Hi I'm New

Hi I'm micky 29 and have a addiction must of had it for 10 years ish
I can go on a roulette and lose 1500 1600 and walk out like it don't matter I pay all my bills first that's a good start I guess just sick of it all as there is only eva one winner but it's hard to stop when it's close to pay day I wake up and think about numbers what I'm gonna bet on. always felt to embarrassed to talk to anyone the worse thing for me is how it don't bother me till like days later hard to stop 🙁

A great post ucantwinever.

In many ways its the most dangerous addiction because we sort of always knew it was a losing game but all our triggers hang ups and mind control drove us on to the utter destruction of compulsive gambling.

I still cant fully get my head round the fact that I couldnt compute that I needed to stay away. My inner voice was saying stop now but I stayed rooted to the spot

You are so right that we ignore the odds almost as if we have been hypnotised with it all. Maybe it is a branch of hypnotic behaviour as the mind is a complex organ and full of its own neuron paths and tricks.

As you say there is no two horse race where one horse has three legs and the odds will buy us a house. It obviously doesnt work that way. Would we buy a bargain sealed product if two out of three boxes were empty and no returns??....no we wouldnt but people continue to gamble with money they dont have to gamble with. Actually that was a bad analogy because people do and Ive seen them standing in open fronted shops waving notes to pick up a bin bag full of nothing.....It may be the human condition for many and gambling plays right into that

Im not saying something doesnt come back when the moon turns blue. However its not regular and these amounts reinforce a feeling that lucky clover or lady luck will smile again and again. In my 10 months of chasing It never happened again.

A critical point is that I hear punters talking and deluding themselves. I hear the false banter of "Are you winning" (name) or "file the slip in the bin". Machine addicts acting proud that a higher amount came out when they fed double or triple that amount in...putting a brave face on massive losses as if it gains them entry to the big wigs club and some sort of acceptance amongst addicts. I saw the jack the lads laughing it off and covering a deep emptiness within themselves.

The guy who told me he was off on his fancy holiday now and the taxi was coming. He was standing right beside me and I can only assume he was trying to explain away one of his inner voices. Who goes straight on holiday from an arcade but I nodded along like a chump trying to humour him. Off he went and sure enough he came back in an hour later and sheepishly went about his gambling because he didnt think I would still be there.

I actually hated standing beside other gamblers but someone should have handed me a mirror because I probably looked as sad and lost as anyone in there

I dont actually want to be near these gamblers or addicts dens ever again.

You cant tell them until they are ready to hear. I like helping people who want to recover but Im very wary of active gamblers out and about.

There are no systems. When the bookies and casinos set up they make sure there are no steady earner systems because they sure as heck arent risking their homes that the punters have kindly financed.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

Thanks everyone for your comments. Today is my first gamble free day, your input has helped me stay strong

Well I managed 7 days gamble free. Fell today I am bitterly disappointed with myself 🙁

Come on pick yourself up, and try again but try and understand what triggered it today so that you don't make the same mistake again x

All of us will get there , I want to raise awareness that these gambling websites are an absolute con. They know exactly what they are doing. When I closed a site down some silly customer service idiot told me there are good days and bad days. What a cheek. Online sites should be closed down , maybe then less people will be tempted.

Hi,

I am sorry to hear you gave in to gambling again, you must get better blocks in place! For me, it was removing access to money, if the money isn't there, I can't gamble. I got rid of my credit card, overdraft and savings account so the only accessible money was my weekly wage that was already spoken for. first off, you got to want to do it, second, put the blocks in place. come on, you can do it, best of luck x

Hi ucantwinever. You have seen for yourself how addictive and destructive this can be in just a few years. Reading your introduction it is clear that you are a deep thinker - like myself; considering all the information, formula and outcomes. You are right that we cannot ever win at gambling in the long term. As Alan says: 'accept that gambling has beaten you - in order to leave it in the past'. I would say that we never actually had a real chance to beat the gambling odds. For instance if a acca bet pays 100-1, it simply means that you may possibly win once in 100 attempts. Well, it really isnt worth all the time and money in order to possibly get back what you started with! Of course it would never work like that as there would be the temptation to up the stakes and chase the losses. Lets not go there.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, yes the key for me is to understand why I gambled again and to reinforce in mind that there never can be a good outcome from gambling. I am taking more action to block myself from more gambling avenues and temptations but need to continue to get my head in the right space to lose the desire to gamble. I like the quote "accept that gambling has beaten you - in order to leave it in the past" I will write that down and look at it regulalry to remind myself of that fact.

hi I'm new my partner gambled and left me 6months ago , I tried everything I could think to help him , soft , hard , in the end I was just living a separate life to him avoiding being at home as it was to painful , few weeks after he left I found out he was seeing someone new before he left and he says he's not gambling anymore , I feel broken rant he's left and started a new life , as if it was all my fault , we had 11 years together and only the last 4 was were the gambling started , i begged him to get help and he wouldn't , we weren't sleeping together as I couldn't switch off from all the pain , he wanted to , so I can understand why he would go to someone else but it hurts so much and I can't stop worrying or caring about him

I want to reset….

Not my life, my life is as perfect as it could be, I have my family, two kids, 6 and 9 and the most beautiful wife you could ever wish for, both inside and out. What I want to reset are my life choices, my financial life choices.

Since I turned 16 I have worked upwards of 45 hours a week, the first 8 years were in catering, before I then started out working for my own company with a friend of mine in internet sales. I have been fortunate enough to maintain a steady income for my whole working life and I am now in a position where I own the business that I originally worked at for 5 years.

Despite this “success” of owning the business I have made the worst decisions imaginable when it comes to money. I have been selfish, if that’s even strong enough of a word, I have been idiotic, stupid and blind to what I was doing and all because of one huge issue. An issue that I will never share with anyone, something that I am deeply embarrassed about and that somehow I have hidden from everyone that’s close to me all my life. Something that eats away at me inside and that I’m even embarrassed to write let alone say out loud.

I am addicted to gambling, I have been since I was 16, when I went into a betting shop with my best friend and we put £5 on a horse and we won. It was that one win that sparked us going back time after time. Then eventually we started to play on the fixed odds betting terminals, and then after that it developed into the real issue I have, the issue that I cannot seem to shake.

Online casinos, I don’t even go on there for the bonus, I know this is all bulls**t so that’s not what draws me to each one. Instead now because I have self-excluded myself from most of the mainstream ones I just need to find ones that look as if they will pay out should I be fortunate to win. However, inside I know this Is never going to happen, not that I’m not going to win, that happens more than you would believe, but that I’m ever going to withdraw any of those winnings is just me lying to myself.

It’s a craving I can’t shake, I can step away from it for maybe a few months at best but then something triggers it again and I just can’t help myself. What I am basically writing this for is I want to know how this is being allowed to happen, you can say these “Casinos” or bookmakers are trying their best to combat problem gambling but believe me they aren’t. There are a few points that I want to make and that I want to understand, if GamCare etc are trying to enforce rules on bookmakers why are these points below not being addressed?

1. Why are the stakes so high… How am I, someone on a moderate income able to bet up to £500 a spin on a fruit machine? Gamblers hunger for more and more and as the money goes up so do the stakes, the bet size increases the more you lose and before you know it you don’t even know what you are pressing you are just doing it waiting to hear a noise or see some pictures that will help you get back up to what you were on. If online casinos and bookmakers are trying to help, then surely the maximum stake at home should line up with what it is at a fixed odds betting terminal?
2. Self-Exclusion… If I have asked to be self-excluded for 5 years or for life, this information should be passed around to each online casino with a European gambling licence, it should be a register that is accessible to all and that is monitored so that those who have already explained they have an issue with gambling are receiving help from the online gambling companies that are ruining so many lives.
3. The third and biggest issue I have with the whole world of gambling is the marketing. Why is there an advert on every two minutes suggesting this is one big game? In fact it is being promoted as one big game not just suggested, with the use of the word play over and over again. I’m sitting there with my eldest sometimes and they see these averts come on, at half time in the football where they are being encouraged to play on these online games, yes there’s a token “when the fun stops you stop” slogan, but what the f**k is that?? What sort of pathetic attempt to stop problem gambling is that, I don’t know how much money has been spent on that bullsh*t but it’s an absolute joke. So instead of sharing information, such as what is suggested above where problem gamblers are blocked from all online sites once they have expressed an issue, we will just stick a yellow sign up, that will do the trick!
4. What I don’t want to do is alienate other people who do have this under control, I know they do exist, I’m not sure if some of them are lying to themselves but that’s most likely my diseased mind set on gambling that is making it seem impossible to just do this as a hobby or a “bit of fun” just like the book makers want it to be viewed. I understand some people have it under control and it shouldn’t be taken away from everyone. What I am asking for is at least an attempt to stop this disease that is gripping so many people like myself from spreading any further.

I will now carry on with working, getting myself out of the financial hole I have dug for myself over the past month. The £33k of debt I have created I know I will be out of it within a year or two after sacrificing family holidays for another year, but then I also know I will be back in it again within a year. I won’t tell a sole about this, I keep it inside hidden from the world whilst I carry on with my life, I will tie myself up with work until I once again have some expendable income left to sign up for another casino. As much as I don’t want to do this I’m pretty certain I will. Maybe I will come back here and read over this post, hopefully it stops me doing it again and hopefully it makes others think twice too.

I think this is the most under rated illness that there is in this country, it is sneered at and frowned upon as a life choice but believe me when you’re thrown in when you don’t have any financial ties such as kids or mortgages it makes it harder and harder to get out of when you do. Financial pressure is what triggers this for me, so when we need to go on a holiday or when the car breaks down or the roof leaks, I spend money I hadn’t budgeted for and then I think I need to win this back or were going to be pushed for cash here. Then things are just made worse and worse and everyone suffers more because of my selfishness.

One thing I haven’t done and what gives me an ounce of hope that one day I will get out of this hole that I have dug for myself is I have never involved work or my business in this gambling, I draw a line between the two and this gambling problem is solely on my shoulders, the debt is all in my own name only and the business funds never get touched, no matter how desperate or dark the days become. I’m almost writing this paragraph like I should be rewarded for this but I just wanted to explain that there is some restraint there, but only when others are more obviously effected, or is it just that there’s more chance I will be caught out, I don’t know.

After I had lost some money or self-excluded myself from a casino I would go to GamCare and read through the forums, mainly so I could see that other people have the same issues and not feel alone, but also as selfish as this is, I wanted to see that there were people that were in even more trouble than me so that I knew I could get out of this. I would look to see if anyone said how much they had lost, if it was more than I had lost I sort of felt like it wasn’t the end of the world anymore. This is of course total bulls**t because everyone is different, everyone’s problem is different and the money lost is all relevant to someone’s position or role in society. Mine has increased as my income increased, to
a point now where it is just crazy to believe what I am doing, I can’t even believe it myself half of the time. At one point within the last 48 hours my debt that I mentioned earlier would have been all but gone, but now im back where I started because I just kept risking more and more. So if you’re like me and are reading these forums for some sort of comfort or to stop you from feeling alone in this, then yes take some comfort from the fact that you are not totally alone, there are other people with this problem. But don’t look for numbers to make you feel better about what you have lost or the debt you are in, it is all relevant to your life and what anyone else has done or lost is not relevant.

The last thing I want to say here is good luck to anyone else that is in this position, I honestly hope that being open (whilst remaining nameless) about what I am going through will help someone else who is either in my position or heading towards it. There is no win here, no win will ever ever be big enough to just stop gambling, so eventually, no matter how much you are up on any given day you will end up down eventually.

I suppose I’m also hoping as I said earlier that I will come back here the next time I feel like gambling, maybe this will be the turning point I needed to put a stop to this. If I can read my own words about how I feel right now right after getting myself back into this mess, taking away from my family and selfishly just feeding this addiction maybe I will stop myself. Who knows.

Good luck to all.