Aaron had spent his entire working career in Education Recruitment, having spent the last 7 years with Morgan Hunt. He specialises within the Vocational Recruitment space throughout Further Education across the Midlands. Despite not placing a bet for over 2.5 years, Aarons career was often halted and slowed down due to his gambling issues, losing over 250k since the age of 16.
Thankfully at the start of lockdown, Aaron read an article relating to gambling suicide and felt the need to finally do something about it after attempting to quit for over a decade. At first he ensured he kept himself busy walking 15/20 mile every weekend with friends - he then started to create various Programmes and Presentations that he could deliver to a variety of end users, with a specific focus on 16-24 year old's.
The Core of ATO’s delivery focuses on Aarons journey as a gambling addict starting at College, Identifying a problem, The transition of social gambler to problem gambler, gambling advertising, marketing and sponsorship, understanding your credit report, identifying a problem within yourself or others, mental and physical impacts of addiction, routes of support available (to name a few).
Upon formally creating Against The Odds in August 2022, Aaron realised throughout this Education (School, College & University) or playing sport at county level, not once was he educated around an 18+ product that as a country, we advertise around the clock. "The Impact we have had so far in addition to the messages from both staff and students has been overwhelming"
The business has already delivered to the likes of Barnsley FC, Sheffield Wednesday, MAKE UK, NFL Academy via Loughborough College & Steven Gerrard Academy in Tenerife. With upcoming assignments with Aston Villa, Coventry City and various others.
In addition to the delivery side of the business, ATOAC (Against The Odds Awareness Club) also launched in Digbeth (Feb 23) raising Awareness of problem gambling within 16-24 year old's. The Club has teamed up with Birmingham Sportswear giant Luke1977 to release a Home and Away Shirt each year, with all profits reinvested back into the business. The Club also has its own football team and are currently in talks to play against various Professional Club Foundations to raise money for both parties.