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Ben Talintyre November 7, 2025 - 5:50PM Share via Email Share on Facebook Share on Whatsapp Listen to this article Copied URL to clipboard Russell Crowe explains cricket to Joe Rogan Russell Crowe has explained why he loves cricket to UFC commentator Joe Rogan. Russell Crowe has left American podcasting icon Joe Rogan in disbelief after detailing the rules of cricket on the Joe Rogan Experience. The Hollywood icon and Rogan discussed a variety of topics from his love of NRL to Australia’s gambling problem in their almost three-hour discussion, which dropped on Thursday US time and has been played more than 1 million times on Spotify. Watch The Ashes 2025/26 LIVE and ad-break free during play with FOX CRICKET on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1. But it was the beloved sport of cricket that blew Rogan away as Crowe expressed his deep affection for the game as he explained the rules to the 58-year-old, who knew very little about the sport. “See, there are different forms of the game. You have T20, then you have one day and Test,” Crowe explained. “T20 means that each team gets to bowl 20 overs. An over is six balls. So you have 20 six-ball overs that you’re bowling to the batting team, and they’ve got to try and get as many runs as they can, and then you will have a go at batting. “So you have that version of the game, which is very short. It can be, it can happen in an evening. Then you have a one-day game, which maybe, you know, starts in the afternoon, finishes by 8 or 9 at night. Joe Rogan was stunned by Russell Crowe's explanation of cricket. Image: Getty “But then you have the Test match, and this is what I grew up with. It’s sort of been dialled down a little bit now because they brought in shorter forms of the game, but the Test match is between two countries, and it’s played over five days. “And the idea is that both teams have to bat and bowl twice, and the result will be whatever it is at the end of five days.” The concept of a five-day match was foreign to Rogan, who gasped as he said, “Five days!” Crowe went on to explain that cricket was the sport his family lived and breathed, and spoke about his cousin, the legendary New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe. He said: “Martin at his peak, he was called by Sports Illustrated, I believe, the Michael Jordan of world cricket.” Rogan was visibly stunned at not just that revelation but also Crowe’s explanation of Test cricket, seemingly dumbfounded that viewers enjoy a game that spans five days. “With that five day game, the way that it ebbs and flows, once you’re into it, it’s the only way you want to watch cricket because it’s like, you know, at one moment your team can be just so far ahead, you’re like just, you know, and then it’ll turn on a dime,” Crowe continued. “And day two, things get really dark for your team, you know, Day three, you got an edge back again. Day four, it’s fantastic, man. And as a kid, I used to go and attend every day of a five-day.” To which Rogan replied: “Wow, that’s crazy. There’s nothing like that here (in the USA).” Russell Crowe attends the "Nuremberg" premiere. (Getty Images via AFP) Russell Crowe opens up his family’s gambling problem Away from talking about cricket and his love for rugby league, Crowe touched on a deeper, more personal topic, one of his family’s struggles with gambling and the wider Australian gambling crisis. Crowe, for the first time, publicly shared that his great-grandfather gambled the family’s house away, triggering a spiral of poverty across two generations. “I had an experience when I was a young fellow,” Crowe said. “It was the first time I was in America, actually. And I’d had all these intense meetings and what have you, and I had a decision to make. I had 10 different people wanting to be my agent. Copied URL to clipboard Russell Crowe reveals dark casino moment Russell Crowe was down to his last $25, he tells Joe Rogan. “So I rented a car and I went for a drive and I went up to San Francisco along the coast and then I turned inland, thinking, well, I’ve heard of Reno, so I’ll go there, right? So I went to Reno, Nevada, and I had X amount of money, right? “I was doing well in my career, but I didn’t have a lot of cash, so I had a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket. That’s all, you know. So I went and had a beer and I started playing blackjack on a five-dollar table, and it was a single deck. This is how long ago this was, 1992 or something, right? Russell Crowe loves his rugby league and cricket. “So I’m playing and I did pretty well, you know, amassed a few hundred dollars, feeling very cocky and confident about myself. And I probably just then had one beer too many, and I went for a walk down the street, and I saw a roulette table, and I think that’ll be me, right? “Sucker, and so everything I won, I lost. And by the time I sort of got my s**t back together, I had $25 in my pocket, I’m in Reno, I got a quarter of a tank of gas, and I gotta get back to LA (Los Angeles). I don’t have a credit card.” He said he needed to “sober up” before attempting to win some of his money back at the first casino. It was his only way out of Reno. “So I go back to the place I started, back to that same five-dollar table, and I just very carefully got to like $190,” he said. “I knew it was going to be enough to get me back with petrol and food and all that. So I stopped, I went out into the car park of this hotel. It’s like 11pm, midnight, something like that. And I just started vibrating and my whole body was like shaking, like I was having some kind of fit, you know. And it was just really weird. “I got back to the hotel room and I called my mum back in New Zealand and I just said, I just did this, I went through this.” He told Rogan that was the first night he was told about his family’s problems with gambling. “She goes, right, darling, there’s something I’ve never told you,” Crowe said. “But your great-grandfather was a professional gambler. And at one point in time, he gambled his house away. “He had to go and get his daughters, wake them up, get his wife and tell them this is where they no longer live. “And that one act kept that family, in relative terms, poor for another two generations. So I know it’s in me, so I don’t go anywhere near it.” Joe Rogan had Russell Crowe on as a guest on his podcast. Picture: Supplied Russell Crowe opened up about his family’s gambling addiction. Picture: Supplied He said since then, he stayed clear of casinos and betting, only having a small flutter on the Melbourne Cup. “I don’t want to get involved in that (gambling),” he said. But such is the gambling culture in Australia, Crowe said, even his two sons, Charles, 21, and Tennyson, 19, have already gambled. “You know, I had an experience probably a year or two ago, and I see my two boys are talking to a mate of theirs and they’ve all got their phones out, and I realised they were checking up on their bets,“ he said. “So I had to have a big conversation with my boys and say, look, every single dollar that you have comes out of my pocket. If I give you a dollar, that’s not a dollar to gamble with. I had to have very serious conversation with them about it.” He went on to say: “So I just had to have a chat with them and they were probably looking at me going, ‘How old is our father that he doesn’t understand that everybody does this?’ “But I just had to let him know from my point of view, I didn’t appreciate them taking my hard-earned dollars and wasting them.” Crowe says he only ever bets on the Melbourne Cup. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images) Rogan said children need to be “educated” before gambling. “The problem is, first of all, kids are addicted to apps as it is,” the former Fear Factor host said. “They use them. They’re always on their damn phone. And they’ll go from TikTok to Instagram to X to, you know, they’ll check this and then they’ll check that, and they’ll check their Snapchat and they’ll check the gambling app. “And then it’s like, you’re just addicted to this goddamn phone. So something on your phone that’s also addicting, it’s like addiction on top of addiction, because you’re already getting your little dopamine rush just by looking at your phone. But then, if you’re also getting a gambling rush on top of that. “Yeah, we got to educate people.” More Coverage Crowe, Rogan shocked by dark Aussie trend Fox League confirms mass team changes “They use them. They’re always on their damn phone. And they’ll go from TikTok to Instagram to X to, you know, they’ll check this and then they’ll check that, and they’ll check their Snapchat and they’ll check the gambling app. “And then it’s like, you’re just addicted to this goddamn phone. So something on your phone that’s also addicting, it’s like addiction on top of addiction, because you’re already getting your little dopamine rush just by looking at your phone. But then, if you’re also getting a gambling rush on top of that. “Yeah, we got to educate people.” Join the conversation (1 Comment) Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? 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