Australian Story S31E20 WEB x264-NGP EZTV

Australian Story S31E20 - Turning the Page - Luke Bateman

Australian Story profiles NRL player-turned #BookTok and anti-gambling advocate, Luke Bateman, who also featured in this year's I'm A Celebrity season on 10.

Growing up in Western Queensland, Luke Bateman had just one dream: to play in the NRL. But a crippling gambling addiction cost him everything.

Luke showed exceptional sporting talent from a young age and by the time he was 12 years old, he'd been signed by the Canberra Raiders. But a team bonding session at the local casino when he was 18 marked the start of a devastating gambling addiction that saw him lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"In the beginning of 2018, I still had $70,000 or $80,000 in my bank account. And in the space of a month, I had nothing," he says.

An ultimatum from his parents ended the cycle of addiction. They absorbed Luke's debts and he repaid them working in his stepfather's logging business.

He's since become an advocate for gambling reform, arguing that proposed recent government changes don't go far enough.

While working for his stepfather, Luke returned to the things that brought him joy – reading and writing. His first video posted to TikTok's community for book lovers, #BookTok, clocked up a million views overnight and caught the eye of a publisher.

Becoming an author was something Luke had never imagined, and it's set him on a mission to encourage young boys to take up reading.