millseyboy
Dormant account
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2016
- Location
- UK
Hi all,
I am a lurker and reader on the site, but only recently signed up - the main reason I did so was that I've had something on my chest for some time now and I wanted to get it off - but also as having started reading the forums and therefore being privy to some of the inner workings of online gaming (especially that of bonus wagering requirements), it brought up a question.
My story started about 4-5 years ago before I was earning enough money to be truly comfortable. I used to play a lot of online poker, then the casino games started after busting out a couple of times playing poker. As a result, I started using the roulette wheel to try and recoup losses. This worked pretty well for a while, mainly because I had a half-decent amount of savings and therefore could always use a bit more to try and get back to black (I guess this is how a lot of peoples stories start). Over the course of about 2 years, I ended up doing quite well between poker and roulette, and was circa £3-4k up which was useful money at that time. I wasn't using any bonus' but purely my own monies, and I never had any trouble with withdrawals etc (aside from making the odd reversal which never did me any favours!)
As you can probably imagine, the inevitable happened one (drunken) Sunday night just after my missus' birthday. I didn't even want to do it. I knew that because I couldn't bear to be down, I would keep going until I either wasn't down any longer, or I had nothing. I'm not sure why it seemed that being down was so unacceptable - I couldn't seem to see that being a small amount down was far preferable to a lot down. I was also starting to get to the stage where there was absolutely no fun in it anymore and all I got was the most horrendous gut wrenching feeling every time I was depositing/playing. Nevertheless, I did deposit - just £100 to start. My usual tactic (and I'm not claiming it was a good one!) was to wager on 2 out of the 3 'third' boxes, giving you just under a 2 in 3 but obviously doubling up losses when it didn't come in.
£100 disappeared in a couple of spins, followed closely by my next deposits of £500 and £1000. This was not money I could really afford to lose and therefore I was rapidly progressing to a degenerate status. By the end of the evening, I'd managed to lose circa £14,000 (my entire savings) plus another £4,000 which I'd saved and earmarked to pay a looming liability (not gambling related) giving me a sickening overall loss of circa £18k.
I didn't know what to do. I was hyperventilating and panicky. The worst thing was that I was alone in the house as my other half was away for the weekend. So, I did exactly what any self-respecting, cowardly mama's boy would do and called my mother. She's fairly well off but as I hadn't taken anything from her for a good number of years, I didn't like doing it. But, needs obviously must and I borrowed the £4k. It left me completely brassic - I did not have the preverbial pot for urinatory purposes.
The worst thing was that I couldn't admit to anyone what I'd done. Not my missus, my parents or friends. To this day it remains a secret between me - and now all of you. There wasn't much I could say as to how I'd lost the money so I told my parents that I'd made a poor investment that had lost me everything. The weird thing was that I wasn't sure which sounded worse as I work in the finance industry and would never have made that investment, but I simply couldn't admit to anyone what I'd done. No one even knew I was playing during the whole time that I was. To this day, no one aside from my missus and parents knows I even lost anything.
The next thing to happen was that the casino (can I name them?) then emailed me to offer a bonus of $2k, presumably after seeing how much I'd lost and trying to keep me playing - not realising that they already had everything! Anyway, I went on to play the bonus. I've never felt as sick in my life as playing on the wheel again - it was making my physically retch (honestly - it was like the scene from a Clockwork Orange when, after the 'treatment' they show violence to the protagonist and monitor his reaction!) I managed to turn that $2k into circa $3k whilst completing WR (betting in exactly the same way as I always had - on 2/3 thirds). After completing, I immediately made the withdrawal, fully expecting them to turn around and tell me that I'd been using a low risk betting strategy, that I couldn't play roulette or something similar, but within 48 hours the money was in my account (circa £1,850 - which softened the blow very slightly). My first question is what you think their reasoning was likely to be for the prompt payment and not questioning anything. Would this have been because they saw how much I'd lost previously and figured I was a good client to hold on to, do you think?
This was now about 16 months ago that this all happened and I'm happy to say that aside from the bonus foray, I've not touched either an online or bricks and mortar casino. I've worked and saved hard and have managed to replenish about three quarters of my savings as well as pay back my debt to my mother.
I guess you could say that the story has a happy ending(ish) but it does lead me to another question. Without telling anyone/talking about it, will the problem go away long term? I guess it is what you would call a problem, even if it's now been a while - and obviously I can't risk it happening again. There really would be no way around it if it did. I promised my father that I wouldn't 'do the same thing again' - obviously we were talking about different things but I still view it as a promise I made to him - even if he didn't know exactly what I was promising. That's a promise I intend to keep and I really hope I'll be able to. Do you know anyone who has had a problem and managed to conquer it without ever talking to anyone about it? I do feel like I've kept it to myself for long enough - it doesn't weigh anywhere near as heavily as it did a year ago but I do still have 'oh my Lord, what an idiot' moments.
I guess I'm reaching out to you for advice more than anything - but do you know of anyone who has had issues with gambling in the past and managed to deal with it entirely themselves and never go back down the dark road? Or do you think it likely that sometime, somewhere, somehow, unless it's dealt with properly, it could/will resurface?
Anyway, this is becoming a bit of a novel and whilst I do love waxing lyrical, my intention was not to bore you!
Any responses would be much appreciated - even just to know that someone has read what I've got off my chest would help, I think. It's been a heavy weight and a rough 16 months.
Many thanks to you all.
I am a lurker and reader on the site, but only recently signed up - the main reason I did so was that I've had something on my chest for some time now and I wanted to get it off - but also as having started reading the forums and therefore being privy to some of the inner workings of online gaming (especially that of bonus wagering requirements), it brought up a question.
My story started about 4-5 years ago before I was earning enough money to be truly comfortable. I used to play a lot of online poker, then the casino games started after busting out a couple of times playing poker. As a result, I started using the roulette wheel to try and recoup losses. This worked pretty well for a while, mainly because I had a half-decent amount of savings and therefore could always use a bit more to try and get back to black (I guess this is how a lot of peoples stories start). Over the course of about 2 years, I ended up doing quite well between poker and roulette, and was circa £3-4k up which was useful money at that time. I wasn't using any bonus' but purely my own monies, and I never had any trouble with withdrawals etc (aside from making the odd reversal which never did me any favours!)
As you can probably imagine, the inevitable happened one (drunken) Sunday night just after my missus' birthday. I didn't even want to do it. I knew that because I couldn't bear to be down, I would keep going until I either wasn't down any longer, or I had nothing. I'm not sure why it seemed that being down was so unacceptable - I couldn't seem to see that being a small amount down was far preferable to a lot down. I was also starting to get to the stage where there was absolutely no fun in it anymore and all I got was the most horrendous gut wrenching feeling every time I was depositing/playing. Nevertheless, I did deposit - just £100 to start. My usual tactic (and I'm not claiming it was a good one!) was to wager on 2 out of the 3 'third' boxes, giving you just under a 2 in 3 but obviously doubling up losses when it didn't come in.
£100 disappeared in a couple of spins, followed closely by my next deposits of £500 and £1000. This was not money I could really afford to lose and therefore I was rapidly progressing to a degenerate status. By the end of the evening, I'd managed to lose circa £14,000 (my entire savings) plus another £4,000 which I'd saved and earmarked to pay a looming liability (not gambling related) giving me a sickening overall loss of circa £18k.
I didn't know what to do. I was hyperventilating and panicky. The worst thing was that I was alone in the house as my other half was away for the weekend. So, I did exactly what any self-respecting, cowardly mama's boy would do and called my mother. She's fairly well off but as I hadn't taken anything from her for a good number of years, I didn't like doing it. But, needs obviously must and I borrowed the £4k. It left me completely brassic - I did not have the preverbial pot for urinatory purposes.
The worst thing was that I couldn't admit to anyone what I'd done. Not my missus, my parents or friends. To this day it remains a secret between me - and now all of you. There wasn't much I could say as to how I'd lost the money so I told my parents that I'd made a poor investment that had lost me everything. The weird thing was that I wasn't sure which sounded worse as I work in the finance industry and would never have made that investment, but I simply couldn't admit to anyone what I'd done. No one even knew I was playing during the whole time that I was. To this day, no one aside from my missus and parents knows I even lost anything.
The next thing to happen was that the casino (can I name them?) then emailed me to offer a bonus of $2k, presumably after seeing how much I'd lost and trying to keep me playing - not realising that they already had everything! Anyway, I went on to play the bonus. I've never felt as sick in my life as playing on the wheel again - it was making my physically retch (honestly - it was like the scene from a Clockwork Orange when, after the 'treatment' they show violence to the protagonist and monitor his reaction!) I managed to turn that $2k into circa $3k whilst completing WR (betting in exactly the same way as I always had - on 2/3 thirds). After completing, I immediately made the withdrawal, fully expecting them to turn around and tell me that I'd been using a low risk betting strategy, that I couldn't play roulette or something similar, but within 48 hours the money was in my account (circa £1,850 - which softened the blow very slightly). My first question is what you think their reasoning was likely to be for the prompt payment and not questioning anything. Would this have been because they saw how much I'd lost previously and figured I was a good client to hold on to, do you think?
This was now about 16 months ago that this all happened and I'm happy to say that aside from the bonus foray, I've not touched either an online or bricks and mortar casino. I've worked and saved hard and have managed to replenish about three quarters of my savings as well as pay back my debt to my mother.
I guess you could say that the story has a happy ending(ish) but it does lead me to another question. Without telling anyone/talking about it, will the problem go away long term? I guess it is what you would call a problem, even if it's now been a while - and obviously I can't risk it happening again. There really would be no way around it if it did. I promised my father that I wouldn't 'do the same thing again' - obviously we were talking about different things but I still view it as a promise I made to him - even if he didn't know exactly what I was promising. That's a promise I intend to keep and I really hope I'll be able to. Do you know anyone who has had a problem and managed to conquer it without ever talking to anyone about it? I do feel like I've kept it to myself for long enough - it doesn't weigh anywhere near as heavily as it did a year ago but I do still have 'oh my Lord, what an idiot' moments.
I guess I'm reaching out to you for advice more than anything - but do you know of anyone who has had issues with gambling in the past and managed to deal with it entirely themselves and never go back down the dark road? Or do you think it likely that sometime, somewhere, somehow, unless it's dealt with properly, it could/will resurface?
Anyway, this is becoming a bit of a novel and whilst I do love waxing lyrical, my intention was not to bore you!
Any responses would be much appreciated - even just to know that someone has read what I've got off my chest would help, I think. It's been a heavy weight and a rough 16 months.
Many thanks to you all.