Former Arsenal forward Nicklas Bendtner has admitted to losing £5.4million through his addiction to poker.

Bendtner revealed the details of his addiction on his Danish reality television show alongside his model girlfriend, Philine Roepstorff.

He told viewers that he blew large portions of his wages on Texas Hold'Em as a 19-year-old boy but has learnt from his mistakes. 

'I lost a lot of money, an unrealistic amount', admitted Bendtner.

'It's hard to say how much it was in reality, but I'd estimate that it was almost 50 million Korona (around £5.4m). It was something that I was always in control of and I simply betted big sums of money.

'Sometimes in London, things would get out of control on a night and things could really have ended badly

'Now I place smaller bets of 100 Korona (around £12).'

Since first emerging from Arsenal's academy some 15 years ago, controversy has followed the Dane.

Following Arsenal's Champions League semi-final defeat by Manchester United, a 22-year-old Bendtner was seen exiting a London nightclub at 4am with his belt undone and trousers down by his ankles.  

Bendtner went on to receive a one-match ban and £80,000 fine from UEFA after a guerrilla marketing stunt at Euro 2012 where he pulled his shorts down after scoring against Portugal to reveal the logo of betting company Paddy Power.

Before being accused of threatening a taxi driver while worse for wear in Copenhagen two years later - the same night his Arsenal team-mates had been knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich. 

Despite this, Bendtner has had an impressive career. In 81 appearances for Denmark, he scored an impressive 30 times and represented his country at Euro 2012 and the World Cup in 2010.

Since then, he has signed for Copenhagen which is his city of origin, but has only played a total of eight times this year.

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