Listen To Article
However, one player that won’t be making the cut is Jordan Reece, not because he isn’t good enough to play for the team, but because he doesn’t exist at all.
As part of a safer gambling campaign, AceOdds created a fake footballer from Football Manager and placed him into the running for the England squad, with 5,000 attempting to bet on him.
AceOdds placed 10-1 odds on the striker making the team as an experiment to see if anybody would place a bet on him.
A recent survey, which found that 69% of people place bets on teams and players they have no knowledge about, looks to have been proven by the 5,000 people that bet on Jordan Reece to make Southgate’s squad.
Meanwhile, one in five bettors in Britain have said they spend less than five minutes researching what they are betting on.
Of course, while the fact that 5,000 people placed a bet on a player that doesn’t exist is entertaining, the sentiment behind what AceOdds proved is deeply serious.
After Safer Gambling Week recently finished in the UK for another year, AceOdds further showed that problem gambling is still a significant challenge in the UK – though measures are being taken to prevent people from becoming victims of harmful gambling.
So, whatever squad Southgate names, it will be without Jordan Reece – a name that AceOdds plucked from the video game Football Manager, with the image coming from a male model based in Chesterfield.
