I think I'm addicted to gambling.

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Hi,

I have an odd problem. As some of you will know from my bonus bagging thread, I do a fair bit of bonus bagging and matched betting. I have made thousands.

However. I've also lost a fair bit of money. Matched betting/bonus bagging isn't the problem, I always make money. However, if I find a new casino that I do well on, I presume it works with my strategy, and after I have completed the bonus offer I'll go back and play with £200 or so of my own money - I may get it up to £400, but then I'll lose it all. I don't know why I do it.

I don't know when to stop. On Betfair yesterday, I got £30 up to £990. But I saw some odds for ~ 2.0 and thought "I came here with only £30, I can risk it, and maybe win £2000." I lost. I got angry with myself for letting a guaranteed £960 slip by, and have limited my deposits on the site to £10 per week. Worse has happened before.



The odd bit is:

I've made money gambling. Even outside of matched betting and bonus bagging. And I continue to make money. My job pales in comparison sometimes, and it seems odd going to work for a lowish wage when I've just won most peoples weekly salary in half an hour just before. But then it's hard losing. I've stayed up late to gamble. I've pushed my girlfriend away, but I made myself promise I'd never do that again. I just can't stop - I get to a few hundred pounds, and always think it's worth placing it on a football match or a blackjack hand to try and make myself rich. I daydream of having millions of pounds.


Having looked online, I'm not in serious trouble like many others. I'm making a profit, and not in debt. But I think I'm just greedy.


Oddly, I'm careful in a way. I'll put £200 on exchange blackjack, and only play on "certain" hands, like a blackjack against a 2 card 16, and I'll slowly climb up. But then I gamble it all on a high odd hand, hoping I'll get lucky and win thousands. I can't stop myself doing it, it's only a couple of clicks, and in 2 seconds you've put your £1000 winnings on 20:1 odds.

I worked out, just from what I can remember in the last month, if I had always quit at the moment I'd risked it all, I'd be up about 10 grand. In a month. And I'm only 19. As it is, I'm only up a couple of hundred this month. It's just that slim chance of turning £10,000 into £250,000 that gets me. Every time.


I know what I need to do, and I don't really know why I'm posting here. I know what the response will be. I think I just needed to vent.


Next week, I'm going to deposit £10 ONLY, as a self test. I've limited my account, and it takes 7 days to increase the limit. I'm going to play conservatively, and not gamble it all. If I can't do it and I lose it, I'll install a block and remove myself from all gambling sites. I just hope I have the self discipline to follow through.

I wanted to warn you guys, and hope someone has an inspirational experience for me.


Cheers,


Cobra.


If any of you gamble more than you'd like to, read these: http://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/share/share_05-10.htm
Read all of them. Every single one.
 
The best way of thinking things through is that gambling your winnings is essentially playing your own money.

Perhaps thats obvious or unhelpful, but it be the truth!
 
Nitefly said:
The best way of thinking things through is that gambling your winnings is essentially playing your own money.

Perhaps thats obvious or unhelpful, but it be the truth!
Click to expand...




I know. That's the way I need to see it.

I see it like that after, and that's what hurts.

I normally see it immediately after I hit the button. If it's a sporting event, that's terrible for me. I had £2900 on the Sri Lanka cricket match. I backed Sri Lanka, but then after I'd done it I felt so bad at the potential loss that I had to lay them too. The odds had changed, so it give me a profit of £200 or something, whatever the result, but that could have been bad.

I can, however, honestly say that I have NEVER gambled what I can't afford to lose.
 
markyp23 said:
Why give yourself £10 only?

Why not zero?

Continue bonus bagging for a while to fill the void but you really ought not to put another penny of your own money into it.
Click to expand...

Because I know I can make money. If I give £10, I can still make money, just without losing so much... piddling about with £10 on 1.01 odds means I'd get 50p profit after an hour most probably, but it would fill the void without the risk. I can have the fun of growing the £10 without the large loss.
 
Why don't you only bet 50% of your winnings?
Like if you win £200, use £100 to bet with, and bank £100. Then if you win again you can use 50% of your winnings to continue betting, and if you lose then you have only lost half the winnings :)
 
PurpleDinosaur said:
Yet. Quit before you do.
Click to expand...

I know.

That's what I think.


I'm ahead now, I should just quit. But the other half of my brain (the stupid part) says I'm making money, and only gambling my profits, so theres no harm in a bit of fun/potential profit.
 
Vai said:
Why don't you only bet 50% of your winnings?
Like if you win £200, use £100 to bet with, and bank £100. Then if you win you can use 50% of your winnings to continue betting, and if you lose then you have only lost half the winnings :)
Click to expand...

I set myself caps - let's say I have £600. I'll say "I want £500 of this. If I get to £800, I can put a £300 bet on." I'll win the £300 risky bet, have about £1200, but then think "Wow! I could have 5 grand here! Just need to bet it all once. Then I'll quit. And I only started with £30 anyway." But I'll lose. I sometimes do 50%, like you say. But greed gets the better of me, and I can't stick to it.
 
Well you typed that up pretty well mentioning that the consequences have come through to your girlfriend, that's about as good a reason as you are going to get to quit.
Have you shown her this post?

If not then show her, you don't need to go through this alone, it would be the same action and circumstances if you had a drug addiction, realisation if the start to get others involved, so let them get involved.

You don't need to gamble, why don't you try World of Warcraft? And I do mean that seriously, get something to take you out of your current routine, that's all it takes.

Good luck, and good post
 
helmet said:
You don't need to gamble, why don't you try World of Warcraft? And I do mean that seriously, get something to take you out of your current routine, that's all it takes.

Good luck, and good post
Click to expand...

That's taking one bad habbit and replacing it with another though. Sure, both may be fun, but something like Full Tilt you can play poker with fake money, I'd recommend that. You get to play poker, and win, just without the actual money loss/gains in your bank.

Edit: or try professional help.
 
I stick a few pounds here and there on the football fixed odds.

Lifted £65 this week with a fiver on Birmingham to beat Spurs and another fiver on Inzahgi to score first in the Milan v Celtic game the other night.

Thats about the limits of my online gambling, I've been tempted to try the casino side of things, but I would not want to get to the stage where I was chucking cash away.

The odd £5 every week is as far as I'll go.

To the OP, good luck in sorting the problem out and as others have said, don't forget there is pro help out there if you need it.

Sounds corny, but you have taken the first, difficult step in any addiction. You have admitted you have a problem, so good effort so far fella.

Best of luck ( no pun intended :cool: ).
 
I occasionally drop a tenner or so in for blackjack, and over the years i'm only up by a coupl eof 100 quid... id never go in over my head though. The only thing i spend a lot of money on is food... I get cheap/old versions of everything else to save money. Am tempted to get back into gambling, now that betfair is one my company's clients... although I just dont have the money to spend
 
The guy who lives across the road from me gambled away 90 odd thousand of his newly wedded wifes parents money away :eek:. Hes now lost his wife his home and is living back with his parents awaiting a punishment trial. Just goes to show it can happen to anyone.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article238492.ece

heres the link to the story on the SUN seems it was 90 odd thousand.
 
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If you feel its a problem then I think its better to stop gambling completely mate.
I used to work in a nightclub in my home town in Russia on the gambling machines and I have seen people loosing far more then just a few grand. All of them won occasionally and for that reason continued to play even though it was obvious that they had problems.
I have seen people loosing their homes and heard stories about guys betting on theirs wifes. For two years of my work there I saw people winning big sums only to completely flush them at the machines later and more.I don't remember a single person who became rich and took off, but I do remember a few people who got into this little by little, got into serious trouble and lost everything. A friend of mine got divorced because of his gambling.
 
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