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You’re kidding yourself if you think you will stop if you win that big bet. Of course you won’t, you’ll think you’re still at an overall loss, so you need to do it again. And when you break even will you quit? No, the disease will tell you more, come on, do it again, you deserve compensation for the years of stress, so let’s go again. Let’s do more ridiculous bets. If you are up overall is it enough? No, you’ve tasted the easy money, which is what hooked you in the first place, when it all started… except once you’ve tasted 6 figure bets, now all your bets need to be a lot bigger.. and everything you get you will put back in immediately. We can’t walk away, despite what the disease wants you to believe, that’s why we’re in this situation.
The first win is the worst thing to ever happen to a CG. Every subsequent ‘win’ caused the bets to go higher, the problem to get worse, the hooks to dig deeper. I no longer bet, because I fear winning. Winning damaged me more than any loss ever did.
Honestly you sound like you’re still within the grips of the disease… deep inside, are you actually ready to admit defeat? Or will that only happen after you’ve lost another 350k savings (and more) on the infinite chasing of ‘wins’.. which are actually temporary loans that you soon give back to them?
Hi Emma, signing up to Gamstop is completely free! It’s been an absolute lifesaver for me 🙂 It only takes 5 mins to fill in a form on their website, and believe me it‘s the single best thing you can do when your problem is with the online stuff!
Hi Emma and welcome 🙂
You mentioned that you have self excluded from most online casinos. Have you registered with Gamstop?
I’m a doctor (ST3). No one is immune to this. Register with Gamstop, it’s the single best thing you can do if your problem is with the online stuff. It saved me.
Do register with Gamstop if you haven’t already – this helps loads with the online stuff
It ‘could be’ worse? No. It WILL get worse. You don’t want to stop gambling, you only want to stop losing. But you still haven’t got it into your head that you can’t stop losing unless you stop gambling. Because you will never stop when you win.
Watching streamers will continue to make it worse. Why not just unsubscribe? It WILL ruin you.
The streamers are working with the casinos, their accounts are specially adjusted to give a higher percentage return and induce urges in those watching. The sole purpose of their streaming is to get referral clicks through the affiliated casinos, where the streamers will earn 30-40% of your losses when you sign up under them. The more you lose, the more they earn. This is called revenue share, you can look it up. I suggest you stop watching these as it keeps the demon urges alive. I no longer look at odds for anything as just looking at these messes with my head even if I don’t actually gamble.
It’s not worth it. For us, winning is actually worse than losing. I don’t bet any more because I am scared of winning. As you have experienced, you tell yourself you will win and withdraw at x amount, but even if you win, somehow it all goes back in + extra. Whether it’s immediately or a few weeks/months later. And the next time all the amounts will be even bigger because you are trying to fix an even bigger hole. Until one day you find yourself in a 100k debt and wish you’d made the right decision when you were 500 down.
With regards Gamstop, I had the same issue having moved countless times in the past few years, so their automated system couldn’t identify me. For one of the proofs of address you can go to your bank and change your address with them in branch, it should be updated immediately and you can then export an online statement with your new address on. For the other one, the easiest would be to upload a copy of your tenancy or mortgage agreement. If you’re living with family, the electoral roll confirmation could take a few weeks but might be the quickest. Took me a few weeks to get the documents in order but it has been so helpful to me.
I understand it takes time to process. It is hard to give up something that’s been part of your life for so long. Many compulsive gamblers have gambled sensibly for years before THE big win (or the 9% return in a month in your case). It’s always the big win that gets us hooked, and unfortunately there is no way back from there. It’s amazing how “easy” it feels when you’re winning.
The biggest misconception people have about gambling addiction is that it is about money. It isn’t. This is a disease that affects the brain, with loss of money being a side effect. Money can affect the progression of the disease; big wins are the worst thing that can happen to a prospective gambling addict. Ultimately this is a disease of decreased ability to regulate your own actions and all of that occurs in the brain.
Also – you may be having thoughts of winning back ‘your’ money that you have lost. It is no longer yours. You have spent it on the ‘gambling experience’. Sounds simple, but it takes many of us a long time to realise this.
Hi Daniel. Thank you for sharing. I have read all of your posts in this thread and I must say what struck me instantly was how incredibly similar your story sounded to the hundreds of other compulsive gamblers’ stories.
The stock market is a form of gambling, just like sports betting and the casino are forms of gambling. Skilled and knowledgeable market traders are able to make good money consistently from it from finding value, just as skilled sports bettors can. There are low risk ‘guaranteed’ market investments for traders with enough patience, just as there is low risk (not no-risk!) matched-betting for sports gamblers. I know of initially controlled matched bettors making a few grand a year who rapidly turned into compulsive gamblers, losing it all and more, much like your situation. In fact people wanting to start matched betting are regularly warned that they are accepting there is a risk of developing an addiction. The losses and potential for addiction are the same. Replace a few words, and the entire story is identical to what many of us have experienced.
The most common question by far asked by compulsive casino/slot gamblers early in their recovery is whether they can continue with their weekly fiver on a football accumulator which they always enjoyed and never had a problem with. Or if they can continue buying a weekly lottery ticket. The answer is always no. Keeping the ‘gambling mind’ active holds the door open to relapse – either a huge relapse with the initial high risk activity, or the low risk activity becomes compulsive in itself (like buying hundreds of lottery tickets a week). A very small number of people can continue the low risk activity without any problems, but this is a very small number, and you don’t know if you are one of them until you try it, but more likely than not, suffer a massive relapse. Why take the risk?
Lots of compulsive sports gamblers early in recovery continue to check odds on games, horses etc. ‘Fake betting’ – writing down what teams they would have backed to try and feel better if the picks lost. (Checking the market prices and paper betting in your case). But if those picks win, and especially if they win big – we get angry at ourselves for not having placed a bet on. Because we tell ourselves if we did we could make back ‘our’ money what we have lost. We then want to chase the ‘lost potential winnings’. FOMO – the fear of missing out. This is one of the worst things to do regarding triggering gambling urges.
Make no mistake, trading is just another type of gambling. There are low-risk and high-risk versions of trading, as there are with other types of gambling.
Crucially, and you might not like to hear this – but once we have crossed the line into compulsive gambling, the brain itself has changed, and we can never go back to normal low-risk gambling like everyone else. We all like to think we can overcome this with willpower, all of us have tried. We can’t.I suggest you follow the same initial steps as other compulsive gamblers. I and many others have found that installing a blocker is one of the best methods of controlling urges, and will save a fortune in the long run. Looks like one (Gamblock) has been linked above. If you do nothing else, do this. Please stop checking market prices – the urges are much easier to control if you don’t. Also don’t try to ‘test yourself’ – many have tried and the results are disastrous.
I’m sorry if some of these things are tough to hear. But I hope you can keep it in mind. The first days are the hardest. You are intelligent enough to make a very decent wage off a good job. The potential winnings, when worked out compared to your yearly wage, are not worth risking your lifelong mental health for.