Getting Addicted To Online Roulette:

I was just bored one day and I didn't know it would cause so much pain.

I've visited a casino just once in my life where me and my friend placed £5 on red on roulette and we doubled it, and I knew even with just that small amount it was time to walk away as my luck would soon change but my friend went on that we should place one more bet, and we agreed to put the money on black where the ball landed on red and from then on we decided to walk away, I didn't feel any urgency to go back and try and win my money back (but because he made me gamble, he did give me the £5 out of his own money) But after this, I thought I wouldn't have trouble ever gambling again. I was wrong.

Mid-February this year (2015), Bradford were set to play football and I wanted to bet on them winning just for a bit of something to do and see if I could win a bit of money and call it a day. So I signed up for w**********l online and placed £1 on them. They scored within the first ten minutes and I felt great. I'm never usually interested in football but I was watching the results throughout all of the game and was delighted that Bradford had won 2-0. My returns were £3.60 so I was £2.60 in profit and decided to bet on a match later that night, but in the meantime I started betting money on games who were scorring and I'd be so close to losing those bets if some games had suddenly drew, and I did lose and gain some money too and at the end of the evening I was £2.29 in profit from it all.

I decided to play online roulette then to try my chances. As I was a new customer, w**********l gave me bonus money and I was betting small amounts of money and I was winning and I got my money up to £35 and decided enough was enough and went to the withdraw button. A notification popped up saying due to wagering requirments I couldn't withdraw my money until I wagered an overall £460 more. At first I didn't know what this meant and I was worried that I pressed something I shouldn't and that I suddenly owed them money but I later realised they would let me withdraw my original £10 deposit as well as my £2.29 football winnings but I didn't realise this until it was too late. But I tried to wager more money to lose the limit but as the limit dropped, so did my money and I was suddenly on a losing streak and I then lost the bonus money and my initial £10 deposit.

Losing £10 really bugged me throughout the next day. I don't have a job or any means of making any money, I'm just an 18 year old college student who's mum, grandma and step-dad give money to every now and then and all I could think of was that if they ever found out I'd lost this tenner, they would be mad and disappointed at me as they've brought me up telling me that gambling is a mug's game and you're never really a winner. My grandad often tells me stories of how his step-father earned a lot of money per week but come Monday and would always have run out of it due to gambling it away.

So with fears of me feeling skint by losing this £10, I tried contacting customer services and I told them that my little nephew (I don't even have one) had got into my phone and made a number of deposits losing me my £10 but they just informed me that their terms and conditions state that I am in charge of security for my account and I agreed to this, therefore I'd have to live with it. I continued to make deposits to try and win this back and when I was £30 down I contacted gamble aware who just told me to learn by the £30 and not make any more deposits. And I didn't, for a few hours but a few days later, I was then £120 down. I was forever thinking "Why was I bothered about £10? Now I'm worse off. I should have just left it." I've suffered from anxiety for around a year now but I suddenly felt ill with it now for losing so much money and started selling some of my beloved games and DVD's just to try and gain the funds back in my bank account but even though I did gain a little from that, I just continued to feel like I could have sold those and had extra on top of what I'd just gambled away if I hadn't have gambled it, so that never really helped me feel any better.

I felt cheated out of the money I'd lost rather than blaming myself for gettign addicted and trying to win my money back and I still do really. I just found it ironic that when I had bonus money but couldn't withdraw it, I was winning lots of money and as soon as that limit dropped, so did my money. Even a different version of their roulette allowed you to play for points instead of real money and I was winning hundreds of points but the minute I started playing with money I lost them.

I didn't gamble for a while but then I started playing their live roulette instead because I didn't think it would be fixed like the main games. I kept losing my £10 deposit on it but when I did, I would leave it be for a few days before carrying on playing and wasting more money in a day. But one weekend I started placing bets on 0 as well as other deposits and 0 was a hot number and I ended up winning my money back, everything I'd lost was back. But then I was close to losing it again but I had one last deposit and placed £2 on 0. As the wheel spun, I physically prayed for it to land on 0 and it did and I won £72, so with that on top of what I had won earlier, I was now withdrawing £140 from my account and I was in such a good mood, I immediately was telling all my friends who I'd been telling I lost my money, that I'd won it back, and I decided to try my luck the next day where I was £70 up on top of that. I just found myself to be making money so easily I just couldn't stop myself and then lost it all again. I tried to win that £70 back and ended up losing the £100 again. When I did win, I was so enthused when talking to my friends and talking about what it was going to cover in terms of my bank account. But it was a shame I lost it all and I felt like such an idiot for being greedy.

This kept me away from playing for a while again but then I started. I placed a few bets and one being on 0 for £1, when that came in I won £36 and withdrew it thinking "That's it for the day." But I later gambled again, I made so much money and then lost it again, as well as another £100 so I was £200 down instead of just £100.

I asked online for help on how to not gamble again and I guy told me that even when I win at gambling I'll lose it all, and he understood exactly what was running through my head. He told me you want to win the money back and when you do, you find it so easy that you play all the more and then end up losing it all again.

Playing the live roulette, I didn't feel as cheated out of my money like the other games that are just randomly generated. But I was still down with money and continued to wonder why I was worried about £10.

Just last week I got bored one afternoon and decided to play and I deposited another overall £100 out of various deposits and I was so close to losing this money but I was lucky and I gradually started building it back up again. Late at night I started making bigger bets on numbers and luckily for me they came in and I was soon withdrawing £300 from my account. I'd won my £200 back and £100 deposit. I was going away for a few days and now that I'd won my money back, I thought that being away with limited internet might keep me away from the gambling and help get it out of my system and I was wrong. I placed a few football bets and played some roulette but lost £10. Once I got back home I tried to win this £10 back and ended up spending another £100. I didn't learn by my mistakes in the past and I found myself hooked again.

Later on in the evening I was down about it. I had £200 remaining in my bank account that I'm saving for a trip to Amsterdam in July and I transferred it onto my card and deposited £100 of it into my account and placed high bets to try and continue to win it back but I lost it, so I put in my final £100 and nearly lost all that. My heart was beating and I just wanted to cry. "Why have I let myself get in such a state again?" "Why didn't I just leave it when I won my money back?" "Why did I get so greedy?" Luckily, I ended up building my money back up. My aim was to get it up to at least £400 and call it a day but I was at about £320 before the website started hitting technical glitches and I was up until 3am gambling. I did lose a bet too due to these glitches so I was talking to customer services who told me somebody would get back to me. And finally, yesterday morning I made my final bets with another £100 deposit after losing £12 I left remaining in my account. I got this money up to £440 and I just got bored and decided to continue to gamble it away..I nearly lost it all again but eventually got it back up before trying my luck and I got the money up to £600. I withdrew it then and knew it was time to stop. I just didn't feel like gambling at all after that. I didn't want to feel how I'd felt the night before after wanting to cry my eyes out whilst feeling so ill about it. I knew this time I've been really lucky and decided I want nothing more to do with gambling.

I've also been saying that I know in a few days or weeks I'll get bored and want to gamble again and I need help on how to refrain from doing that, but right now I have no energy from those few nights ago to do it. I've said so many times I'm going to stop and I really want to mean it this time and I think this morning I made the first step towards this. From the other night's technical glitches and my bets going faulty, w**********l credited my account with £101 and I was talking to my friend about how I was so close to gambling this but instead I withdrew it straight away and haven't reversed the withdrawal and now I feel proud and that is my first little steps to keeping away from this trap.

I've been giving advice to people that I never want people to place bets and end up like me. Throughout my losses I've lost so much money and I was fortunate to win it back with a little bit of profit, but I've scarred myself for life the other night having a panic attack over this and I think it was the warning I needed to not be greedy again and take what I have. Things could have been so much worse and I could have lost all my savings for Amsterdam and had to admit all to my family or withdraw it from savings that I don't want to touch. I'm just worried that in time to come I'll get bored one afternoon and deposit £10, lose it and end up losing it all again and I just hope it doesn't come to that.

My advice to anyone is that seek help before you do lose more money that you haven't got or don't want to spend. I was lucky in winning it back but I was so close to being £1000 in debt, especially when I don't earn anything. I just hope everyone on this forum finds ways to get yourselves back to normal and gamble free because gambling is a horrible addiction! My friend joked with me saying "Least you don't have to work for your money.. ;)" After my big win and I told him I would rather spend a day working for my money than going through the hurt and pain that I did the other night!