I never saw myself as someone that could be addicted to something, But watching a TV program 3 years ago changed that, The reason was at the time I was comfortable in my Job had an easy life and was looking for a bit of excitment. The program was about People who Spreadbet the Financial Markets and it painted this picture or people making a career out of sitting at home a couple hours a day and making lots of money. I decided to put money into an account and was given all the jargon about it not being gambling as you can use all these tools to calculate where the markets are going to make yourself alot of money. I was suckered in and of course started losing straight away.
Now in the world of spreadbetting there are plenty of "Traders" who will tell you they make alot of money and for a fee they will share their winning trades with you. This was as you can expect total rubbish. But once your in and losing money your main objective is to win back the loses. The common speech was it takes 2 years to be profitble which then gets revised to 1000 hrs of trading etc. So I stuck it out. don't get me wrong I had some big wins but they were followed by a string of losers which then wiped out my account time and time again.
What made this addiction worse was I believed it to be my mistakes that cost me as thats what the so called pro's were telling me so unlike placing a bet I should have known from all the signals I was going to be wrong.
After losing £25k+ One day I realised this isn't trading its gambling and I started the road to recovery. It was not easy as the urges were there everyday and it took alot of will power and even now if I hear a big news story I will think there might be a big move today in the markets,
How I stopped may be slightly different to most people but I started to use my time investigating the claims made by these professional traders which lead me to ask a 2 questions. 1, If they make so much money why set up a trade room for £100 and give away your trades. as these trade rooms are open 12 hrs a day and hard work to manage, 2. where is this wealth, I googled these peoples homes and again nothing special some were even rented accomadation.
It was the asking myself and investigating these 2 questions that helped me quit as I gained confidence knowing it was Gambling and winning was not on the cards. the "professional" traders who ran these rooms ran them as a business and were not sucessful traders themselves but used membership fees to make a living, because of the high turnover of amateurs like myself they could easy hide their losses to make you the punter feel like your onto a winner. Some never even traded real money but used demo accounts One trader sticks out in my mind that never shared their screen and never got stopped out but told the 30+ members each day Im still in when everyoe else was out, I asked this trader what platform they traded off as this made no sense and I can check, I got banned from the room all my passwords did not work and had no contact with anyone. that was the wake up call that this was Gambling at a high level and you should not question the house.
The second part of my recovery was to understand Spreadbetting and again I asked myself question of what the trade rooms were telling customers.
1. I was always told the reason new traders lose is because their account size is to small. (I found out the guy telling you this got a huge commsion from the spreadbetting firm on the amount of money you put in as its never coming out)
2. I was always told to use big stops and leave the trades run until they hit target or get stoped out ( Trades very rare hit target and to leave a trade run overnight costs money, Leave a trade for a week and it will cost you more the the potetial win and and line the pockets of the trade room as they get a commission from all bets placed and overnight commission also)
3. I was told that to be succesful you need to sign up to these courses and webinar etc (these cost £1000-£5000 to attend)
What helped me quit was finding out for myself the House holds all the cards they win if you lose, the spreadbetting companies have an army of so called professional traders working for them selling new traders the dream and taking a cut of your loses and most important they can see your trades and as these are spreadbetting firms they have the power to move the charts out of hours to get you all stopped out.
I appologise for this being so long but I think if you investigate any gambling it will help you realise to that its a game you can't win and should seek help. I reduced my trading in stages over the past 8 months from everyday to couple hours a week to nothing. I have not traded or even looked at the screen for a 9 weeks now and have no urge to as I now understand its a no win game where the players know your every move.
I hope this helps other Finacial Spreadbetters who feel its not working for them and blame themselves as they don't yet realise its a very hard form of gambling as a £10 a point bet could cost you £1000's in seconds
Good Morning Lee
Thank you for your post and highlighting a very dangerous and unregulated market , im joe and im a compulsive gambler and i been very tempting to deposit some decent money and have a try but this post has defo stopped me in my tracks as its clearly just another gambling scam designed to make a few a lot of money and destroy most ppl bank accounts , least in the bookies they are fully tested and regulated and u can make money if u predict the right outcome in a footy match or golf etc and i hate them FOTB machines but they not rigged its the random ness that kills ppl
i recently signed up to have a trail account with spreadbettingand lost the 20k in about a week so least that part was honest and i work in the oil indusustry so i thought insie knowledge of the crude and bren prices may give me an advantage but no still pot luck and worse
stay gamble free and start a business or work for a company that looks after u the only way to make progressive money
peace
Hi Spraggy
The understanding that even if your right you can lose money was my lightbulb moment, take Oil for example you may think the oil price is going up which it is but intraday it moves $2 sometimes more is a 24hr period so you not only need to be right but buy at the bottom of the dip and have at least a 200 point stop as 1 point is 1 cent move so your risk to reward is actually bad as it could bounce around your entry price for weeks meaning you are losing money and risking more each day. some will kid themselves that if they bought Brent Crude at $26 and is now worth $50 they would have made £2400 for a £1 bet but this is not true as is was $26 in Jan 2016 1 year ago oil prices expire every 1-2 months so your trade would have been closed by the broker for a loss of around £150in Feb. but even if in the perfect world you was allowed to keep it, you are charged a spread overnight of around 4-6 points depending on the trade so even if the impossible could happen it would have cost you £1800 in fees meaning a profit of £600 in a year but as i said when oil expired in Feb so you would have lost. I gaurantee there are traders out there telling their members they made £1000's of oil and the Dow as on paper it looks easy. but when you learn the rules you can't win. and this is the killer as most traders then think right the market might move 20 points in my direction each day but I don't want to win £20 so i will bet £10 a point which is £200 win. they then fail to factor in to have just a 20 point stop they will need £1000 in their account to cover it. so they reduce the stop a bit place the trade and straight away see -£50 as the broker takes their commsion or spread. so they panic as in seconds its -£100 and close the trade repeating this over and over again. been there done that never again. only wish I read this story sooner about a teacher losing £280k and these people are gamblers just like us who don't yet realise they had a problem.
Hi,
I am the wife of a CG with a city background whose poison is spread betting.
I don't understand markets, prices, CFDs etc. Nor do I understand how spread betting on sports rather than commodities can be still be classified as "investment". However, I understand that spread betting comes with warnings about the risk of losses exceeding deposits. And I understand bank statements very well indeed. They showed net losses equivalent to the Greek debt.
My husband is a member of GA and is no different to the other CGs in the room. As a member of GA, there's hope for us.
CW
The how is unimportant, it's the why that matters
I think the issue with Spreadbetting on Stock Markets is that as you rightly say its Gambling on a ridiculous scale, but because those that sell it claim if you plan your trades you can beat the markets is the whole issue that ruin Peoples lives. the other draw is Men love to brag and to tell your friends your a stock trader is sort of like saying Ive made it in Life. I never thought I would end up here and it was that realisation that I am Gambling and have a problem that helped me, When I spoke to other Spreadbetters who were also losing on a massive scale they would say, "We just need to find a System that works or the right trade room to join" and I realised there is no difference here to a guy looking for the perfect system to win on the Slots or Horse Racing etc. Gambling was the search for the holy grail to beat the system. how foolish was I.
The Why gamble for me was a hard one to answer as I had never gambled before and did not see spreadbetting as gambling even though it had the word Betting in the title. I did it to start with as it promised a way out of the rat race but I couldnt stop as I needed to recoup my losses. but in the end It was more to it than that as when I won I was happy not with the money but I had beat the system but when I lost it was more my own fault and because I didnt do xyz i deserved to lose. I sometimes even laughed or taunted the markets to dare stop me out. It really messes you up
Dan's right, it's the why that matters. What the act of placing a bet gave you, what the need was in you that betting fulfilled and why that need was there in the first place.
CW
The why is the hard question the urge that drives some people and not others is hard to explain as different for everyone. I think for myself its a deep down issue of self worth as a Gambler I wanted to lose to prove myself right as to win isnt enough. But these were feeling I developed over time from the effects of gambling. When I was able to control my habbit those urges went away over time and now I have no feelings or urges towards Spreadbetting or gambling, Reading stories on here has helped realise its something that can be controlled with the correct mindset. Although I will say if I was to start again I problably would not stop until I lost whatever I put into the account so I just don't go onto the websites in the first place
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