Joey Barton has claimed that half of footballers bet on the sport.
The former Sevco midfielder is currently banned from the game after falling foul of the English authorities after joining Burnley with a one match SFA ban for gambling offences.
Rather than own up to his own issues Barton would rather point the finger elsewhere and put his former team-mates under suspicion.
Although betting on football matches is banned by the SFA the penalties for getting caught are hardly a deterrent with Barton, Steve Simonsen and Ian Black picking up token punishments.
Speaking to the BBC the media favourite said: “I think if they found out everyone who has been betting and cracked down on it, you’d have half the league out.
“I think 50% of the playing staff would be taken out because it’s culturally engrained.”
He added: “Where we’ve got it wrong is that we’ve got the gambling rules mixed up with the match-fixing rules.
“Match-fixing is wrong and challenges the integrity of the sport, it’s the same as taking performance-enhancing drugs.
“I think culturally betting is acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with betting if it’s controlled – it’s when it becomes out of control and people bet beyond their means.
“My point to the FA was, how can they be so stringent when they have an official gambling partner?
“I believed that no-one cared about betting. I thought they just cared about match-fixing.
“I’d had a betting account in my name for 12 years. I was doing things for betting companies and they were paying me in betting account money – they weren’t informing the FA.”
The first case of a player in Scotland being charged with match betting was in 2013 when Black was given a three match SFA ban.
Rather than confront the breach of the rules Sevco boss Ally McCoist produced a list of those that he knew were within the game and betting on matches.
He said: “This is a list of players and football officials in our country who quite enjoy putting a wee bet on, having a wee coupon and a couple of quid on their team.
“I would never disclose the names but it’s over 100 in 10 minutes that the boys have got me.
“It’s a wee bit of enjoyment to stick a wee coupon on for a fiver or a tenner or whatever they do.
“What I’m asking for is for everybody to get around a table, whether it’s the SFA, the players’ union, bookmakers, whoever.”