Youtube Affiliation? A Chipmonkz Case Study.

So it seems the doomsday of Youtube slots channels may be upon us. Out of all the big popular channels there are but a handful left. Some will be devastated, others will rejoice at the thought of the days of Youtube affiliation having finally passed. Where do I stand? Somewhere in the middle..

The morality of the Youtube casino affiliation model has been debated to the death. I have already written about my thoughts on this so feel free to read my post regarding my opinion on this. However one of the most recent channels to be banned was one of my pet peeves, and I’m going to have to name names to make my point. But whom is it….

(Drumroll……………..)

CHIPMONKZ SLOTS

I’m going to preface this with an important point. This is not a personal attack. He may well be a nice guy. He seems truly devastated that his channel has been taken down and I take no joy from that. But in my opinion he displays exactly the quality that makes affiliation such a seedy and indefensible business to be in, and it can be summed up in one word. 

Disingenuity.

I’ll start from the top. Around a year ago Chipmonkz released a Youtube video titled “I Quit” where he proceeds to tell his audience that he had quit his job and was going to start streaming full time for a living. He stated that it had always been his dream and that he wanted to be able to give his family everything that he hadn’t had as a child. On the face of it, this is a nice sentiment. But it did leave me to think to myself, “Is streaming slots really going to pay more than a full time job?” Must be a lot of money in it, but that’s besides the point.

I never watched his streams but I couldn’t help myself from watching his Youtube highlight videos once all the other big channels had been taken down. You may be thinking that I’m somewhat of a hypocrite, talking about my own gambling abstinence and my issues with streamers whilst simultaneously watching gambling content online. To which I say, you have something of a point. As much as I try to stay away from all gambling so as to remove temptation from my life, I find myself watching gambling videos as a form of vicarious thrills. But then again I am a self-confessed gambling addict so it’s not all that surprising! In fact it just goes to show how addictive gambling can be where you find yourself watching slots videos from streamers that you don’t actually find entertaining. But I digress…

When I watched his videos, I started to notice how often he would plug his casinos at the start, telling the viewers to check out the links in the description. Intros like “hello and welcome to the video” making it all feel very business like. The recent addition of trying to “shoot in a bonus” to come up with some catch phrase so as to build a brand. Constantly referring in his videos to we. “We need a cash out today guys, lets hope we can get a decent hit”. There is no we, unless you want to start sharing your affiliation revenues, it’s very much just you. Even saying in his videos “I love you all” in reference to his viewers. No you fucking don’t love them Chip, it’s just so disingenuous to say you do. To me however the worst of it came recently in a video where he asked his viewers basically to tell him how to make better videos. “How long should they be, what games should I play, how can I make them better.” It may seem innocent enough, perhaps even a nice thing for his viewers to get what they want. Only that’s not what it’s about. It’s about appealing to more players, getting more sign ups. Basically asking people how to grow his channel so he can make more money. I take you back to the beginning to the “I Quit” video. Streaming for a living, making money for his family. So how can it be about improving the viewers experience? The simple answer is that it’s not.

You may ask of me “Why are you writing this about Chip?”. In truth I don’t think he is necessarily any worse than any of the others, but he makes it so much more obvious. I wasn’t going to write this, but then today I saw a video update he posted on his Twitter in regards to his Youtube account and I just felt like it had to be said. I understand he is obviously upset about losing his channel. Anyone would be upset at that. It’s what he says at the end of the video, and I’m going to quote it:

“I’m absolutely gutted I truly am. I just hope I can get it back because I know my videos bring a lot of joy to you guys.”

I’m sorry but I just can’t have that. That statement is complete and utter disingenuous bullshit. He’s not upset the channel has gone because his beloved viewers no longer get the “joy” from watching them. He’s upset because its now more difficult for him to grow his channel, to get new sign ups. You said so yourself chip, full time streaming is about you making money. Why do you come out with this nonsense about bringing joy to your viewers. I hear so many streamers come up with this crap about producing videos to “entertain” their viewers. IT IS NOT ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT IT IS ABOUT MAKING MONEY! And people may actually have more respect for you if you were to be honest about your intentions rather than endless disingenuous statements! This is the part that pisses me off so much, and I suspect it’s the same for a lot of other critics of affiliation.

I know this may seem personal and I may catch some flack for it.

And that’s fine.

p.s. still not gambling whoop whoop. Take care people.

Article - A Story Of A Gambling Addict

Just a quick post and a really good read from an article today from the BBC (I cant believe i'm actually saying that!)


https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/a35b72fb-6035-4ccc-90bc-f2a93c4d3671


It just goes to show how gambling addiction permeates across all levels of society. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are or how much money you have, whether you have prospects or you don't. If you gamble, it could be you too (dun dun DUUUUN)

The part that really hit home is where he talks about the effect it began to have on his Mum. It makes me think of all the shit I put my family and girlfriend through. A good reminder that we do this for more than just ourselves

A Very Late Update!

I had almost forgotten about this blog. Amazingly I logged in today for the first time I nearly a year and I see that its still getting a few views here and there. So I thought fuck it, why not fire this baby up again with an update.

I’m happy to say that it has now been some time since I have had a bet. How long has it been I hear you asking in anticipation? Bizarrely I’m not entirely sure to be quite honest, I can probably find a way to check but I believe its 61 days! Gasp in amazement. In that time I have finally made some inroads into tackling my debts. It’s been hard, to be honest it kind of sucks and I feel like I’m still being punished for all the bad choices and fuck ups I have make over the last couple of years. I accept its an inevitable part of recovery but I’m kind of done with it.

Trying to accept yourself and your life when you have made such a mess of things of it is far more difficult than I had expected. I barely think of gambling anymore, at least in that I haven’t really felt that urge at all since my last bet. But at the same time my depression seems to be getting worse to the point that I don’t really know where to go from here. Make no mistake, I’m proud of myself for being able to stop finally. I wish it hadn’t taken so long but I suppose that’s just the way it had to be. But I do wonder how much longer I can go on existing this way. When you get to the point where you are just existing and not living, and not enjoying your existence, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Something along the lines of “Cheer up you miserable bastard!” and you’re not wrong! Anyone who has or is currently going through similar feelings will appreciate how hard it is to talk about. How do you sit down with someone you care about and tell them these things? Having done so in the past, the look on their faces is heartbreaking. How can you do that to someone when you’ve already caused them so much pain in the past?

Even here, to a bunch of strangers on a faceless blog I can’t be entirely honest about how I’m feeling but it’s a start! I’ll keep coming back here. One thing I have learnt about addiction is that you’re an addict for life and complacency breeds relapses, and relapses breed…. Well lets not even go there!

I hope you’re all having an amazing Gamble Free Wednesday!

CGR

Here We Go Again

Day one is fully underway and definitely feeling some mixed emotions. Didn't sleep a wink last night. That used to be a common occurrence for me when my gambling first started to spiral out of control around this time last year and it isn't something I can be dealing with again.

So felt pretty miserable all night, felt the same at 7am when I finally gave up on sleep and pulled a sickie at work. It's strange how being a compulsive gambler effects literally every single aspect of your day to day life. Work is another thing that has suffered over the year and it's about time I really got back on top of it and started to push my career forwards.

Had a small victory this afternoon. To cut a long story short, the one site that was still available for me to play at hadn't honored my previous self exclusion. I thought I may as well try and argue that I should have my deposits refunded and the Manager I poke with on live chat was possibly the most pompous, arrogant and unprofessional prick I have ever come across in my life. So I sent an email to the actual license holder directly stating my complaints and received an extremely apologetic phone call from a lady from the license holder who was very unimpressed with the casino when I presented the evidence to her and promptly processed the money back to my account, assuring me that they were taking this matter very seriously and the representatives involved would be strongly reprimanded (Fuck you David you smarmy Git!)

Phew, now I have that out my system, it's time to focus on how I am moving on from this blip, and more importantly how I am going to break the news to the missus. I have some plans to put in place that I didn't have before to prevent this from happening again. Really thought I had reached my rock bottom a month ago and turns out I wasn't as on it as I thought. You really can't afford to get complacent in fighting this, it really requires full hands on deck at all times. Kinda a scary thought. Do we have to battle every day against this for the rest of our lives?

I have been questioning the wisdom of getting obsessed with the number of days we stay GF for. It seems to knock you back really hard when you fail and almost makes the relapses worse. Kinda difficult not to think about it though, it does give you some measure of progress which I think we are all dying for.

Main focus now is just to not fuck up Christmas like I did last year. Just want a nice day without having the guilt of gambling between now and then hanging over me and to have a few quid in my pocket to get something for those I love to show them how much I appreciate them supporting me through all my shit when I wouldn't blame them one little bit for telling me i'm on my own with this one.

Onwards and upwards!

Back to day one

Yep, as the title says, I have spectacularly failed. After 30 days of staying strong, being gamble free and feeling good, I've been sucked in once again. The blocks I thought I had in place didn't work and that feeling of hopelessness has once again reared its ugly head.

So I've done what I need to. The missus is away tonight, gonna have to tell her tomorrow and hope that we're able to stick together. I really think she'd be better off without me at this point, but I'm gonna do everything I can do to make it better again.

I feel I have learnt something about my triggers though. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had an argument with my girlfriend at the weekend. We have a great relationship and have only ever argued about the fact I'm pretty crappy at helping out around the house (hands up I don't do enough) and that's what this argument was basically about. But it was different this time. She was angrier, more aggressive than she has been with me before. I picked up on the resentment she has towards me because of the secrecy and the debt I have gotten myself into, and to be honest I don't blame her at all. But it reminded me of my previous relationship, which was a bad time in my life and was around the time I started gambling and first experienced gambling at levels I knew I was uncomfortable with. She would scream at me, call me every name you can imagine.  And I'm starting to think that this was why I started to gamble the way I have been. To be clear this isn't what my current relationship is like now. My girlfriend is caring, supportive and genuinely the best friend I've ever had. But when she screamed at me the way she did, I was taken back to the way I used to be made to feel on a regular basis. And from the next day, my urges to gamble had come back and I foolishly gave in to it.

This isn't a boo hoo story, far from it. One of the things I've always said is that I'm responsible for the actions I've taken. It isn't her fault at all that I've done what I've done, but I think now I understand why I've done it. I hope that will help in the future in recognising when I'm at risk of relapsing again and to be more proactive about it.

But now, it's back to day one. I'll tell her what happened tomorrow, hopefully she'll be able to forgive me. I've had so many times where I've said "never again" but my most recent abstinence had felt different and I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in myself for what I've done. This is a lesson I really need to learn from.

28 Days Down

So today marks my 4 week mark of not gambling, happy days! This weekend marked the first real challenge though. I'm so busy with work during the week that it's only really the weekend where I get the urges to gamble. Just goes to show how important it is to have blocks in place, as despite the urges there was no physical way I would be able to gamble no matter how strong the urges got.

Had a pretty big argument with the missus and noticed she has some real resentment towards me for all the damage I have done with my gambling over the last year. It's fair enough and expected really, although it made me feel more depressed than I have in some time. Seeing such a huge part of my paycheck go out to pay off debts straight after it hit my bank was pretty depressing as well and just goes to serve as a reminder about how bad things had become. That would normally serve as a trigger for me, seeing all that money going out of my account would just make me want to try and recoup those losses, inevitably ending with me losing most of my money and going back to those dreaded payday loans. Good feeling to break that cycle, even if it's only been one weekend.

Here's to another week!

First Big Test And a Little Update

Today marks a potentially huge milestone in my attempts to stay gamble free.

I’m now 24 days gamble free (woop), but today marks the first payday in that period. For a compulsive gambler, every payday is like Christmas! Chances are we blew most or all of our money within days of our previous payday and we have been eagerly counting the days until we can do it again!

However this time circumstances have changed and it’s one of the first big hurdles to overcome. I was very glad indeed to hear that I had achieved my bonus for this year and have received a cool lump sum that I wasn’t expecting. Happy days! Money has been a problem for a while and it’s a nice little boost to the old bank balance.

Obviously, the gambler in me has been thinking about having a bet. You know how the compulsive brain rationalizes things. Nice bit of money received, might as well have a punt. What does it matter if I lose £200 this month. And after that’s gone why not another £200. And so on. And so on… until shit, I have fuck all squared again!

Fortunately, there are a few things I have firmly implemented to stop this from happening. Firstly, the missus monitors everything now so that’s a pretty big deterrent 😉  And I’m quite literally excluded from EVERY CASINO ONLINE. And I’m a slot man, and no online casinos, no slots for me!

In reflection, the biggest thing that’s helped me feel positive that this time is different is the transparency of my issues. Now the girlfriend knows everything, I don’t feel in as big a hole as I did before, and a lot of the guilt has been lifted from my shoulders. Being open and honest is probably the most difficult thing to do as a compulsive gambler, but equally I think it’s the biggest obstacle to our recovery, and that things can’t get better until the true scale of our issues are out in the open.

It does suck that so much of my money is already accounted for. I got myself in a bit of a mess with payday loans but with them being paid off today without new ones to replace them it’s the first step to getting my finances back where they need to be. Seeing all that money going out of my account on payday has been a trigger to gambling in the past as you desperately want to replace it, but I won’t allow myself to fall back into that trap again of borrowing more and getting smashed by high interest payments!

Have a great day!