My Story...

Hello, my name is Matt and this is my story of my gambling past... (it will not be a part of my future)

It begins with a short bit about my family and past..

My Dad was a terrible gambling addict, he gambled whilst I was a child and ended up loosing hundreds of thousands of pounds and taking out a new mortgage on our family home where he lived with myself and my Mum.

My Mum then devorced him when I was 15 and has continued to pay off his debts after he was declared bankrupt 8 years ago. Thankfully my Mum is now happy with someone else and is financially stable again, where as my Dad is not in a good place, after having a leg amputated due to a DVT 2 years a go caused from smoking for 50 years, he now has cancer.

My relationship with my Mum and my Dad are good ones, I have always been close to both of them, especially my Mum. She amazes me, she holds nothing against my Dad and has somehow found the peace and happiness she deserves. I have always thought it was pity she feels as my Dads situation is all self inflicted but I can see bits of myself in both my parents... My Dad is a troubled person and has lost it all, but he is good at good heart and although I have had a lot of anger towards him I still love him.

My gambling past started 2 years a go. I was at home looking on the internet for ways to make a bit of extra cash on top of my full time job as I had recently got engaged. Top of the list on my google search was 'matched betting' which I had never heard of before. For those of you don't know what it is, roughly put you gamble only to win by backing both outcomes of say a football match with different bookies. The idea was to qualify for the free bets that bookies love to give away! If you calculate the right odds you can make money. So after telling my fiance, researching the strategy and telling myself it wasn't gambling and that I was nothing like my Dad in that sense, I began. It was very exciting after watching these videos of people making money and it seemed so simple.. and that it was... I started to make a decent amount of money by sticking to the strategy. Driven on of course by the appeal of making money whilst sat at a laptop at home. However, one day I noticed that casinos give away free spins and bonuses as well and match betters have been using this to make profit by simply using the free money and then withdrawing winnings. Simple! I started doing this and nothing really went my way, i'd withdraw before I'd made a loss but no wins.. Until I began one £5 offer with *******, long story short that one £5 free bonus won me over £1600 on a slot machine from like 30p-£1 spins. Naturally I was over the moon, I'd never won anything before and I wish I never had. I span £80 of that away before I pulled myself together and withdrew the money. I put it all in my ***** account and planned to use it for my match betting as the more money you can put in to it the more winnings you make from the bet.

Long story short again I lost nearly all of it on Blackjack...

After explaining to my fiance what had happened I stopped match betting and gambling.

9 months later.. under the stress of wedding planning and head scratching at where money would come from. I started match betting again, this time on a lower scale as I had lost all of my capital and couldn't make a lot of money until I had built that up again. I didn't tell my fiance this time. Match betting slowly turned into full on gambling, mainly all on blackjack (thought i'd have learnt my lesson right). You always seem to feel that they owe you that money back and it's still yours, even if you are only £1 down in your head that money is yours. I remember the feeling of guilt, knowing how hard my partner was working and how she would feel when I told her I had gambled again. I always had enough money to pay our bills I somehow found the restraint to stop myself before it got to that stage.

Somehow we found the money for the wedding mainly from her parents and my Mum, but it was the best day of my life and I felt blessed that I had landed on my feet. 6 months after the wedding I felt strong and in the best position I had been in for a long time, I was gamble free and had no pre wedding stress or pressure to find money from no where.

Then the grand national came around, my friend had put £5 on a horse and won, naturally he was overjoyed! He is one these 'casual gamblers'. He was convincing me to put a bet on a horse and in the heat of the moment I did. I logged on my account and placed the bet, I immediately felt at home, seeing the odds displayed all over the pages, flashing casino buttons etc. It's there to pull you in and sadly it did. I began playing blackjack and a few slots now and then, it felt different to before as It did not consume so much of my time, it took a back seat and became less controlling of my life. My mood was all round more up beat and I told my self I was a stronger person. This I now see was a complete hoax. Of course I lost money again, but I won It back and withdrew it and then started the process again.

This happened a couple of times until one night It got completely out of control. I had gone to withdraw the money earlier in the day but cancelled it in the evening and lost the whole lot. The next day I was off work sick and in my mind I had no other thought than I was going to get that money back no matter what the cost. I spent the day in bed, gambling on my phone doing spins of £10-£20 at a time loosing and winning hundreds. I felt so weak and vulnerable, partly because of the sickness I had and of course the gambling. My relationship with my Mum has always been so close that I have had access to her bank and do her online banking for her (I now wish this wasn't the case). We trusted each other with things like this and I had until now not touched a penny and never even thought about using her money for gambling but as I was at rock bottom on this day I made the worst mistake and started using her money. It got out of control and what started with £10 at a time turned into 100's. I ended up taking £2500 from her account and lost it all. For me that was the lowest point, rock bottom, groud zero. When my Wife got home that night I was a mess, I pulled myself together enough to tell her what I had done and then I told my Mum. I have never felt so ashamed, so small and so worthless. I felt the trust from my Mum and my wife immediately change and my heart broke.

It's now been a week since, my Wife has been incredible she has taken control of our finances and has been amazingly supportive. My Mum and her partner have also been amazing and I will never truly understand how they have found it in there hearts to support me through this after what my Dad has done in the past, I have vowed to pay back every penny I took from them. So far I have paid back £200 of it in a week and plan to sell my car to cover the cost.

I know I am strong enough to fight this this time for good, I have blocked all my accounts and I am working with my Wife to build back our finances. The most important thing for me is of course re-gaining the trust of my loved ones.

I know that my story is nothing compared to some people out there that are worse off than me. But the biggest thing I have learned is that nothing can't be fixed by telling someone. It's the silent addiction and I know from my experience how much it can eat away at your self esteem and personality until it gets to the point where what was a small problem becomes a big one and escalates from there.

Day 7 - Feeling good, feeling strong and am determined to fulfill the expectations my loved ones have of me!

Thank you and stay strong.

Matt