Roulette

I can't believe that anyone's first bet was about avoidance , stress emotions or anything else we choose to come up with , it all starts with the excitement the first buzz or even a dream of easy money and fortune . I can remember my first bet on a bookies as clear as day and at that point in my life I had no issues , only later because of the buzz did I use it as a shied from life !

Spot on Alan, the first bet is about excitement, if the FOTB only offered small returns, not a possible £360.00 or more for a £100.00 spin, many many would not touch them, we would see them as very small fry in betting terms - low return betting - its a no brainer better regulation or removal will help the future potential problem gamblers - too late for me - although I have now reached rock bottom, I would never have been at rock bottom, if they had not offered me a chance at large winnings - Paul P.S- It has taken me 7 years to realise this

Spot on Alan, the first bet is about excitement, if the FOTB only offered small returns, not a possible £360.00 or more for a £100.00 spin, many many would not touch them, we would see them as very small fry in betting terms - low return betting - its a no brainer better regulation or removal will help the future potential problem gamblers - too late for me - although I have now reached rock bottom, I would never have been at rock bottom, if they had not offered me a chance at large winnings - Paul

Totally agree with the above , I gambled responsibly for probably 30 years and could take it or leave it , admittedly I have had bets in the past to do with escaping from life or just to switch off for half an hour but none of that was compulsive , I wouldn't gamble more than I could afford to lose and I certainly wouldn't have chased losses .

However when I became hooked on the Fobt's a few years ago that completely changed , they sucked me in good and proper and that was for me when betting no longer became fun , these machines if they can't be banned should be heavily regulated, A machine that allows you to bet that heavily ie , £100 stake every few seconds just by pressing a repeat button is dangerous to say the least , even when playing we know we cannot beat them , the odds are against us from the first spin and the longer we play the greater the chance of losses .

The problem is that for the bookies it's just a business , they want as much profit as possible from as little outlay as possible and those machine's are a perfect example of that working , in there eyes it's no different to someone backing horses or dogs all day , except they get a much faster return on there money .

I have an uncle who's a retired independant bookie , who had 3 of these machines in his shop , he'd run his family business since taking over from his dad in the mid 70s and I remember him saying that those machines took more money in a week than he would take in a month of over the counter bets .

Now I've stopped betting completely , as far as I'm concerned the bookies have shot themselves in the foot because had it not been for the Fobt's I would have cointinued to gamble responsibly, so they may have had a few grand from me by way of the machines but ultimately will get nothing from me again , I just hope that many others do the same and it comes around to bite them in the Ar.se !

ALAN 135 wrote:

Totally agree with the above , I gambled responsibly for probably 30 years and could take it or leave it , admittedly I have had bets in the past to do with escaping from life or just to switch off for half an hour but none of that was compulsive , I wouldn't gamble more than I could afford to lose and I certainly wouldn't have chased losses .

However when I became hooked on the Fobt's a few years ago that completely changed , they sucked me in good and proper and that was for me when betting no longer became fun , these machines if they can't be banned should be heavily regulated, A machine that allows you to bet that heavily ie , £100 stake every few seconds just by pressing a repeat button is dangerous to say the least , even when playing we know we cannot beat them , the odds are against us from the first spin and the longer we play the greater the chance of losses .

The problem is that for the bookies it's just a business , they want as much profit as possible from as little outlay as possible and those machine's are a perfect example of that working , in there eyes it's no different to someone backing horses or dogs all day , except they get a much faster return on there money .

I have an uncle who's a retired independant bookie , who had 3 of these machines in his shop , he'd run his family business since taking over from his dad in the mid 70s and I remember him saying that those machines took more money in a week than he would take in a month of over the counter bets .

Now I've stopped betting completely , as far as I'm concerned the bookies have shot themselves in the foot because had it not been for the Fobt's I would have cointinued to gamble responsibly, so they may have had a few grand from me by way of the machines but ultimately will get nothing from me again , I just hope that many others do the same and it comes around to bite them in the Ar.se !

Thanks Alan. Love your perspective. I'm certainly an addict in love with gambling. Problem is gambling is bad for me.

The two opposing views come down to whether you believe pathological gambling is a financial or an emotional one. If your main concern was the money lost then banning may help. If your concerns were the way it made you feel & behave then it would make no difference

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Well we are talking about it and hopefully we are all heading the same way so its all good. Its good to talk

I said I gambled responsibly for 30 years of backing Horses and Dogs , I could take it or leave it and never chased losses and it was with money I could afford to lose , just pure entertainment . I became irresponsible when I gambled on the Fobt's and then it became compulsive ! Apologies if I didn't make things clear enough for you ?

No worries. Thats fine. Ive edited that out. Im talking about it too much and need to chill

These machines have ruined me, they need a ban or very tight restrictions on them? made a step today and spoke to someone at gamble aware. I've been a slave to them chasing the losses and getting now where, time to cut my losses and change!!!

Hi everybody,

Can we all please take a breath and think about this thread for a moment? How helpful do you all think this debate has been to the original poster, 123Lup, who was asking for help or guidance? After the first couple of replies, things seemed to go off the rails a bit and descend into yet another political debate about the FOBT's. Please try to keep in mind that this forum isn't the place for that; especially, I might add, in the New Members section where we are, where people who may never have had any exposure to the forum may feel vulnerable and are usually just trying to get some good advice on how they can help themselves. At the very least, it would have been more thoughtful if this had all occurred in a new thread that didn't hijack someone else's well-intentioned attempts at seeking advice. Everyone is aware that emotions can run high around the issue of FOBT's, but please remember that our forum is a place for individual recovery, so let's try to keep that as the focus. Let's kindly wrap this up now, and please try to keep these things in mind for the future.

123Lup, I hope the first two responses were helpful to you. If you'd like to chat with any of us at Gamcare on either the Helpline (0808 8020 133) or the Netline, we'd be more than happy to see what we can to do help, as well.

Thanks for you post, and hang in there.

Travis

Hi Travis, I'm only in partial agreement with you on this thread. On the agreement side yes maybe a new thread would have been better about this issue, but 123Lup did title his thread 'Roulette' and by being at the top of the new menbers forum it got a good response. It also concerns me that you as an organisation don't seem to like 'the banning of fotb's' being discussed on this forum (it's not what we are about) - let's be blunt there would be a massive reduction in people on here if the 'fotb' was regulated or even banned. So this form of discussion is healthly especially if younger people (new to this site?) read it and think mm maybe I shouldn't use these machines, they are after all a computer program rigged in favour of the multi-million pound betting companies. I am not knocking your help and ways of treatment for us all, but a healthy discussion on these machines can only be useful for us all. It does worry me that the organisation who is supposed to helping us all is a:- funded by the very corporates who prosper from these machines and then b: tries to stop a healthy debated thread about FOTB's. mmmmmm worrying. P.S>-Note no bad language, no ill will against other members in this thread, just trying to continue a thread amongst members here who have been hurt by these machines are thinking of the future generations. Thoughts Travis ?

Hi Lost my life , good post and totally agree with the above !

Regards Alan

Agreed, posted my response on ' feed back ' part of the forum