Ryan Bowman: Former Shrewsbury striker handed 42-month ban for betting breaches
Former Shrewsbury Town striker Ryan Bowman has been banned from football for 42 months for gambling offences - including betting on 243 games he or Salop were involved in.
The 33-year-old had admitted to making 6,397 bets on football between June 2015 and September 2023.
The period in which he broke the Football Association’s betting rules covered his spell at Shrewsbury, where he made 135 appearances across all competitions, scoring 22 goals.
Bowman joined Town in the summer of 2021, and between August that year and July 2022, he placed 1,948 bets on football matches - 147 involved games he or Salop were participating in.
In the 2022-23 season, he placed 1,259 bets on matches and 92 of those involved Town.
In his final season in Shropshire, he placed 181 bets, with four of those involving his team - he departed at the end of that season for Cheltenham.
He also placed bets during his time at Torquay United, Gateshead and Exeter City.
Some of those offences were spot bets, meaning he was betting on a particular thing to happen in a game.
Bowman placed a £20 stake for himself to score at any time during Salop’s FA Cup game with Stratford back in November 2021, but the bet was cashed out before the match started. He ended up scoring twice in the 5-1 win.
For four matches in a row Bowman bet on his Shrews side to lose at the end of the 2022-23 season. As part of a £10 accumulator, he gambled that Town would lose to Barnsley, which they did 2-1, and Bowman was sent off in the closing stages. During his suspension, he placed bets that Town would lose to Portsmouth, Plymouth and Bolton.
Bowman also placed a bet while he was on the bench in the 26th minute during Shrewsbury’s game against MK Dons back in January 2024.
The striker took full responsibility for the 6,397 bets and admitted all charges against him.
From the bets Bowman placed, he spent £203,758.57 resulting in returns of £182,189.85, meaning he lost £21,548.72.
Some of Bowman’s bets in the 2015/16 season included a stake of more than £1000.
A document from the FA said there was a lack of honesty from the striker in his interviews with the association until he was confronted with irrefutable evidence.
He is banned from all football for the next 42 months.
