scratch cards

@itneverends If you are around abstaince and recovery forums long enough you will hear others say "I don't gamble on x, y or z, just on 123" but the word missing from that is "yet".

The addiction is progressive in it's nature, which means it gets worse. Normally financially but  it can expand to other types of gambling. This long term will lead you back to your main betting type. You start to believe you can control it as it isn't as bad as before or you'll find that gambling starts getting bigger.

The only way for me is the GA way. Total abstaince. I don't buy raffle tickets, I won't even spin a coin. Find yourself a GA meeting and see if that helps. Try it for 90 days and then see if you're better for it or not. Gambling isn't going away so if you feel like you want to go back to it be assured it will be waiting for you!

Chris.

Hi INE

With this addiction it doesnt work like that and nobody here is going to recommend trying another form of gambling or stepping it down in that way.

Scratch cards are not a soft option and its just your addiction talking to you and keeping the gambling feeling alive.

I will give you a couple of the odds on the card prizes you really seek. 1 in 200,000 and 1 in 3,985,600!! You need to understand those odds and it seems you are buying lots of cards per week. You could be playing for lifetimes on those odds...do you understand? 

The fivers and tenners are false wins to keep you hooked and promote a sense of activity. How much are you going to spend on those odds?

They can keep selling the cards long after the top prize has gone. Its all carefully calculated to make them money...they are simply skimming the large profit from a fund based on a pool of punters money

Its all distasteful to me and scratchcards create plenty of addicts on their own. All this wonka golden ticket, vibe is actually more  dangerous than some people think. Its all gambling and its not healthy behaviour especially when people go out of control buying hundreds of cereal packets choccy bars or scratchcards.

Its even in designer toys now...will people find the chase figure and it hypes up the market into a false frenzy A figure that costs a couple of extra pence to make but they call it super rare and sell blind boxes so people are spending thousands in some cases trying to find it

Its all marketing for profit and is designed to be highly addictive

Look I will take that you have cut down on chucking money away for now but its not the answer. You have simply swapped one form of gambling for another and its a progressive addiction. Are you going to buy more and more cards because you have already shown that gambling is a dangerous addiction  for you

Gambling is no good for you and you need to leave it alone. Tell people close what you have been up to and start doing more reality exercises.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

It is not the amount you spend per day, it's irrelevant,  gambling is gambling. I've heard other people from time to time mention scratch cards or doing the lottery isn't so bad, well that's just an addict trying to justify themselves as usual. If you exchange money in the hope of winning money then it's gambling. 

Hi,

I've just looked at Camelot's Website. It says WE MAKE GAMES THAT CHANGE LIVES. I believe they do & sadly not always for the better.

Al

Hi 

many thanks everyone for your responses and honest good advice, i think with all gamblers its really hard to not thinking of gambling ever again, and obviously i realise that i am just swapping one addictive game for another, i suppose with every addiction we have to take it one day at a time