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[th themadchef WANTED $23 Outlaw]

Hi to everyone out there, this is very hard for me to share with you all, but i feel its time to share my story. Firstly i am a gambling addict and its been bad for many years now. Before i carry on i am self excluded in all UK casino’s, all bookies within 100 mile radius of where i live, all Adult Gaming centers within a 100 mile radius of where i live and blocked to online gambling sites.

My addiction if i was honest started when i was around 16 years old and now i am 42. I say addiction to start what i mean is yes i would dabble on the fruits and stayed well within my means, to be honest the really hard addiction started when i was around 30 years old. I don’t know what the trigger was still trying to work that one out but i would say the FOBT’s are where i lost the most i would say. Yes i would get paid and duff the whole lot in less then an hour and think oh shit what am i going to do. When i was 30 i was married 2 kids house owned outright. Amazing credit history, lots of friends and a nice car. I owned 2 businesses that where doing well and paying me a good wage. My ex wife was earning good money too. Life was good and then the problems started.

By the time i was 31 i was gambling everyday, sometimes i would win but mostly lost it all and more. Some weeks i was blowing over 2k in fruits and FOBT’s, and yet i was pissed off with losing but at that point it had not sunk in what was really happening. I am going to skip a few years and say from the age of 38 i was skint, broke totally screwed. Lost my businesses, had personal debts of over 250k house was mortgaged to the hill, lost friends and family and lost my marriage. My gambling got so bad i was lying and cheating to obtain money to feed my addiction, and yes i lost it all. Oh believe me i had some good days and weeks and was winning BIG. In June 2017 i had won in excess of 300k i felt like a king but i wanted more. Before i carry on i did do something with the winnings, i did clear a shit load of debt, secured the house for my wife and kids and went onto a DRO. With all that said and done i still had 150k in £50 notes sat in my home, and yes you have guess it i blew the lot. This was not in a month or 2 it was done within a week i was sick beyond belief.

Now comes the hard part i could not borrow or beg for money anymore because it was gone, my family knew something was wrong my mood had change, i was miserable and never happy, i did not want to socialise i just wanted to play and gamble.

Now for the people who have been in this situation past or present will know that i am not telling you everything, that is because it is hard for me to tell you all and i will tell you depending on how this thread takes shape. I will add more before i go in December 2017 i attempted to kill myself. For those who really want to know i will tell you in my next post, but for now i almost succeeded. On Christmas 2017 i was actually living in my car. My ex had changed the locks on the house froze my access to my bank i had nothing and lost everything in the world.

I was medically classed suicidal and heavily depressed with anxiety in January 2018 and was not in a good place. I had no home, money, clothes and could not see my kids. Gambling had taken away my life and i nearly killed myself from it.

I am guessing some of you are now bored with reading this and thinking stupid idiot, what a plank he is etc etc. This is only a small snippet of the story and there is lots more i could tell you, however i want to see how this reacts with you all.

I know millions of people gamble and they can control what they spend etc. Gambling should be fun and yes play with what you can afford. For me it got out of hand and for thousands of others out there too.

Well i am off for a large coffee (MY NEW ADDICTION IN LIFE LOL) i hope this thread helps the people who have been or are currently going through this. I will as i said tell you more soon.

Take Care.

[bi bishman WANTED $55 Outlaw]

It’s brave of you to tell some of your story and I can resonate with a lot of it.  I have spunked a month’s wages on a Friday night/saturday in arcades playing the £500 machines when they had only just come out.  Done the same with roulette in the bookies and then online.  Of course, there are wins and I remember a few times when I have had a grand in cash just lying on my bed, taking photos of the winnings and sort of revelling in it but as you know we can never keep it.  Simliar to what I do now with online casinos, getting the occasional big win and uploading them here.  I won £10k on Book Of Dead last year but its all gone.  I don’t know what the answer is because it is very hard to quit for people like us.  I have been on the edge a few times but somehow managed to wait one more day and somehow I’ve managed to pull through but it does feel like it’s only a matter of time if we can’t stop completely.

[Haz40 WANTED $1,166 Outlaw]

It takes some courage to post something like that and i certainly wouldn’t call you a plank or stupid. I’m 42 myself and very similar had a good business ran up massive credit had business loans and personal debt. I didn’t end up losing my home or girlfriend but i knew i wasn’t far away from it. I’m truly glad you’ve come out the other side and i wish you nothing but a debt and gambling free life. Keep strong and good luck. Thanks for sharing this story.

[th themadchef WANTED $23 Outlaw]

Just a quick message to say hi and thanks to Haz40 and BishMan for replying to my post, and sharing there pitfalls within gambling. It has given me confidence to share even more of my story. I know all post’s are moderated and check before going live however if there is a few more people wanting to get involved within my story whether or not it helps people or they know someone who has a problem, i was thinking of holding a live WhattsApp conference call so we can chat openly. How do you all feel about that?

I will add more on my story tomorrow.

[GIRTH32 WANTED $16 Outlaw]

Just read your story and I feel the same was going to start a thread about how fucked up I am at moment and cant see away out of it just sat and lost my last penny and gambling online gone worse since fobts have stopped now 1st of month tomorrow no money for Bill’s don’t know what going to tell wife this time think that will be it for us she as warned me enough times just sat staring at a these 4 walls just don’t know what to do this time lost all my other family through gambling already

[Calumjay18 WANTED $13 Outlaw]

Firstly very brave of you to post part of your story.. it has genuinely got me thinking about my gambling and although I have been extremely lucky and I’m roughly 7k up over the past 3 months and never really getting out of control , I find myself reading your story and for the first time looking into what if or what could be in the future. I’m comfortable in life but as you stated your were in a great position but lost it all. I will be in the next day or 2 signing up to Gamban. I don’t want my gambling to be a issue for me and I think this is the only way. I thank you so much for your post as it’s genuinely opened my eyes. All the best my friend

[th themadchef WANTED $23 Outlaw]

Hi Girth i am so sorry to read your post. I know gambling should be fun but it is an addiction that can and will destroy you until you take back control. I have learned the hard way, i am not judging you by calling you a tit or a plank its not the thing to do. What i can say is honesty is the best policy you need to sit down and tell your wife before its too late. If you want to talk send me your email and i will message you there.

Take care and remember be honest

[whoswho WANTED $114 Outlaw]

Thanks for sharing your story I really do feel for you and I think You made the right step in sharing your story.

stay strong and remember you can only go up from here

[GIRTH32 WANTED $16 Outlaw]

Cheers themadchef might do that just waiting for her to come home going to gamstop and self exclude myself don’t think ever felt so low I know it’s my fault and I am a tit no one else’s fault but mine cheers again

[th themadchef WANTED $23 Outlaw]

Hi Girth just seen your message, you are doing the right thing by 1: coming clean you have a problem. 2:telling your wife (she will be pissed my kick you out but she will forgive you) 3: Yes self -excluding helps but also take time to do it properly. A bookies self exclusion is shit. https://self-exclusion.co.uk/ is where you need to go. It takes time but its worth it. When you make the call please spend time listing all the bookies you want to exclude from. Not just a few in your area do a full list and go 30 miles radius of where you live. If that’s 100 bookies brilliant. Just to let you know i have 325 on my self exclusion. After that register with GAMSTOP and ban your self from all casino’s and adult gaming centre’s.

Girth your not a tit, gambling got the better of you. Now you can take back control of your life and look forward to the future. I promise you this you will feel better sooner rather then later. Good luck my friend keep me posted.

[ar argyl53 WANTED $419 Outlaw]

@themadchef saw you mentioned your thread to me in another one so popped over to have a read.

The poster “Mr B” and I may have disagreed about a lot, but for all I don’t buy in to conspiracy theories about rigged games or widespread dirty tricks, I definitely agree gambling is a fundamentally dangerous enough activity all on its own, even in its most legitimate forms.

Before I ever played online, I had a major FOBT habit for 10 years and before that it was the first generation of £500 jackpot B3 machines in the arcade. During that time there were many months I lost an entire month’s wages within 24 hours of getting paid. In the past, I’ve begged, borrowed and lied to friends and family to hide what I was doing and keep myself afloat. I’ve experienced the dizzying highs and nauseating lows. Incredibly, over 10 years during which I was never on an annual salary higher than £30k before tax, I managed to lose something I’d estimate in the region of £150k just on £500 jackpot machines. I had days where by noon I was a grand up, but couldn’t tear myself away from the bookies and by 5 o’clock was a couple of grand down. This was never roulette, just slots with their £20 mega spins. Despite getting myself in to debt, I always managed to stay on top of rent and critical bills. I had many, many months where I left myself four weeks from my next payday with no money for so much as a loaf of bread, but somehow through borrowing, through lies, through god knows what else, I always managed to just scrape by.

I eventually kicked my FOBT habit, but only because I discovered much lower stake, better games on the internet casinos. Online I had better control, until I started winning on the slots, found myself a few hundred pounds up and started having punts on live roulette. It was just one day late last year where I totally lost control and for the first time left myself unable to pay my rent, let alone anything else. Horrible day, I was chasing a small loss, hundred quid or something, on the live roulette and kept depositing and re-depositing, every spin it was like the wheel was consciously mocking me, landing literally next door to numbers that would have paid me big. Only stopped that night because I didn’t have any money left in the bank – didn’t even realise until I tried to redeposit for the umpteenth time and my card got declined. I signed up to Gamstop because I didn’t believe for a second I would be strong enough to resist going back.

My losses aren’t quite to the extent of yours, but I have not a penny in savings, slowly paying off what currently stands at about £15k of debt, my credit rating is so shitty even a payday loan company wouldn’t touch me with a bargepole and I find myself mid-thirties, earning good money but still always skint and probably renting for the rest of my life. The thing that really hurts me is knowing I’d be owning a nice little home if I’d saved all the money I gambled over the years, wouldn’t even need much of a mortgage.

And the silly thing is compared to some people like yourself, I’ve got off relatively easy.

Where I disagree with Mr B and those of the same opinion is I don’t think it’s right for me to blame the industry or the law for what I’ve done. I did it all because I liked it, because I was depressed for years, because playing those games was a way of both escaping the world and would give me a real adrenaline rush, like I could actually feel something. Even when I’d lost a month’s wages, it felt horrible, it made me feel sick but at least I could say I felt that. Most of the time I didn’t feel anything.

But so as you’d expect, I came to rely on slots to feel something. I’d convince myself it was relieving my stress when in fact it was the biggest cause of it.

No one ever made me do that, I did it because I was weak. One of the points I tried to make in one of Mr B’s many threads was that actually, I’d love to be able to say it wasn’t my fault, that I was manipulated by clever psychology and flashing lights, or that the games were rigged and I was playing expecting a fair chance they weren’t ever going to give me. It would be so much easier for me to emotionally deal with the damage if any of that stuff was true but it isn’t. I knew how shit the FOBTs were when I played them, I knew how unlikely it was I was going to win anything, I knew full well and very consciously that even if I did win, no matter how much I won, it would never be enough and I’d keep going back and keep spinning until I lost it all. It was always me, it was always my choice and I did it because I trained my brain over a long time to believe it was something I needed, to the extent that even I believed I couldn’t control it. But that’s bullshit. We always have a choice. The truth is if you stop doing it, nothing happens to you and if you stop doing it long enough, eventually the pathways in your brain change shape again and the urge to do it fades.

I hope you’re in a better place now, thank you for sharing your story – if there’s one thing I believe can give strength to people who are struggling and help them face what’s going on in their life, it’s knowing they’re not alone and that the anguish they feel is shared by others who understand too what it’s like.

[Haz40 WANTED $1,166 Outlaw]

argyl53 wrote:

@themadchef saw you mentioned your thread to me in another one so popped over to have a read.

The poster “Mr B” and I may have disagreed about a lot, but for all I don’t buy in to conspiracy theories about rigged games or widespread dirty tricks, I definitely agree gambling is a fundamentally dangerous enough activity all on its own, even in its most legitimate forms.

Before I ever played online, I had a major FOBT habit for 10 years and before that it was the first generation of £500 jackpot B3 machines in the arcade. During that time there were many months I lost an entire month’s wages within 24 hours of getting paid. In the past, I’ve begged, borrowed and lied to friends and family to hide what I was doing and keep myself afloat. I’ve experienced the dizzying highs and nauseating lows. Incredibly, over 10 years during which I was never on an annual salary higher than £30k before tax, I managed to lose something I’d estimate in the region of £150k just on £500 jackpot machines. I had days where by noon I was a grand up, but couldn’t tear myself away from the bookies and by 5 o’clock was a couple of grand down. This was never roulette, just slots with their £20 mega spins. Despite getting myself in to debt, I always managed to stay on top of rent and critical bills. I had many, many months where I left myself four weeks from my next payday with no money for so much as a loaf of bread, but somehow through borrowing, through lies, through god knows what else, I always managed to just scrape by.

I eventually kicked my FOBT habit, but only because I discovered much lower stake, better games on the internet casinos. Online I had better control, until I started winning on the slots, found myself a few hundred pounds up and started having punts on live roulette. It was just one day late last year where I totally lost control and for the first time left myself unable to pay my rent, let alone anything else. Horrible day, I was chasing a small loss, hundred quid or something, on the live roulette and kept depositing and re-depositing, every spin it was like the wheel was consciously mocking me, landing literally next door to numbers that would have paid me big. Only stopped that night because I didn’t have any money left in the bank – didn’t even realise until I tried to redeposit for the umpteenth time and my card got declined. I signed up to Gamstop because I didn’t believe for a second I would be strong enough to resist going back.

My losses aren’t quite to the extent of yours, but I have not a penny in savings, slowly paying off what currently stands at about £15k of debt, my credit rating is so shitty even a payday loan company wouldn’t touch me with a bargepole and I find myself mid-thirties, earning good money but still always skint and probably renting for the rest of my life. The thing that really hurts me is knowing I’d be owning a nice little home if I’d saved all the money I gambled over the years, wouldn’t even need much of a mortgage.

And the silly thing is compared to some people like yourself, I’ve got off relatively easy.

Where I disagree with Mr B and those of the same opinion is I don’t think it’s right for me to blame the industry or the law for what I’ve done. I did it all because I liked it, because I was depressed for years, because playing those games was a way of both escaping the world and would give me a real adrenaline rush, like I could actually feel something. Even when I’d lost a month’s wages, it felt horrible, it made me feel sick but at least I could say I felt that. Most of the time I didn’t feel anything.

But so as you’d expect, I came to rely on slots to feel something. I’d convince myself it was relieving my stress when in fact it was the biggest cause of it.

No one ever made me do that, I did it because I was weak. One of the points I tried to make in one of Mr B’s many threads was that actually, I’d love to be able to say it wasn’t my fault, that I was manipulated by clever psychology and flashing lights, or that the games were rigged and I was playing expecting a fair chance they weren’t ever going to give me. It would be so much easier for me to emotionally deal with the damage if any of that stuff was true but it isn’t. I knew how shit the FOBTs were when I played them, I knew how unlikely it was I was going to win anything, I knew full well and very consciously that even if I did win, no matter how much I won, it would never be enough and I’d keep going back and keep spinning until I lost it all. It was always me, it was always my choice and I did it because I trained my brain over a long time to believe it was something I needed, to the extent that even I believed I couldn’t control it. But that’s bullshit. We always have a choice. The truth is if you stop doing it, nothing happens to you and if you stop doing it long enough, eventually the pathways in your brain change shape again and the urge to do it fades.

I hope you’re in a better place now, thank you for sharing your story – if there’s one thing I believe can give strength to people who are struggling and help them face what’s going on in their life, it’s knowing they’re not alone and that the anguish they feel is shared by others who understand too what it’s like.

You read that and you can tell it comes straight from the heart ? 100% honesty. I rent myself mate. Credit shot. Good job but about 8k in debt and I’m 42. I reckon I’ve lost about 500k in 20 years. It beggars belief to think about it. I try not to. As you probably know I’m also on gamstop but occasionally still have the odd crazy session in the arcade.

[eejit101 WANTED $312 Outlaw]

Jesus, now thats a post Argyl. Nicely worded and a proper heartfelt explanation of life, choices, and sadness. I hope it keeps getting better for you.

 

 

[Du Dune2000 WANTED $205 Blocked]

I can empathise with all these stories so much, always had a gambling habit from the early days.   First it was the 10p fruities, then when I got older I would go on the £500 machines in the services, and spunk a couple of hundred pounds in a couple of hours, always chasing that jackpot.

Real problem came when i stepped into a bookies and found the FOBT machine and won on the first press of a roulette, I can even remember it was 0 and I was addicted to that number ever since, strange how the brain works.  That was the start of a rocky road.   I would walk in and pump hundreds in, because it was just numbers on the screen and then all of a sudden I couldn’t top up those numbers any more.  Always paid my bills, but there were times when i walked to work for a couple of days and ate pasta because I couldn’t afford anything else.  I would win at times thousands on the FOBT, walk around town the next day feeling like a king, and then 2 hours later have nothing as instead of buying something I would walk into the bookies.

I would say that’s it and exclude myself from bookies, and then drive around looking for another one I had not self excluded from,

Fortunately the government has put a light at the end of the tunnel for me, and for the first time in years I have not rushed to the bookies on pay day to lose all my money, in fact I haven’t been back for over a month now.   All of these stories just reinforce why I would never go online.  I do freeplay occasionally, but even that reinforces my view as they seem to be shit 🙂

I would wish anyone who is in a dark place all the best of luck.  With the removal of these FOBT roulette machines I feel like a dark cloud has been removed from my life, I don’t blame anyone else but myself, but now feel I can move on.

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