Tony Kelly
Hi I’m Tony Kelly
A former professional footballer and founder of Red Card. I’m also the soccer star who lost everything to gambling.
Thanks for taking the time to visit.

Here's What Red Card is all About

Red Card is a ‘not for profit’ organisation. Prevention of gambling addiction is the key to our work. The more we raise awareness, the more we can prevent people from going down the destructive route of problem gambling.

Our Vision

We aim to make sure that people from all backgrounds and cultures are educated about the dangers of gambling addiction and the impact it can have on our lives. We work with all agencies including schools, colleges, sports clubs, prison and probation services, and others to help create a more stable and healthy society in the future. Our vision is to become a long-term beneficial and supportive service for all who experience problem gambling.

Our Mission

Our mission is to create a lasting social change through our work, by educating people about the dangers of gambling, helping to reduce crime in our communities, raising awareness of mental health, and by delivering our work nationwide.

What We Do

Our team deliver targeted workshops that not only share Tony’s personal story of his battle with gambling addiction but also, by using the knowledge and experience of professional therapists and counsellors, we go deeper in to the nature of addiction and how to combat it, and the wider impact on the gambling addict’s friends and family.

The Red Card team is made up of a mixture of professionals, all with a vast amount of experience that is relevant to addiction and problem gambling. 

Meet the Team

Get in Touch

If you represent a group of people and would like to book a talk, a workshop, or just find out more about our problem gambling service, then please contact us.

Red Card
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increase in problem gamblers
£
average gambling debt in the UK
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of population gambled in last 4 weeks
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of young people have gambled

When I first started as Chief Executive at Gordon Moody Association, I met Tony Kelly at an event along with one of his colleagues and he invited me to meet up to discuss what Red Card do and also to help me better understand gambling addiction and the gambling industry as it was new to me. Fast forward a few months and we had arranged for Tony and a member of his team to attend our residential treatment centre in Beckenham to discuss his story, what Red Card aims are and to discuss working together and creating pathways for referrals into each other’s services.

Our team in Beckenham found Tony to be a very approachable, honest and kind hearted person who himself had been in gambling addiction. Our team and Red Cards were able to discuss the programmes which each party are delivering and understand better the roles that each organisation takes on. Red Card promote much needed awareness and education of gambling addiction.

We thank Red Card for their time and for Tony in sharing his lived experience at the event, and we look forward to continuing our positive working relationship.

Adele Duncan

Chief Executive Gordon Moody Association

This summer The Challenge will have the pleasure of partnering with Tony Kelly on our National Citizens Service Programme. Tony will be introducing a group of young people in Enfield to the world of gambling addiction, encouraging them to think about the issues related to this and setting them a challenge to work on in their teams.

Tony’s openness when sharing his lived experience and knowledge of gambling addiction suggested he would make a great partner for our programme this year. By sharing his own experiences and reaching out to young people Red Card will help us all build a better understanding of gambling addiction and how we can work together to spread awareness of this.

We hope this is the beginning of a larger partnership which allows us to introduce a diverse group of young people to issues surrounding problem gambling.

Max Johnson

Associate Programme Manager National Citizens Service Programme.

Tony Kelly delivered a workshop for our Sixth Form Students as part of a Wellbeing Day.
Through the PSHE curriculum, we tackle forms of addiction - drugs, alcohol etc - but there is little covered about gambling, which is one of the fastest growing addictions in the UK. Tony raised awareness of the risks and the impact gambling can have on family and career. He shared his personal story and his struggle and the damage that his addiction caused. This was well received by students.

Leigh Ott

Curriculum Leader Personal Development and Guidance