Looking for Advice as a partner of someone with a gambling addiction

Hi to anyone who has time to read this!

I would also like advice on how to support my partner of 15 years. 
When we met he played a lot of online poker, quit because he was losing too much, but over the years he has been betting on sport using online gambling sites. I have been aware of this as he has never really hidden from me that he is gambling. I told him a few years ago that I thought he had a gambling problem, which of course he denied. He has always been secretive about his finances and banks online, so I never saw his bank statements. He is a wonderful, loving man and stepdad to my children and I never questioned his integrity and thought he was betting a few quid each time, just for fun and to add interest to sports events.

A couple of days ago, I saw him photographing a couple of C@ra! receipts. He noticed me and tried to hide them. I asked him why he was hiding them and he said “Don’t worry, I won”. The way he had responded made me uneasy and alarm bells were ringing inside me. I noticed him slip them into his wallet. After he fell asleep that night, I looked for his wallet and eventually found it beside him in his bedside drawer. He doesn’t usually hide it. I took it downstairs into the light to see what he had been hiding. Inside were betting slips totalling a spend of £2,000 for that day and some from earlier in the month for another £1,000.

The next day I told him I had seen them and he just broke down. He opened up to me telling me that he had gambled £50,000 which was from the sale of his previous flat and I thought was in savings to put towards a deposit for our new house. He had tried to chase back the money and has taken two bank loans totalling another £30,000 and lost it all. His credit card was maxed out, he had sold the Christmas present I had bought for him and had borrowed some money from his mum (she doesn’t know about his gambling addiction…nobody does except me). He also has bought £20,000 worth of shares which I know are with a risky company and are very volatile, but I believe he has been brainwashed by a certain online group.

I am amazed by how calm I was with him, I could see his pain, and told him he needed help…we both do. I love him so much and could literally see the strain lift off him as he told me. We held each other and cried together. He has refused to go to local GA meetings., I think he is worried about being seen there. After reading lots of posts on this forum, I put a plan in place and discussed it with him yesterday. I would look after his wages on payday and ensure he has enough to cover the loan repayments and his other essential outgoings. I already manage the mortgage and household bills and shopping etc with my wages. Money will be very tight as I did rely on him to contribute. He showed me his online bank account statements and I was shocked to see he had been gambling approximately £2,000 a day. He is a teacher so this is way beyond our means! He keeps saying, “Yes, but sometimes I was winning about xxxx a day and then I started making stupid bets, and talk about being in a rabbit hole. He only wants to talk about his winning..and not the huge amount of loss and debt he’s in, he speaks arrogantly like he thinks he is intelligent enough to analyse what he bets on. He is totally blinded and deluded by it all! He says he now realises he isn’t good at it or he wouldn’t have lost so much.

I told him we need to accept the £50,000 is gone forever and focus on repaying the £30,000 debt. He went online and excluded himself from the betting sites. I have read he can also self exclude from betting shops which we will looking into at the weekend. (Advice on how this works please) I mentioned about him blocking his debit/credit cards from gambling but he thinks this may blacklist him in the future…advice on this please.

He says I can have full access to his online banking and check his phone & pc history daily. He uses android and I can’t see that he is able to delete history hourly like you can on an iPhone. Advice please from android users about if he is able to select the history he can delete.

I realise that addicts are sneaky and will lie, so I would like to know the loopholes which someone with a gambling addiction will use. He tells me, now I know about the money lost, he doesn’t need to chase it anymore. He says the problem was that he was trying to pay it back before I found out. 

I would appreciate any advice about things I need to do or look out for. I have been so naive and gullible!  I can’t talk to anyone about this due to his shame and embarrassment. I have promised him that I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want to betray his trust, especially during such a raw and vulnerable time.

I have told him that if he starts gambling again, we need to get him professional help and he agrees, but promises it won’t start again! Time will tell…

@april24 

Hi, I’m pleased that your partner has actually admitted he has a problem and is willing to help himself, my husband is still in the denial stage which is so frustrating for me.

your partner can put a stop to gambling sites on his online banking which won’t affect his credit score, I have this on our join bank account it’s easy to do this on the banking app.

good luck on your journey ?x

@al2022 

Thank you for answering my query.

Wishing you and your husband all the best and I hope he admits to his addiction soon, so you can move forward together.

Stay strong and positive xx

Hi both,

I found myself in this situation over a year ago, except I was the gambler and I had to do everything I could to prove to my partner I wanted this to end and I wanted to support my family. Gambling isn’t an issue if you can control it but like most of us on here we can’t do that. The best thing I ever did was talk about it, not to absolutely everyone as there is stigma attached which you may not want sharing across the nation. However most importantly I downloaded gamstop to stop me being able to access betting sites from my phone, I spoke to my bank to stop transactions in bookies or at race tracks and casinos etc. Finally every pay day I transfer 90% of my money to my partner (works for us, and in my position I was happy to do that), we still share paying bills but she is aware of everything now. It doesn’t stop me buying the kids a secret McDonald’s but it means that if she were to want to see my statements there would be nothing for her to find. I have limited access to cash, that will always have a reason as well, so a withdrawal would be for a haircut or a dancing lesson for my daughter. Ultimately I wanted to change, a weight off my shoulders. I saw how my family was at breaking point for my behaviour and that was enough for me to stop. I see gambling in a different light completely now. 

good luck with everything. Just keep talking, if they are refusing to discuss accounts etc then you have a right to be worried. Finally, you can do a credit check on your partner, any debts should show there. 

get the barriers in now. Don’t wait, don’t rely on strong mindsets or be blinded by promises. Cut off the financial sources, even if it be temporarily. They will thank you in the end. I’m 31 and have gambled since I was 16 and finally I feel like I can breathe cause I’ve kicked it into touch. It is possible!!

good luck 

am9

Welcome to the Forum

Please know that there is support and advice for anyone struggling with a Problem Gambler in their life.  Problem gambling affects everyone, therefore, please do reach out for help and support - you are not alone.

Along with the Forum we have Advisers available 24/7 to help you through this.  You can contact an Adviser by calling our HelpLine on 0800 8020 133 or using our LiveChat Option.  I encourage you to make contact so we can discuss the best way forward.

Gam-Anon

I would also strongly recommend you have a look on the https://www.gam-anon.org   This is a website specifically for friends and families of people who are affected by problem gamblers. There is all manner of support on there for people who are and who have gone through the same experiences and many find this peer-to-peer support incredibly helpful, both for themselves and to be able to help their loved one who is experiencing difficulties with gambling.

Best

Amanda

Forum Admin

My partner of 11 years has been gambling on and off it seems for our whole relationship. I only found out 4 years ago when we had been saving for a house deposit, we should have both had 10k each and I trusted he did but when it came to looking for houses etc he kept putting it off, finally I came across a letter about a loan I was unaware of and finally the truth came out that he had been gambling online and got into debt/lost any money he had. I felt like the rug had been pulled from right under me, we had a ‘break’ for 6 months whilst I worked on trying to trust him again and he worked on repaying debts etc.

In 2019 we managed to get a mortgage in principle with the deposit money I had and finally got our first house in Feb 2020. I never checked his phone, asked him about anything, I have trusted him implicitly…Silly me.

I have now found that about 6 months after getting the house he started gambling again, he was defensive when challenged initially but eventually broke down and I got some bits of information. He has moved out for now and I am at a complete loss as to how I move on, I couldn’t take it if he did this again. This time he has started gamblers anonymous but I know there are no guarantees. I have been satisfied for 10 years with what I now realise was an absent partner, always preoccupied, lacking in communication and gradually making me more and more lonely. I don’t know what I will be fighting for if I stick with it and I don’t know if I can honestly ever get that trust back. He is a lovely man and I am so sad he has been sucked into this, I feel guilty for putting my needs first and worry for his mental health if I walk away.

I am 34 and we were trying for a baby, I worry I will try to give it another go and then get pregnant and not feel strong enough to leave with a child in tow if he can’t get a cap on it. I also just wonder if after all this time it’s my opportunity to walk away and whilst I love and care for him deeply, is it better to be lonely alone than lonely in a relationship. 

Hi everyone,

Firstly, many thanks to Am9 for your reassuring post. Congratulations on the strength you have found for yourself and your family and also for your advice!

Elizabeth, I am sorry to hear you are also going through this too and I hope you make the right decision for yourself and can be happy with your life.

Following on from my first post…

My initial shock has faded and myself and my partner have felt closer than we have felt for years. I feel like I have him back! The first thing we did on payday was to transfer his pay into my bank account, leaving him with enough money to see him through one week at a time. Other than buying his lunch each day and a few drinks at the weekend, he hasn’t actually spent very much and we have even been able to save a bit. We also went on the Gamstop website and excluded him for the maximum of 5 years with all online betting sites. So far this has worked and he says he feels like a huge weight has been lifted. His last bet he placed before telling me everything was a winning bet which I think made stopping easier for him…he didn’t feel he had to chase anymore losses. He tells me that gambling felt stressful for him as he was always trying to replace the £80,000 he lost before I found out. He thinks he has gambled about £150,000 over the last few years. This is the hardest part for me to get my head round. How can such an intelligent, loving man be so foolish!? Addiction is self-destructive and evil! 

He has never given me access to his finances before. I have now gone through his bank statements and credit card statements to know exactly what we are dealing with. I was gobsmacked to see the amounts he was betting. Always between £300-£2,000 a day! He told me he wasn’t seeing the amounts of money like I was seeing it, but more like a balance sheet…he was either up or down. I can’t get into the mindset of a compulsive gambler, but I am trying to understand, so I can recognise the signs if he relapses.

The biggest difference is that he is not constantly checking his phone. I check his search history every couple of days which he is happy for me to do. I realised that if you are using an App, it doesn’t show up in internet history, so removing all gambling apps was obviously one of the things we did first. 

He is still quite obsessed with the Shares he has purchased, but if that stops him from betting, I’m not too worried at the moment. I tried to get him to sell them to pay off some of the debt, but he is not ready to do that yet. He is convinced a MOASS is coming…He has asked me to wait 6 months before he sells…Baby steps!!

He hasn’t yet made the phone call to exclude from bookies. I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t want to do it, it’s the 30 minute phone call which is putting him off. As I have full access to his bank accounts, I would see any unusual transactions, so I will be patient.

He mostly only betted on rugby and cricket. He would study the teams, weather conditions and other things etc. He is now avoiding checking the sport and fixtures and we have decided to always go out on Saturdays so his mind is taken off sport at the weekend.

I have decided to keep his gambling addiction to myself. He feels so ashamed and embarrassed. Initially, I wanted to tell our families but I feel I am coping. If he was to start again, I will need their support and he knows I will tell them if he starts gambling again. I have told him I won’t do a credit check on him as I want to trust him about the loans he has told me about. Obviously, I will do this if I start to feel he has relapsed, along with getting professional help.

Many thanks for all your replies…I felt so alone when he first told me. Sharing your experiences have helped me to be strong and stay calm and supportive for him. Also, I really appreciate your advice on how to deal with this. It would have been so easy to let my emotions take over. I am so in love with him and will live through this with him. I think he was really surprised by my response. We will work through this together and he understands that he can NEVER gamble again.

April24