of me. And I didn’t care at all,” he wrote in the essay. “Some people hit the slots, the tables, the apps, spend what they can spend, and go home — or put the phone down. Not me. 

“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.

“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.”

Boutte said his lowest moment came when he 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,” he wrote. “That’s like taking a duffel bag stuffed with 90 bands and just emptying it over a bridge or something. Throwing it in the wind. Dollars floating away. Gone.

“At a certain point, when you hit rock bottom, every gambling addict has this moment when you layin’ in bed just seeing $0.00 on the app. And you know that’s your last.”

Boutte, 23, said becoming a father, in part, eventually helped him turn his life around. He wanted to live up to the standard that his own dad had set when he was growing up. 

He also praised the Patriots for not giving up on him when his gambling issues from the past came back to the surface. 

Boutte was arrested on underage gambling and computer fraud charges in January 2024. The charges were later dropped. 

In his essay, Boutte wrote that he owed the Patriots everything and that the organization “knew my heart, and they stuck by me.”

Boutte appeared in 14 games this season and has 33 catches for 551 yards and six touchdowns.

New England will play the Chargers in the first round of the playoffs on Sunday.

Boutte was added to the injury report on Thursday with a hamstring injury.