Barton believes 50 percent of players are breaking FA's betting rules
Joey Barton, suspended from football and all football activity, feels singled out.
Barton claimed Tuesday that at least half of professional footballers are breaking the Football Association's betting rules, and said gambling is "culturally ingrained" in English football.
The midfielder was suspended until June 1, 2018 and fined £30,000 after admitting to placing 1,260 football-related bets between March 2006 and May 2016. A worldwide ban on betting in football came into force in 2014 for certain participants in English football.
Barton said that if the FA enforced those rules in the Premier League, half the players would be out.
"I'm being conservative, I think 50 percent of the playing staff would be taken out (banned), because it's culturally ingrained," Barton told BBC Radio 4's "Today."
Asked whether the FA was correct to punish him, Barton said, "I had to be sanctioned, because I stepped out of the boundaries of the rules. So there's no doubt about it, but the FA think I'm the only footballer who has ever bet on football ever. Well, the reality of it says that that's not the case. I've seen (it) with my own eyes. ... I'd place bets for other footballers on my accounts. I would say, on a conservative estimate, being in professional dressing rooms where there's been readily available cash for over 15 years, you'd have half the league out."
Barton was released by Burnley in May.