The NRL allowed Ashley Klein to keep officiating the code’s biggest matches after learning in 2019 that he had a gambling problem, even as he remained rugby league’s top referee. He was due to take charge of the second State of Origin match in Melbourne next week, a marquee assignment that would be his 14th interstate clash in a row.
That timing is why Klein’s case matters now. State of Origin is the sport’s most watched series, and referees sit at the center of its most scrutinised moments. Klein, 44, is not an anonymous official on the fringes. He is the league’s highest-profile match official, and the NRL’s decision to keep him on the biggest stage for four years after first being told about the issue puts the sport’s integrity handling under a bright light.
Sources with knowledge of the matter said Klein lost more than $400,000 gambling on horse racing and greyhound racing with corporate bookmakers. Referees are forbidden from betting on rugby league, but they are free to wager on other sports, including racing. Klein closed his betting accounts and placed himself on BetStop in 2023, after the NRL had already known about the problem for years.
Klein said his gambling was not connected to any betting on rugby league and that his work as a referee had never been affected. He said he received help to deal with the problem and closed all associated betting accounts, calling it a difficult period in his life that did not influence his role as a match official. The NRL said it first became aware of the matter in 2019, investigated it to the satisfaction of management at the time and took appropriate steps to ensure there were no breaches of its rules or policies.
What the league has not explained is how a referee it had known about since 2019 continued on the front line without being stood down from major appointments. The NRL said Klein’s position was not impacted at any stage, but it has not detailed the steps it says it took, or why those steps still left him in line to referee Origin next week. That leaves one uncomfortable fact hanging over the sport: the NRL knew about the vulnerability, and still kept him in the middle of its biggest games.
Dr Catherine Ordway, a sports integrity expert, described gambling exposure as a clear risk factor and warned that players and officials with such vulnerabilities can be targeted by organised criminals. There is no suggestion Klein acted improperly while officiating or breached NRL regulations, but the league’s handling of the issue raises a different question — whether rugby league’s top official should have stayed on the biggest stage once the problem became known.
