Boy Band Member Niall Horan on Group’s Gambling Addiction: ‘It Got a Bit Ugly’
19-year-old One Direction band mate Niall Horan is speaking out about groupies, grandiosity and gambling in an interview with The Sun newspaper.
The one time “X Factor” contestant says of his and other band members exploits down under before turning 19: “Like most of the stupid things we do, it seemed like it was a good idea at the time. “We thought it was funny. We just thought, 'We're 18, this is the first time we've been able to spend a bit of money in weeks because we've been on the road. In all honesty, I didn't have a clue what was happening.
"I won £100, which seemed reasonable, then I stopped. I'll have to say, 'No comment' about the others. Let's just say it got a bit ugly and a lot of money was lost. A lot. When management found out, we got a serious dressing-down.”
He and the other four boys spent millions on homes, luxury automobiles and – apparently – gambling.
Oh, and about those tattoos.
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“Harry (Styles) and Zayn (Malik) are going at it with the tattoos,” Horan tells the paper, referencing two of his other band mates. “They are covered now. Harry seems to have a different one every day. I decided to get Made In Ireland in green on my arse cheek and I went to the place in LA where they do it. Me and the boys went in and they said they wouldn't do it. They said the skin on your arse is too squidgy. It needs to be tight. I suspect they did me a favor. It wasn't the best idea in the world.”
While the minimum age for gambling in Australia is 18, under age gambling continues to be a major problem worldwide.
At the Auckland University of Technology, researchers examined 900 children from Pacific families. They uncovered the unsettling fact that at least 94 percent of these children had taken part in some kind of gambling activity before the age of 10 with 27 percent gambling for real money.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
