Justin Horo

Now, Klein, who will officiate Wednesday's State of Origin, said in a statement in the Sydney Morning Herald that he developed a problem with gambling on horse racing and greyhound racing.

Klein stressed his gambling was not related to any betting on rugby league with the NRL also telling the Herald in a statement that the issue was investigated to the satisfaction of the NRL management.

Many years ago, I developed a problem with gambling on horse racing and greyhound racing.

Klein said in a statement to the Herald, this gambling was not related to any betting on rugby league and as my job as a referee has never been impacted.

I received help to deal with the problem and closed all associated betting accounts.

This was a difficult period of my life, but one which did not in any way influence my job as a match official.

Very brave of him coming out.

No, not brave.

No, no, no.

This is opposite.

I'll give you the details because I don't think you would have looked into this.

No, I didn't.

I just read it.

Yeah, you need to understand all the information that's been dropped over the last couple of days.

Yeah, so I've been a little bit conflicted with this going back a couple of days and just thought about it, right?

So the first part of this is the criticism in and around Ashley Klein and the reporting of the situation to begin with now.

It's a weird time for it to come out, right?

I also think – let's start back when this was – the NRL were made aware of it, which was I believe around 2020, 2021.

They end up finding out about it.

He stops all his betting around 2023.