Some people say gambling is only a problem when you’re losing, but to me this statement isn’t true. Gambling can be a problem even when you’re winning, although you may not yet know it. If you’ve been drawn in to gambling, you enjoy the thrill or it’s a distraction from something else, then in my view it doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing. You’re hooked. And I’m testament to the fact that no matter how much you win, you can lose it very quickly. I mainly bet on sports through various online gambling sites. There’s so many offers when you open an account – be it a ‘risk free’ bet (returned stake if you lose), a matched first deposit, or even just a completely free bet where no deposit is required. My gambling journey started with me opening a number of these online accounts. I thought I was quite sensible about it; I maximised the free bets available from a number of sites, and after the first bet, I then withdrew my initial deposit. This let me with any winnings from the first bet or a risk free bet / matched deposit bet from the account offers. No matter what happened, I wouldn’t be any worse off. And it all started so well. I was up about 500% on the amount I put in originally (and which I subsequently withdrew). I withdrew some of my winnings, but looking back, I was already hooked. Hooked to making a quick buck. Hooked to getting bets right and ‘beating the house’. Hooked to the thrill of a close winning bet. Around 7 years ago I remember losing £1,000 of my own money through gambling. I was trying to win back my winnings. This had failed, and eventually I found myself trying to win back my losses. I lived with my parents at the time, and told them about my loss because I felt so crap about all the money I’d lost. Rightfully, they gave me a hard time, and their stern words and the disappointment I saw in their eyes was enough to make me stop…for a while. After a short break, I then started gambling again. Not much. Not getting into debt. Losing money still, but losing money that I could just about afford to lose. The more and more I lost, the more I wanted to win it back. Chasing my losses really started to set in. Fast forward a good 5 years, and after more sustained losses, I finally went on a winning streak. I started with around £1,800, and I remember telling myself that if I get to £2,500 I’ll stop. Then £5,000. Then £7,500. And so it continued…I wanted to win more and more. I was so focused on winning back my losses before as my motivation for gambling, or at least that’s what I thought. But when push came to shove, I continued to gamble. I was hooked to winning. It was more than just about winning back my losses. Within one week (of very intensive gambling – at least 18 hours a day, including setting my alarm for 3am/4am to wake up to bet on matches I thought I had a chance on!), I had turned this initial £1,800 into over £500,000. At this point, I was withdrawing money from my account. One day that week, I phoned my mortgage provider to ask to pay off my mortgage. I was told I needed a formal letter sent to me with the calculated repayment costs. This was fine – my mortgage with heavy repayment fees was about half of the money I had in my account. By the time the letter arrived, I didn’t quite have enough to repay, I’d had some huge losses. When you win a lot, betting sites tend to limit the size of your bets quite a lot, so the maximum I could bet on the majority of matches was around £1,000. Not enough to easily win back the extra £20,000 I needed to repay my mortgage. But, one game with even odds allowed me to bet a large amount. I therefore decided to bet the majority of money I had left, in fear I wouldn’t be able to win back enough on other games if my bet sizes continued to be restricted. Of course, I went on to lose this bet (more details of which are in ‘the man behind the journey’ section of my blog). I also had invested some of the money in the stock market, and in premium bonds during that time. As the losses started coming in, I then sold these to fund my attempt to win back my money. Any money I could get my hands on then went into betting as I was so caught up in the vicious gambling circle. Although a very personal story, I wanted to take you through my own brief journey of despair, ecstasy, and then ultimate despair once again. Looking back on this, knowing the trouble I’m in, I would absolutely say if I could go back in time I’d stop when I was up a significant amount of money. Maybe even when I could repay half my debt. But deep down I now know that I’d do exactly the same thing again. I was so caught up in gambling that I was able to rationalise anything. Have spoken to a few of you guys and having seen the comments in the survey, I know some of you have a similar feeling. It’s like you’re a different person when you’re gambling. And it doesn’t matter who you are; there have been comments from professionals with PhD’s, hedge fund managers, even company CEO’s who have been through the same thing. Gambling affects us all, and we’re never going to win back our losses through gambling. Gambling can’t be the answer, no matter how much we want that to be true. In summary, it was the ‘winning’ feeling that got me hooked to gambling. That gave me the idea that with a ‘bit more luck’ I’d be able to win more bets. That eventually I’d be successful. But it was that ‘winning’ feeling that got me hooked to gambling. To make me act irrationally. To be overly optimistic. And ultimately to be in over £100,000 of debt. Leave a Reply. |
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