Hey
So since the start of this year I have lost massive amounts. We are talking no less than £25,000.
It's been a crazy year. My wages per month only come to about £700.
Starting gambling was the worst thing I did. I was brought up around problem gamblers and was exposed to that sort of thing at a young age. When I actually started gambling it started as a few quid on the fruit machines. Society has well and truly increased my habit through bookmakers machines and the introduction of online gambling.
Fruit machines turned into bookmaker machines. Then in turned to online.
I'm not trying to push blame but a lot of rogue practice goes on with online casinos where as soon as 1 has your details, they sell the details on and before long you get daily spam off others with tempting offers.
I joined 1 online casino many years ago and gambled small amounts. As I got more into the scene, the more casinos I found and joined. Eventually bets became bigger and here we are. 2016 and I have bet huge amounts, crazy amounts on spins and nothing to show for it.
Near the end of last year, a family member was serious ill and passed away. It was a devestating time and I had nobody to turn to. My head was all over the place and gambling took advantage of that horrible time. By the end of January I had blown well over £6000 gambling both online and anywhere else I could gamble. Pub fruit machines, the bookies.
I had put myself completely overdrawn and was in serious trouble financially.
The gambling didn't stop there though. The person who passed away left a sum for me to inherit. It was somewhere near £25,000.
They worked hard for that money and would have wanted me to spend it wisely.
I hit another really bad rock bottom over the past few days though and again, gambling was there. The slip was phenominal and has caused £19,000 worth of losses from that inheritance.
It's so upsetting.
I truly hate gambling and for whats its done to me.
It's this horrible cycle which no matter how hard I try, I can't get out of. I know what I have to do to give up gambling, but the industry crushes any way out.
I have nobody to look after my money. I don't have a debit card. I'm self excluded from many casinos but it never makes a bit of difference. They just carry on sending me promotional material and then when I slip, they are happy to pocket as much cash as possible.
Just to give you an idea. There was a casino at the start of the year that had been spamming with with promotional material. I caved and played there. I ended up losing lots of money. After about 2 hours of losses, my account was closed and I had an email from them.
The reason was because I am already self excluded there and their systems detected that. So, a casino i'm self excluded at sends me lots of promotional material, they allow me to open an account, lose a lot of cash and only then did the systems detect i'm self excluded. After, they just kept my money and that was that.
Only in gambling does that happen. If an alcoholic banned himself from pubs, there would be outrage if he went into a pub he was banned from, was allowed to get as drunk as possible and only after he was completely wasted did they turn round and ask him to leave.
Yet casino's are allowed to do that and nobody says a thing
Hi MG and welcome to the forum. I know exactly what you mean about self excluding and slipping back in when you shouldn't. I was registered on a site that was partnered with a site I had already excluded from. I was playing £100 hands on blackjack after depositing £500. Was down to my last £100 when I hit blackjack! Anyway the game screen went black and then closed. I got an email saying as I was self excluded my account was closed. They didn't respond to my emails so I rang them. Anyway after a long argument they finally agreed to give me my £100 bet back as "a gesture of good will" made no sense. They take my money if I loose, if I win, they won't pay me. Funny how it closed when I actually won a hand.
Anyway yea it's good to have the blocks in place but this journey does also require will power. I know it's hard when it's everywhere and like you say you've been brought up with it all around you. Maybe instal the blocking software on your laptop/pic and phone/tablet? How are you gambling if you don't have a debit card? Where are your wages going? You've come to the right place for help though. Iv only been of gambling for just over 2 weeks but I find this site very useful and the people here are great. Wish you best of luck my friend. You can beat this
I would appeal to the the casino operator if what you are saying is correct i.e. you were self excluded and you used no out-of-hand tactics to gain access. They should repay your cash as they have a duty to act responsibily. Pending that discussion you would then need to escalate to the gambling commission and / or a seperate civil case.
You think I could claim mine back? It was on a different site but they were partnered together he said
Saying that, I don't want to get worked up over it again. Iv accepted my losses and drew a line under it. Just want to move on from it all now
Thank you for the welcome.
Back when I lost it they were not going to budge and sent an email saying
It's a pretty naff comparission and to be fair, at the time I saw it as a huge lesson. I was feeling so strong willed that I was willing to let the money go as long as I remember how they acted and never make the same mistake again. I can only move on from that and absorb my recent losses too.
I gamble through the only way that is left for me. PayPal. I know I should close that account but the problem is, that's my only means to buy anything. No debit card restricts me from thge majority of casinos but there were a few that accepted paypal.
I did try blocking software before but it's just not as practical these days as theres so many ways to gamble. I would need it on my computer, laptop, tablet, phone. For some of those things, there's no blocking software and even so, gambling can sometimes still find a way
Yeah it's better to just move on. Losses are gone.
I don't even think if I wanted to I could go through a process of asking for it back. It could mean emailing them, thinking for days there could be a chance and then having the loss all over again if they say no. Much better just forgetting about that money now and moving on right away
Set up a new email address and close the one you have. Update all the required people with the email address (bank, subscriptions etc) and close down the old email address. Then you won't get the spam that tempts you 🙂 Good luck x
Thanks. I would but it's an ISP email address. I will look into doing that anyway though, even if it means phoning them.
1 set of emails I receive are clearly breaking the law, but as is normal in the gambling industry, they get away with it. It's a rogue portal. They somehow got my email address and each day they send a few gambling emails. The unsubscribe link always gives an error and even though I block their emails, they still come through because each email is sent from a different email address at their domain which is opened each day to bypass the fact people block their emails.
I'm mostly safe offline as I know I just need to make sure I carry minimal amounts of money on me. These days if i'm having a slip I wouldn't even consider gambling in the bookies or fruit machines with anything less than £100 on me. So as long as I carry significantly less than that, i'm pretty much safe.
Online is the damaging part but like I said, I can only gamble via paypal and there are very few casinos that accept paypal.
Either I have to close my paypal account, and not be able to do any sort of shopping online at all. Or close it and go without.
The problem with no paypal account is what if I need to buy something like a new tv or something that is quite expensive. It would mean having to carry large amounts of cash on me to go to town and buy what I need from a shop. Which could cause me problems
Hi,
We dealt with SE by snail mail, letters to the UK addresses of the websites quoting name, account number, postal and email address, date of birth, saying that my husband is a problem gambler and asking for permanent SE and no further contact by any means, apart from confirmation. The pennies due back were refunded to the card without further ado and we've heard nothing since.
CW
Can sympathise as I've been there, albeit to a lesser extent.
I dabbled very briefly online gambling as it was harder to hide from my partner.
But I did experience a similar situation as yours.
I had self excluded from all sites, then stupidly managed to open a new account after a drunken night out, won a fair bit then called it a day, next morning I couldnt log in, eventually called them to be told I had self excluded so all winnings were forfeited, and my original £20 was being refunded.
I took it on the chin, because I knew for a fact I would never have withdrawn the winnings (couple of thousand I 'think") I would have plowed it all straight back and then some.
That was the last time I gambled online.
What you have to think is, difficult as it is, is that if they hadn't closed the account how much would you have continued to loss...?
If you must keep the PayPal account active, then you must ensure that you self exclude from every gambling site where you have an account, possibly contact PayPal? maybe they have a filter where payments to gambling sites will be blocked?
I wish you well, and I hope you heed your username, the moneys gone.
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