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!

Affiliation and Responsible Gambling

Not sure if I’ll catch any flack for this one (probably will as I’m posting the links on streamers videos!). To clarify though, this isn’t about my opinion on the morality of affiliation. I may save that for another post.

Having said that… 😉

I’m sure most people reading this will be familiar with the big Youtube slot channels. I’m talking Jimbo, Nickslots, Rocknrolla, Craig and the Bandit (and Grape who seems to have disappeared and who I hope is doing ok!) I very rarely watch any of these guys now as I don’t think it can do any good to my recovery to be watching gambling videos, but there was a time where I’d watch for hours a day. I’m not criticising the existence of these channels, but I have begun to think that they should feel obligated to talk seriously about responsible gambling and gambling addiction and my reasons are as follows.

The simple reality is that these guys are now part of the gambling Industry. They help to provide traffic to online casinos and in turn make good money. Simple catchphrases like “when the fun stops, stop” and “don’t deposit more than you can afford to lose” are nothing but lame disclaimers that have absolutely zero effect on anything. What I’m talking about is discussing the serious issues that arise when someone develops a compulsive gambling problem.

Now to be fair, Rocknrolla is probably the guy who has given the most honest and raw commentary of the bad side of gambling. Here’s a link to a video he did a few months back where he talks about the ‘dark side of gambling’ and in my opinion there needs to be more of this online. Really good, honest stuff from Paul here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bjogYXhHqk

A lot of people might look at this who watch these videos and think, I’m not a compulsive gambler, I have it under control. And perhaps you are right. Perhaps you will go your whole life being able to gamble without it having any real negative effect on your life. On the other hand, some of you won’t. Some of you will be like me, who gambled for years before one-day things changed, it became a problem and before I knew it a year of my life had gone by and I had made a real fucking mess of things!

In my opinion, the gambling industry as a whole does nowhere near enough. When the Bet365 CEO pays herself 27 times as much in a year (£217m!) than the entire industry paid (£8m) towards problem gambling research and treatment, you can see who are the real winners and losers in this game. While they may be small fish in a big pond, streamers have an opportunity to influence in a big way.

If any of these streamers read this, this would be my message. You guys are profiting from the casinos and whether you like it or not, some of the players you refer to them are problem gamblers and virtually all of the players who aren’t already have at least some level of risk of developing into one. I’m a big advocate for personal responsibility, but you guys have a real platform to at least educate on how terribly wrong things can go. And I’m not talking about deposit limits and self-exclusion, I’m talking real life and how deep in the shit some people get. You may not agree that you have a responsibility, but surely you want people to understand the potential issues they could face.

I suspect a bit of hate coming my way and that’s cool, I hope people can at least be open minded and admit that there are things to be addressed here.

On a side note, 23 days gamble free and feeling gooood!

Just How Much Are The Casinos Making?

Here's something that should make giving up gambling that little bit easier!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/12/bet365-chief-denise-coates-paid-217m-last-year

I'd urge you to read the article, but to summarise:

Amount donated by UK gambling industry to problem gambling research and treatment - £8m

Amount paid by bet365 CEO to herself last year - £217m (!!!!)

These people do not give one flying fuck about the damage that gambling can cause to some.

Just food for thought.