Ben Affleck Shocked After Son Samuel, 13, Asked Him for Sports Betting Money

Ben Affleck revealed he was recently dumbfounded by a request made by his son Samuel, 13.

While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, January 5, the actor revealed the teenager recently asked him for money to bet on sports.

“My son asked me like a month ago, [he] was like, ‘Hey, um, can I get 100 bucks to bet on sports?” Affleck, 53, told Kimmel.

“It’s like, what? [He’s like,] ‘My friends get $100, but if they lose it, then that’s it.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a real standard, what discipline!” he continued. “Like, so that you don’t come twitching back going, ‘I know that Green Bay is going to cover the over in the second half.’”

What’s more, Affleck also revealed his father, Timothy Byers Affleck, worked as a bookie when he was younger.

“My father worked at a bar but mostly made his money being sort of a small-time bookie,” the actor said.

“I remember our first washing machine, our first VCR, in fact, dad coming home like, ‘You can thank Steve Grogan for this,’ the quarterback of the [New England] Patriots. ‘Everybody keeps betting [on] the Patriots to beat the spread,’” he explained. “And so I really was grateful that the Patriots were terrible; just thank Steve Grogan’s knees for our VCR”.

“At the time, it was, like, shameful and kind of illegal. I mean, the statute of limitations has run out. Sorry, dad,” Affleck added.

An interest in gambling appears to run in the family. In 2014, Affleck was banned for life from playing blackjack at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, after being caught counting cards.

“I took some time to learn the game and became a decent blackjack player. And once I became decent, the casinos asked me not to play blackjack. I mean, the fact that being good at the game is against the rules at the casinos should tell you something about casinos,” Affleck said at the time in an interview with Vanity Fair.

Affleck, who said in that same interview he did not have a gambling addiction, once lost $60,000 in 40 minutes at a blackjack table in Los Angeles in 2019, In Touch Weekly reported at the time.