There is currently 1 person viewing this thread.
21 Apr 12
11:43
Joined:
Date Joined:
05 Jan 10
As high street betting shops and internet roulette claim ever more victims, Simon Murphy meets the gamers who have beaten the odds in a struggle with addiction
Simon Murphy guardian.co.uk,
Eugene Farrar combed his hair, put on his best suit and polished his shoes. He wanted to make sure he looked the part for the moment he chose to turn his life around. On a spring afternoon last year, the 42-year-old calmly walked into a betting shop in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, and told a member of staff: "I want to self-exclude – I've had enough." Self-exclusion is a formal process whereby a person can ask a bookmaker to close their account and stop taking their money.
Just hours earlier, he had told his wife Tracy the secret he had been hiding from her for 12 years: he was a gambling addict.
Now, more than a year later, Farrar is perched on his chair, eyes welling up as he recalls the day he says he "got my life back".
"Tracy said to me, 'You don't have to do it alone.' When someone turns around and says that, it's a really empowering thing to hear. When someone says they'll walk with you, you immediately feel stronger," the professional jazz musician says.
Farrar, whose grandfather owned a betting shop in the 1970s, played a gig in a local restaurant that night and said he "felt relief in every part of my body". He has not gambled since.
Farrar, who estimates he lost more than £100,000 over two decades gambling, is not alone in his struggle. There are an estimated 450,000 "problem gamblers" in the UK, according to the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey.
And the numbers are rising – up from 0.6% of the population in 2007 to 0.9% in 2010, according to one measure. A further 3.5 million people were categorised as "at-risk" gamblers.
And GamCare, an industry funded body that provides support to problem gamblers, told a parliamentary select committee last year that 2% of 12 to 15-year-olds are addicted to gambling.
Betting shops are proliferating in the country's poorest areas. In Hackney, east London, there are eight on one street alone, and 43 across the borough. In Haringey, where the riots flared up last summer, there are more betting shops than bookshops, according to Tottenham MP David Lammy.
Grasp, an independent reform group set up by former gambling addicts, and London Labour councillor Rowenna Davis recently launched a campaign called High Streets First, which is calling on the government to change the law to allow councils to prevent betting shops from clustering in poor inner-city areas.
Betting shops are classed as financial and professional services alongside estate agents and banks, meaning they can open up in any building that previously housed such organisations without planning permission. A review by retail guru Mary Portas recommended in December that councils be given the power to stop bookmakers opening, claiming "the influx of betting shops, often into more deprived areas, is blighting our high streets". Last month the government rejected Portas's proposal, saying councils already had adequate powers.
Lammy, who tabled an amendment to the localism bill last year asking for a change to the class of betting shops, says the government was "squandering the opportunity to change the law to give local people the power to say 'no' to more of these shops".
The rise in the number of betting shops is being driven by a new breed of gambling machines: fixed odds betting terminals. People can bet £100 a spin every 20 seconds on these virtual roulette machines, and Farrar says he has easily lost £1,000 in a single sitting, if not more.
Dubbed the crack cocaine of the betting industry, the terminals account for almost half of betting shops' profits, and there are thought to be at least 32,000 in the UK, or one machine per 1,500 adults.
Legislation restricts the number in each betting shop to four, but councils are powerless to stop more shops opening. In last month's budget George Osborne announced a new tax on the profits from fixed odds betting terminals, which could raise £50m a year. Yet critics fear this move may pave the way for an increase in the number of terminals allowed in each betting shop to six or even eight.
"The new gaming machine tax on fixed odds betting terminals proves that the government is addicted to the problem gamblers' losses," a Grasp spokesman says.
"These machines offer high stakes and high-speed play never seen before on our high streets. You can lose £18,000 an hour without being asked a question. They're the perfect vehicle to fuel problem gambling."
The internet has also provided problem gamblers with a new platform to pursue their addiction in secret. According to the Gambling Commission, 9.8% of people gamble online, up from 5.2% in 2006.
Problem gambling is not confined to the residents of deprived inner cities. Phil Mawer, privately educated in Taunton and captain of his university rugby team, had a successful career in support services for the oil industry, which saw him working through a civil war in Yemen and, more recently, in Afghanistan.
Happily married and living in Cyprus, working abroad for months at a time, the ease of internet gambling – specifically, blackjack – proved his undoing. He estimates he lost £500,000 over 20 years.
"Sure, I've dabbled with fixed odds betting terminals, but I was that far gone with the internet that I didn't need to look for even quicker ways of blowing my money," says Mawer.
"I do take responsibility for gambling but if I had a choice, why – given my circumstances – would I have taken such a destructive path in my life?
"I'm an intelligent guy, university educated, well-paid, I'm running an operation with 2,000 employees, 6,000 clients – I'm very renowned in my small industry."
Mawer, 49, whose wife died last year, has written a self-help book for problem gamblers, Overcoming Gambling, detailing the methods that helped him stop. His last bet, in a casino at Frankfurt airport on 11 August 2006, is a moment he describes as his "rock bottom".
He recounts the day he told his wife about his addiction. After returning from a trip working abroad, she confronted him with bank statements as they sat down for a drink on the veranda. "She was very, very shocked – there wasn't anger immediately," he says. "She was looking at three months of statements. She then went to the bank with her daughter and asked for five years' worth of bank statements for all the accounts, credit card, the lot."
Hours later, Mawer was forced to lock himself in the bathroom after his wife came at him with a kitchen knife during the night.
Years before, Mawer's wife had suspected he was having affair but, in reality, it was his secret gambling that was forcing him to sneak around in the manner of an cheating husband.
"Everything you'd be trying to do if you were disguising a relationship is what you do as a gambler," says Mawer, who admits he spent up to nine hours a day gambling online.
"You've got highs and lows and you try to disguise that – you become inattentive, over-attentive when you're trying to cover up. You become emotionally barren as you have to cover the wins and the losses."
For many former gambling addicts, the problem can be traced back to an early age.
Bobby Gee, 34, remembers being taken horse racing when he was eight. Throughout his teens he dabbled with bets on the greyhounds and, when he went out with friends to the pub, he would always be the one playing the fruit machine.
"I was in denial for many years that I had a problem," says the father of two. "It never really bothered me – I'd always find a way to pay the rent. There were always people to borrow money off. I only really started to think it was a problem when I had a mortgage."
Like so many others, fixed odds betting terminals offered Gee, a pub manager, an outlet for his addiction. He would find any opportunity to slip off to the betting shop – before or after work, during lunch, on the way to the shops.
"I'd have, say, £1,000 a month to pay the mortgage and arrears, and I'd go to the bookies thinking, it doesn't matter, I'll only use a couple of hundred quid. Then I'd lose the whole month's payment," says Gee, who lives in Brighton.
"As far as my missus was concerned, the mortgage was paid, but it wasn't. To this day she doesn't actually know how bad it was."
Gee, who says he is "probably 10 or 20 grand in debt" because of gambling, used to take money out of the safe at a restaurant where he worked to fund his habit. He says he always replaced it – borrowing from friends, family, credit cards and high-interest payday loan companies.
"I got so good at lying. The things I was saying I actually started to believe myself," he says. "It was always things like the car had broken down, I couldn't get to work. Especially when you phone up people like credit card companies or the mortgage people, it's always the lie of home improvements going over budget."
For Gee, Mawer and Farrar – who are hoping that their stories will encourage others to deal with their gambling problems – there is no reason to lie any more.
'Gambling is an illness, not merely a compulsion'
Two-thirds of patients treated at the UK's first specialist problem gambling clinic have indicated that controversial fixed odds betting terminals encouraged their addiction.
Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, who set up the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic in London in 2008, also told Guardian Money society needs to recognise gambling is a fully fledged addiction rather than a mere compulsion. She hopes changing people's perception of the illness will stimulate extra funding.
"It's difficult for people to understand the severity of the illness unless they come into contact with patients. We have 2,000 files of people who have been referred to us. For example, they have lost their home, or their parents' home, through gambling," Bowden-Jones she says. "Many of them have broken marriages and have been separated from their children, lost their jobs or ended up in prison because of the gambling."
The clinic, which has 10 staff including volunteers, survives on a budget of £300,000 a year, but Bowden-Jones hopes to increase funding by launching a charity called Gambling Concern.
"My dream is to have a day hospital and a drop-in centre, capturing people when they're hot off the bookmakers. I can't do that without the extra funding," she says. "The fact that gambling is a hidden addiction works to the detriment of the pathological gambler because sometimes problems have gone so far with the gambler being able to hide the addiction, that by the time people pick up the problems it is an extremely serious addiction with people feeling suicidal. They don't want to live any more because it's a negative reality where they have no job, and no contact with friends because they've tried to borrow money and people have disowned them. They have no spouse, they've lost touch with their parents, they have no home."
She says prisoners have written to her begging for treatment on the day of their release, indicating they will reoffend otherwise.
"Illegal activities among our patients are quite high. These are people who have an addiction and then steal money because they want to fund more gambling. The statistics are quite high – 40%, 50% of gamblers have committed illegal acts," she says. "I really believe one of the things we should be doing, which we've started at the clinic, is to educate the criminal justice system to the fact that this is an illness and it needs to be taken into account when people end up in court."
While gambling addiction is largely viewed as a male problem, roughly 10% of the clinic's patients are female.
Professor Jim Orford, a leading expert on problem gambling at the University of Birmingham, thinks the ease of internet gambling poses a particular threat to women. "It's something you don't have to go out of the house to do, so women who stay at home are certainly at risk."
Orford is also highly critical of fixed odds betting terminals, and backs the High Streets First campaign. "The kind of games you play on them are not your old fruit machine games – these are casino-type games of a kind that used to be confined to casinos. Now, here they are on the high street. By their very nature, I'm not surprised they combine all the features you would expect that make gambling particularly dangerous."
Orford, who is launching a campaign group, Gambling Watch UK, thinks Tony Blair's government lifted the lid on gambling. "As a country we were really quite restrained about gambling. It wasn't advertised, it wasn't encouraged – it was a bit of a dirty word among most people. Then the national lottery came and made a difference. It got gambling advertised in a big way, and all the other gambling firms got together and asked for a level playing field so they could be advertised themselves. I think there has been an enormous rise in gambling and an enormous rise in the accessibility. Attitudes are changing slowly and we really should be worried about it."
Simon Murphy guardian.co.uk,
Eugene Farrar combed his hair, put on his best suit and polished his shoes. He wanted to make sure he looked the part for the moment he chose to turn his life around. On a spring afternoon last year, the 42-year-old calmly walked into a betting shop in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, and told a member of staff: "I want to self-exclude – I've had enough." Self-exclusion is a formal process whereby a person can ask a bookmaker to close their account and stop taking their money.
Just hours earlier, he had told his wife Tracy the secret he had been hiding from her for 12 years: he was a gambling addict.
Now, more than a year later, Farrar is perched on his chair, eyes welling up as he recalls the day he says he "got my life back".
"Tracy said to me, 'You don't have to do it alone.' When someone turns around and says that, it's a really empowering thing to hear. When someone says they'll walk with you, you immediately feel stronger," the professional jazz musician says.
Farrar, whose grandfather owned a betting shop in the 1970s, played a gig in a local restaurant that night and said he "felt relief in every part of my body". He has not gambled since.
Farrar, who estimates he lost more than £100,000 over two decades gambling, is not alone in his struggle. There are an estimated 450,000 "problem gamblers" in the UK, according to the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey.
And the numbers are rising – up from 0.6% of the population in 2007 to 0.9% in 2010, according to one measure. A further 3.5 million people were categorised as "at-risk" gamblers.
And GamCare, an industry funded body that provides support to problem gamblers, told a parliamentary select committee last year that 2% of 12 to 15-year-olds are addicted to gambling.
Betting shops are proliferating in the country's poorest areas. In Hackney, east London, there are eight on one street alone, and 43 across the borough. In Haringey, where the riots flared up last summer, there are more betting shops than bookshops, according to Tottenham MP David Lammy.
Grasp, an independent reform group set up by former gambling addicts, and London Labour councillor Rowenna Davis recently launched a campaign called High Streets First, which is calling on the government to change the law to allow councils to prevent betting shops from clustering in poor inner-city areas.
Betting shops are classed as financial and professional services alongside estate agents and banks, meaning they can open up in any building that previously housed such organisations without planning permission. A review by retail guru Mary Portas recommended in December that councils be given the power to stop bookmakers opening, claiming "the influx of betting shops, often into more deprived areas, is blighting our high streets". Last month the government rejected Portas's proposal, saying councils already had adequate powers.
Lammy, who tabled an amendment to the localism bill last year asking for a change to the class of betting shops, says the government was "squandering the opportunity to change the law to give local people the power to say 'no' to more of these shops".
The rise in the number of betting shops is being driven by a new breed of gambling machines: fixed odds betting terminals. People can bet £100 a spin every 20 seconds on these virtual roulette machines, and Farrar says he has easily lost £1,000 in a single sitting, if not more.
Dubbed the crack cocaine of the betting industry, the terminals account for almost half of betting shops' profits, and there are thought to be at least 32,000 in the UK, or one machine per 1,500 adults.
Legislation restricts the number in each betting shop to four, but councils are powerless to stop more shops opening. In last month's budget George Osborne announced a new tax on the profits from fixed odds betting terminals, which could raise £50m a year. Yet critics fear this move may pave the way for an increase in the number of terminals allowed in each betting shop to six or even eight.
"The new gaming machine tax on fixed odds betting terminals proves that the government is addicted to the problem gamblers' losses," a Grasp spokesman says.
"These machines offer high stakes and high-speed play never seen before on our high streets. You can lose £18,000 an hour without being asked a question. They're the perfect vehicle to fuel problem gambling."
The internet has also provided problem gamblers with a new platform to pursue their addiction in secret. According to the Gambling Commission, 9.8% of people gamble online, up from 5.2% in 2006.
Problem gambling is not confined to the residents of deprived inner cities. Phil Mawer, privately educated in Taunton and captain of his university rugby team, had a successful career in support services for the oil industry, which saw him working through a civil war in Yemen and, more recently, in Afghanistan.
Happily married and living in Cyprus, working abroad for months at a time, the ease of internet gambling – specifically, blackjack – proved his undoing. He estimates he lost £500,000 over 20 years.
"Sure, I've dabbled with fixed odds betting terminals, but I was that far gone with the internet that I didn't need to look for even quicker ways of blowing my money," says Mawer.
"I do take responsibility for gambling but if I had a choice, why – given my circumstances – would I have taken such a destructive path in my life?
"I'm an intelligent guy, university educated, well-paid, I'm running an operation with 2,000 employees, 6,000 clients – I'm very renowned in my small industry."
Mawer, 49, whose wife died last year, has written a self-help book for problem gamblers, Overcoming Gambling, detailing the methods that helped him stop. His last bet, in a casino at Frankfurt airport on 11 August 2006, is a moment he describes as his "rock bottom".
He recounts the day he told his wife about his addiction. After returning from a trip working abroad, she confronted him with bank statements as they sat down for a drink on the veranda. "She was very, very shocked – there wasn't anger immediately," he says. "She was looking at three months of statements. She then went to the bank with her daughter and asked for five years' worth of bank statements for all the accounts, credit card, the lot."
Hours later, Mawer was forced to lock himself in the bathroom after his wife came at him with a kitchen knife during the night.
Years before, Mawer's wife had suspected he was having affair but, in reality, it was his secret gambling that was forcing him to sneak around in the manner of an cheating husband.
"Everything you'd be trying to do if you were disguising a relationship is what you do as a gambler," says Mawer, who admits he spent up to nine hours a day gambling online.
"You've got highs and lows and you try to disguise that – you become inattentive, over-attentive when you're trying to cover up. You become emotionally barren as you have to cover the wins and the losses."
For many former gambling addicts, the problem can be traced back to an early age.
Bobby Gee, 34, remembers being taken horse racing when he was eight. Throughout his teens he dabbled with bets on the greyhounds and, when he went out with friends to the pub, he would always be the one playing the fruit machine.
"I was in denial for many years that I had a problem," says the father of two. "It never really bothered me – I'd always find a way to pay the rent. There were always people to borrow money off. I only really started to think it was a problem when I had a mortgage."
Like so many others, fixed odds betting terminals offered Gee, a pub manager, an outlet for his addiction. He would find any opportunity to slip off to the betting shop – before or after work, during lunch, on the way to the shops.
"I'd have, say, £1,000 a month to pay the mortgage and arrears, and I'd go to the bookies thinking, it doesn't matter, I'll only use a couple of hundred quid. Then I'd lose the whole month's payment," says Gee, who lives in Brighton.
"As far as my missus was concerned, the mortgage was paid, but it wasn't. To this day she doesn't actually know how bad it was."
Gee, who says he is "probably 10 or 20 grand in debt" because of gambling, used to take money out of the safe at a restaurant where he worked to fund his habit. He says he always replaced it – borrowing from friends, family, credit cards and high-interest payday loan companies.
"I got so good at lying. The things I was saying I actually started to believe myself," he says. "It was always things like the car had broken down, I couldn't get to work. Especially when you phone up people like credit card companies or the mortgage people, it's always the lie of home improvements going over budget."
For Gee, Mawer and Farrar – who are hoping that their stories will encourage others to deal with their gambling problems – there is no reason to lie any more.
'Gambling is an illness, not merely a compulsion'
Two-thirds of patients treated at the UK's first specialist problem gambling clinic have indicated that controversial fixed odds betting terminals encouraged their addiction.
Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, who set up the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic in London in 2008, also told Guardian Money society needs to recognise gambling is a fully fledged addiction rather than a mere compulsion. She hopes changing people's perception of the illness will stimulate extra funding.
"It's difficult for people to understand the severity of the illness unless they come into contact with patients. We have 2,000 files of people who have been referred to us. For example, they have lost their home, or their parents' home, through gambling," Bowden-Jones she says. "Many of them have broken marriages and have been separated from their children, lost their jobs or ended up in prison because of the gambling."
The clinic, which has 10 staff including volunteers, survives on a budget of £300,000 a year, but Bowden-Jones hopes to increase funding by launching a charity called Gambling Concern.
"My dream is to have a day hospital and a drop-in centre, capturing people when they're hot off the bookmakers. I can't do that without the extra funding," she says. "The fact that gambling is a hidden addiction works to the detriment of the pathological gambler because sometimes problems have gone so far with the gambler being able to hide the addiction, that by the time people pick up the problems it is an extremely serious addiction with people feeling suicidal. They don't want to live any more because it's a negative reality where they have no job, and no contact with friends because they've tried to borrow money and people have disowned them. They have no spouse, they've lost touch with their parents, they have no home."
She says prisoners have written to her begging for treatment on the day of their release, indicating they will reoffend otherwise.
"Illegal activities among our patients are quite high. These are people who have an addiction and then steal money because they want to fund more gambling. The statistics are quite high – 40%, 50% of gamblers have committed illegal acts," she says. "I really believe one of the things we should be doing, which we've started at the clinic, is to educate the criminal justice system to the fact that this is an illness and it needs to be taken into account when people end up in court."
While gambling addiction is largely viewed as a male problem, roughly 10% of the clinic's patients are female.
Professor Jim Orford, a leading expert on problem gambling at the University of Birmingham, thinks the ease of internet gambling poses a particular threat to women. "It's something you don't have to go out of the house to do, so women who stay at home are certainly at risk."
Orford is also highly critical of fixed odds betting terminals, and backs the High Streets First campaign. "The kind of games you play on them are not your old fruit machine games – these are casino-type games of a kind that used to be confined to casinos. Now, here they are on the high street. By their very nature, I'm not surprised they combine all the features you would expect that make gambling particularly dangerous."
Orford, who is launching a campaign group, Gambling Watch UK, thinks Tony Blair's government lifted the lid on gambling. "As a country we were really quite restrained about gambling. It wasn't advertised, it wasn't encouraged – it was a bit of a dirty word among most people. Then the national lottery came and made a difference. It got gambling advertised in a big way, and all the other gambling firms got together and asked for a level playing field so they could be advertised themselves. I think there has been an enormous rise in gambling and an enormous rise in the accessibility. Attitudes are changing slowly and we really should be worried about it."
sort by:
Show
per page
Replies: 112
|
By:
great article
|
|
By:
Is it an illness tho like Alcoholism etc?
Or just a set of weak minded individuals incapable/choosing not to take control of their actions. |
|
By:
To me gambling is not an illness in the same way that alcoholism is. It is possible to be a shrewd gambler and actually make the game pay. As far as I am aware I have never met a shrewd alcoholic who makes drinking pay.
|
|
By:
well opinion divides but degenerate gambling decimates family trust,finances and self worth more than drugs or drink.Just because you can't visually see a degenerate like a junkie or alkie the mental turmoil is there.Addictive personalities may be weak they may also be unable to control impulses they know are wrong.Ergo I think it is an illness.
|
|
By:
You could argue that it's a form of mental illness for some if they don't have the mental strength and discipline to keep it under control and just by saying there are also shrewd and successful gamblers out there who get enjoyment from it doesn't change that, just as there are people who enjoy a drink but aren't alcoholics.
I'm sure they are people out there who spend money on gambling that was meant for other purposes, who go without essentials so that they can gamble, who sell possessions, steal and commit crimes also so that they can gamble and if anyone did that for drink or drugs it would be considered desperation due to an illness. |
|
By:
exactly and whereas a junkie or alky feels physical relief or pleasure when does the degenerate feel his high? Bearing in mind most gamblers are certain to lose so begging and stealing ultimately only compounds their inner turmoil.It is an illness (and a weakness for those less charitable)
|
|
By:
sponsers have been known to bail-out certain sport stars due to gambling debts.
|
|
By:
Its an illness no doubt, I know cases of friends and other people who have gone bankrupt, lost their house and been sent to jail for theft and yet are still gambling. They also dont think they have a problem yet lie constantly to friends and family, beg, borrow money (stealing usually occurs after all these avenues have been closed) and live from week to week if not day to day or hour to hour, constantly on a financial knife edge. They say they ar just trying to win it back and pay off their debts, but if they do win they usually spend it on themselves, TV, car, holiday etc. They become expert liars and if they self exclude from one shop/chain, dont worry they will drive miles to find a shop that they wont see friends/family in and dont know they are excluded. Sad, pathetic individuals who definatley have an illness in my book. They need treatment but this is rarely available and its one of those illnesses that peoiple pretend doesnt exist or sweep undr the carpet. The compliant wife/mother/brother/father that doesnt want to see or acknowledge the illness and hence help the individual.
|
|
By:
very concerning that you see women sitting at these machines in bookies ,i rarely visit a bookmakers nowdays but on the occasions that i do i see more and more teenagers and youngish woman/housewives with kids? blowing thier money on these machines ! who suffers? certainly not the bookies, who encourage play by giving free bets on the machines .
my local laddies on occasions in the summer has young girls on the street outside giving out free vouchers for £5 free goes on the fobts stopping passers by and trying to get them hooked ,and even trys to get the footy punters at it by giving a free bet on the fobts if they stake £10 or over on the coupon . what concerns me is the effect it has on households with the kids and home life deteriorating suffering ! hope in the future something could be done on a similer line as the banks insurance payment protection compensation scheme where the bookmakers would have to repay millions to victims to compensate those who have been targeted and hooked by the bookmakers tricks fecking goverment and bookies should hang thier heades in shame . |
|
By:
i may be way off mark here but is it inconcievable that people who were non gamblers before being given these free bets by bookmakers and were hooked by these dodgy means, could in the future take legal action against these companys and sue for compensation ! just a thought but that would give the bookmakers something to think about ,like the banks who sold the ip insurance are being made to pay
|
|
By:
IKEA are to build an estate post Olympics in London and they have refused to allow bookmakers to open shops within their area, think they see them as a scurge on society
|
|
By:
not think - they know
|
|
By:
Even a winning gambler must have negatives. A lot of times this game takes over peoples lifes and they become recluse. Spending little time with loved ones, etc. Gambling is a an addiction and if you are a winning gambler but spending 80 hours a week on here then that is a BIG problem. U need the right balance. It's just not about peopole losing money. Making it pay also has it's down falls.
|
|
By:
Since the emergence of the exchange and on line casinos and now mobile phone casinos there are people gambling their lives away. Now they are advertising everywhere you look to get easy money off people.
I am intelligent to know that whether you back, lay, play casinos etc the only way you are going to be left is 1000's down over the years. It cannot be fun anymore for many people and becomes a habit or indeed a compulsion. I wish I could walk away from this but i doubt I ever will. |
|
By:
krisken - some loved ones dont even speak or see their partners for months on end,they just send notes to each other,the man leaves his family to deal with the way of life hes chosen,
mind you i think you can buy yourself out of the army easier now - so they dont have to carry on do they. |
|
By:
It can be a very lonely life if you are not in control
|
|
By:
Nothing new about compulsive gamblers. Just different ways of doing their money. Greyhound Racing has lost thousands of them.
|
|
By:
iwhadat - many things can take over your life,working 18hr days setting a business up,going to the pub every night all weekend,caring for someone who needs 24 hr care,
theres a attitude in this country ,that if your not working 6 days a week,and watching eastenders and x factor,and conforming to mass sterotyping of mudane lives - then somehow ,your lifes falling apart or going of the rails,or your heading for a diaster. people are pigeon holed as addicts because they choose to focus too much time and money on a particular hobby, |
|
By:
oh, it would be the guardian wouldn't it... god forbid that anyone should take responsibility for their own actions. I accept these people may have a self-destruct button, but I don't believe that gambling is an illness. Why is it that the woolly left, as soon as someone encounters a negative experience, always has to put the blame on the big-bad bookmakers/corporations/government etc. Why do they never ask why adults are incapable of controlling themselves, or taking responsibility for their own actions? Always the victim, never at fault.
In Eric Berne's The Games People Play he gives his view on Alcoholic's Annon and how he believes it just enables - if not demands - that people be victims. They are told they will always be alcholics, that they can never be cured. If everyone were to stop drinking long-term the group would have nothing to do. I'm not dismissing the fact that people suffer through gambling, of course I accept that it ruins lives, but it's a risk and you play knowing that. Maybe we're all all arrogant to think that WE can do better than everyone else, but there are many other such risks. Many people who start their own businesses work themselves into an early grave and/or lose their homes when the business fails. Do you think that everyone who invests in the stock market wins? What happened to adults (especially in this time of Internet) checking out risks before going ahead? We are responsible for our actions - no-one else. |
|
By:
re: people are pigeon holed as addicts because they choose to focus too much time and money on a particular hobby,
well said comingupthehill. It's a hard old game and you need to study, study, study - but if you're good the profits are there. |
|
By:
Kriskin 21 Apr 12 17:28
Even a winning gambler must have negatives. A lot of times this game takes over peoples lifes and they become recluse. Spending little time with loved ones, etc. Gambling is a an addiction and if you are a winning gambler but spending 80 hours a week on here then that is a BIG problem. U need the right balance. It's just not about peopole losing money. Making it pay also has it's down falls. WHY is that a big problem though Kriskin? If you're not hurting anyone else and you're happy... who are you to tell others it's a problem? Not eveyone wants 2.2 (or whatever it is these days) children, not everyone wants to spend time with relatives they can't abide. You say gambling makes people unhappy, well I'd wager  there are a damn sight more unhappy people who were told that working 37.5 hours a week, having a family and slogging their guts out to pay a mortgage are a damn sight more unhappier.As long as they're not hurting anyone else... an adult has the right to live their life as they want. |
|
By:
If adults were capable of controlling themselves then there wouldn't be any addicts of any kind, nor as much crime and no clinics and medical establishments to help cure or treat them.
The very fact that it isn't the case for any of the above tells you all you need to know and when you have people from a very privileged background become addicted to something and then tell you they are addicts, that suggests that it's far from just a "woolly left" thing. |
|
By:
re: If adults were capable of controlling themselves then there wouldn't be any addicts of any kind, nor as much crime and no clinics and medical establishments to help cure or treat them.
But if you look at organisations such as AA or NA, the very ethos of that approach is that you'll never be cured - you will always be an addict. I think that such an approach absolves people of responsibility, by all means people may need help because they've made the wrong decisions and have suffered as a result... but to label someone an addict puts something else (gambling, drugs, whatever) in charge of them. You're an adult - be in charge of yourself. |
|
By:
Addiction is a social construct fuelled mainly by medicos who have a vested interest in perpetuating the 'medical model'. Gambling, drinking, drug use has existed, almost from the dawn of humans, to now. Only in the last 2/3 hundred years but partucularly (in Western society) the last hundred has this become such a problem. Largely related to economic viability of human resources and the need for a compes mentus workforce.
For every 'addict' (no matter the addiction) there's a raft of doctors/councellors/therapists, etc waiting to cure them. Funny no cure has been found. Just my opinion of course |
|
By:
Well put it this way, try telling a 14 year old spotty youth to stop w@nking and see if he can make a fist of it (pun entirely intended) and there are adult sex addicts out there too or people who know smoking is killing them and have seen it kill others in the family but still do it anyway.
Even something like telling someone they aren't allowed to drink tea or coffee or eat chocolate for the rest of their lives would be really difficult for some to keep to......everyone has their own weakness or something they enjoy doing that would be hard for them to give up and we all know McDonald's food is sh1t but we all eat it from time to time or at least other forms of junk food anyway. |
|
By:
Forgot the pharmaceutical companies. Silly me!
|
|
By:
The reason no cure has been found is that there isn't one other than abstinence and those who can do that do and those who can't don't.
Whilst you can call an ex-smoker a non-smoker, most will still fancy one from time to time and might still always label themselves as non-smokers but you can't really be an ex-alcoholic can you? You're just an alcoholic who doesn't drink any more/is off the drink and the same probably applies to compulsive gamblers where they might well have stopped but the compulsion is still there, as opposed to someone who gambled a bit under control but then gave it up. |
|
By:
Ive always thought that people like to ACHIEVE.
A toilet cleaner (for ex) plants stuff in his garden & it all comes up lovely. A MAN U supporter thats never been there wonders around the pub ....,.punching the air.....hes ACHIVED. Some one thats backed the BIG WINNER & people are in ore of them. The point that im trying to make is that UN ACHIEVERS or people that convince themselves that they are.................can be victims. |
|
By:
Nice to see such an intelligent and understanding article, and also some intelligence from fellow forumites/(maybe addicts too).
I am not really an addict but I have a requirement to spend 10/15 hours a week on bf/gambling....so maybe a small addict. |
|
By:
Some excellent posts guys---I have a lot of time for Krispin's post, -- that even gamblers who "win", actually lose, because they are sacrificing most of their precious/one life, spending hour after hour on here!--------------in my own case, I have now reached the point in my gambling "journey" whereby I am NEVER happy !
If I back a loser, I am unhappy,----if I back a winner, I am unhappy that I didn't have more money on ! So, I bet rarely these days--usually when the weather's bad, and I'm bored, and then I lash a couple of Grand at a midweek meeting , where form means nothing, and if you aint "in the loop", you're gonna get fried ,-----(which I usually do )! Luckily, I'm almost free of the chains now, and apart from my occassional mad couple of hours, --I just mainly read this forum, and then feel pity and contempt for the "idiots" who post, and admire the very knowledgeable people who share their viewswit others on here. Anyway, ofcourse, it's a free world,--- so spend your time, and money, however you feel is "best" for you and your life----bye for now --GL |
|
By:
I think it would be a tremendous gesture if all you people worried about problem gamblers asked Betfair to return money you have won on here back to the problem gamblers.
Well done. |
|
By:
Telling it how it is doesn't have to mean you are worried and I'd imagine most compulsive gamblers wouldn't have a phone or PC long enough to still be doing it on here anyway...........oh and your analogy is a bit like asking a supermarket to give a drinker their money back too or expecting a pub landlord to give a customer their money back after refusing to serve them any more.
|
|
By:
Last night before I went to bed I done a £10 Yankee on Harris Tweed, Best Terms, Caspar Netscher and Fury. I had 3 or 4 dreams about different results in the race, I woke up about 3 times and first thing I thought of was what's the time? Have I missed the 1st race!
spent nearly every minute of today glued to my phone or iPad betting. I'm addicted and can't stop, I do enjoy it but wish I could switch off. As soon as I lose a few I start chasing and normally ends bad. Worse if I think I get unlucky (which I do a lot to be fair - check fury today for example lol). I'd rather be an alcoholic |
|
By:
Gambling is addictive, there is no question about that. Most people gamble through boredom. If a person gambles every day and wins long term are they looked upon as problem gamblers or is the definition of a compulsive gambler only applicable to someone who does their nuts and ruins there life?
|
|
By:
My husband inono has been banned and he has asked me to post for him
He is winning - He is fed-up of the pretenders here How can inono be banned for being honest Honesty means nothing in society today |
|
By:
pauli
21 Apr 12 12:22 Joined: 26 May 10 | Topic/replies: 2,656 | Blogger: pauli's blog To me gambling is not an illness in the same way that alcoholism is. It is possible to be a shrewd gambler and actually make the game pay. As far as I am aware I have never met a shrewd alcoholic who makes drinking pay. Surprised no one has replied to this post This post is really funny |
|
By:
Absolute disgrace inono being banned.............are the 98% losing going to be banned?
 |
|
By:
It is not an illness...............simply a weakness.......btw the subject above lost £100k over two decades........ffs what is the big deal about that?
|
|
By:
i'm of to portugal for 4 days tomorrow and the same again a week after i come back.the reason i'm going there is that i can't access any of the accounts i've got.
some times i need a break from it all as at the moment i'm completely scunnered with it all and my head is about to explode. any time i get a decent win i book a short 5* luxury break. the problem is without the wins i would be going 3* i don't really keep records of p\l so i don't know how much i'm up or down but i do know i'm an addict(haven't seen the g/f for a week because i've been on here day and night) i don't really want for much and can go out and spend when i want but is it really worth it when it takes over your life  at least i get some thing out of it when others are skint all the time. |