Hi everyone, firstly Iapologies for the length of this post. I kind of want to go into the absolute details so I can read this back everytime I get the urge.
I was meant to finish work an hour ago, and meant to be meeting friends soon but I get the feeling this could be one of the most important posts I ever make, so everything else can wait.
I am 30, always been very good with handling money and not spending unwisely (I often lend to my parents!), if you were to tell my close friends or my parents I am developing a problem they would never in a million years believe you.
I used to place a few bets in my early 20s but nothing too serious, a fiver or tenner every few months on my favourite team usually when I went to a match with friends. Peer pressure/a bit of a laugh, call it what you will.
Then a month ago I received an email offer from b*****r (I think), saying deposit £10 and play it through on bingo and I'll receive £18 in nectar points. d**n you nectar! At the time it was a no brainer, even if I didn't win a thing I basically swapped £10 for £18.
Unfortunately that's where the problems began. I won a bit on the bingo, and headed to the roulette machines. I won a bit on there, simply betting on red. I ended up about £50 up in total plus those d**n nectar points. I **wish** I had walked away. But me being me, I had to read up on Roulette. I looked at all the different systems on wikipedia, and decided to try out the Martingale system. Again, I finished about £60 up and wish I had walked away.
Same again the next day, got lucky and finished £30 up. That was my third opportunity to walk away, with a nice profit in my pocket. I didn't take it.
The next day, I tried again. I bet £10, and kept doubling it. I won a few but then some of the bigger bets, I lost. I lost £80, then £160, then £320. I felt physically sick as I deposited £640 from my account and put it on red. I won, and finished about £50 up overall. I am almost banging my head against the wall now as I realise once again I could have walked away.
A few days later, I had the urge to try again. I just deposited the wins from the gambling so far into my account, and again went for red. I remember being about £26 up, but I kept going. Then it went bad...I lost those early bets, but kept going. I stopped at £320.
In the end when I worked it all out I was £460 down. I thought never again, cut your losses and move on. I banned myself from three roulette sites which I was using. I did have £1400 savings in my bank, so I'm fortunate in that my stupid gambling hasn't meant I can't afford to pay rent/bills etc. That was all about two weeks ago.
Then I got the urge again this afternoon. Even though I've lost, what, a third of my savings, I am obsessed with getting that money back. I know deep down I don't **need to** chase that money, but I get angry, you know, that kind of "that's my money they have" feeling. I stopped myself when I had lost £87 today, and again banned myself from that website.
So here is where I am. I've lost £533, I've got just under £1000 in my bank account and I want to move on but I keep going back to that angry feeling, that feeling where I could get lucky and put my money on red or black, or even or odd.
Again I am really sorry to everyone for this essay. I don't know whether I want praise from you all for wanting to walk away or punishment for being so silly in the first place. I just want to draw a line, realise I've lost money I could afford to lose and move on, I have only been gambling a month and now is a good time to stop. Yet I cannot get over that feeling of anger, of wanting to win back my losses.
Thanks everyone
Hi need to change,
You've recognised you have a problem and stopped in time that you still have savings of 1000 in your bank. Forget the rest of the money and be happy you aren't in debt, many of us on here are and realised to late.
Stop gambling now, move on with your life and live it, you are debt free please keep it that way!
Tnsk
Well done need to change,
Unfortunately you will keep finding sites out there to 'accommodate' your habit. You're right to stop now and you are very lucky to not be in debt, I've just had to fess up to the hubby that I've lost the equivalent to a new kitchen (with appliances!) for our house. I'm lucky he's not asking for a divorce!
You're right to stop now, please stop chasing that 'big win' that's how they get you by the short and curlies! Be strong and stop now as you will never win it back. I kept up the chase and now I deeply regret it, good luck
You've done well in recognising the problem quickly before u end up like most of us on here.
Even if u were lucky enough to win it back or even more, The feeling that would give you would be what will send you deeper into the depths of a compulsive gambler. U have already admitted to googling strategies when infact there are none. None that work anyway. There will only ever be one winner and that is the sites, bookies and casinos.
The wins always lead to even bigger losses. You need to be strong and walk away from this before its to late.
Think of the money as having being spent on a small holiday. Had u have done this u wouldn't have chased it and regretted spending it right? So tell yourself that that's where the money went. It went on a terrible holiday that you never want to go on again. Don't dwell on it and move on.
I wish u well and please please don't look at strategies or systems again. X
Accept that you have spent that money and it's gone.
Thanks everyone. Having read through a few other posts on here I thought maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, I've lost £500 of my savings rather than my house or family or job etc. I didn't want people to think I'm just looking for attention or creating a problem. But on the other hand I have a low paid job (£200 a week), I realise now if I don't curb this then soon my savings will be gone, and then I start eating into my overdraft and it's downhill from there. This morning when I had the slighest urge to win back that money, I left the computer and did something else.
Tnsk - great advice, thanks. I am accepting now I've made bad decisions this month but as you say, move on and live my life.
Half-Life - Yes, £500 to learn a lesson for life. Thanks for your words and I hope your husband can defeat it.
Pooky - It's dawning on me now I can't keep looking for that big win to 'get even' because even if I do risk it and manage to claw that money back, I know it's 99.9% likely if I have £500 sat in my account on a gambling website I won't withdraw it, I''ll just keep playing it to try and win even more. Again thanks for your words of advice.
new name new start - Perfect way of putting it, if I had a bad holiday like that I wouldn't keep going back in the hope it would somehow be a better holiday, I would move on. I got hooked into trying to beat the gambling websites with strategies, like you say there are none that work, if there were then it would be the gamblers driving the fancy cars, not the owners of the websites.
I have to agree with what everyone else has said, congratulations on stopping so soon.
I started out like you (but it was cashback sites for me and not nectar points) but unfortantly, unlike you... I didn't stop.
It put me £7k in debt. I knew I had to stop in Feburary this year, I haven't gambled since (down to blocking every single thing gamble related via a blocker) and feel so much better, I am slowly paying my debts off and I will never go back.
Every day I was I could go back to when I was 'just' down £500... but I can't. Please don't make the same mistake I did...
Like I shared on another blog. Draw a line now if you can. Imagine how much worse it can get if you don't. It will get worse.
Thanks guys, I know I've made the right decision in stopping now.
The final straw for me was over the weekend I sold £50 of items on an auction site, initially it was with good intentions because I decided to claw back that £500 I lost through selling items I no longer need. Then stupidly instead of putting the money into my bank account I withdrew it from paypal and tried to win on roulette, I got nowhere near and lost the £50, so I deposited another £50 and tried to win the £50 auction sales money back and lost that and so I've more or less paid to give my items away on that auction site!
That was the last time I have gambled, and it was half an hour before my first post at the top of this thread. I felt good yesterday, and feel the same today, not had any urges to go back and gamble.
In a bizarre way I am owed about £350 for some work I have done, and £250 from an insurance company (another driver wrote my car off a while back), so once that has come through I'm back where I started with £1500ish savings in my bank.
One final point, I estimate I have spent 2-3 hours of work time playing those online sites, so I am putting in unpaid overtime this week to make up for those wasted hours, gives me a clear conscience.
Hope nobody minds me posting a quick update, when I compare my experience with others on here it makes it sound like I'm a kid who has had a can of shandy and has decided to attend AA! BUT it's good to read back and remind myself how much better I feel now.
It's now exactly a month since I last gambled, I have been tempted at times - very tempted, a couple of times in my head I imagine how much I could win. But I've developed an approach whereby I straight away counter that thought by imagining how much I could lose, I still remember that raw feeling as I watched the roulette wheel spin, and watched the ball bounce out of the red (which would have pretty much cleared my losses) and into the green which pushed me to £500 down.
And when I remember that, and the way I felt sick and then miserable for a few days I move on and do something else be it a job or an activity.
Not sure if that approach works for other people - it's a bit weird because I play a musical instrument and I have been taught the concept of positive thinking reinforcement, so that when I get to a difficult part of a song I play it through my head and think how good it will sound, the thought "I might mess this part up in front of 200 people watching me" doesn't even enter my head, as a result I rarely make an error regularly playing a 29 song set 2 nights a week. Anyway I've simply reversed that approach and instead of thinking what I could win, I think of what I could lose.
Hopefully that doesn't sound like a load of old rubbish, hope you are all managing to defeat it too.
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