I was talking about gambling the other day with a friend of mine, and I mentioned those adverts you see on T.V. for the online gambling sites, poker, bingo, roulette, every kind of way you can think of to get you to part with your money is available online and it is so easy for it to become an addiction. I learned my lesson on that score way back in time when I was a teenager, I had a Saturday job and had saved some money for our family holiday to Blackpool, of course the place we stayed had one of those Slot machines with the bright flashing lights that are designed to draw your attention… the problem is this thing was right near the front door making it unavoidable, it kept calling to me… Debbeeeeee, Debbeeeeee… come play with me, and of course I succumbed to it’s powers and proceeded to lose every penny I had worked so hard for and saved because I kept thinking next time, it‘ll drop the jackpot… I could feel that win just lurking on the other side of the next 50p. I walked away from that machine feeling violated, I literally felt as if I’d been caught in a trap and luckily for me I began to identify with the feelings and understood them to be negative rather than focusing on the highs which is what many gamblers focus on… the adrenaline rush. For me it was a lesson that took a few years to sink in but I never gambled in the same way again, I opted for the occasional flutter rather than every last penny and if the call of one of those machines was so great I would limit myself to a couple of quid, I realised very early in that the only ones that win on those machines is the owners, so I learned my lesson and chalked it down to experience, by the time I was in my late teens I had learned a lesson well and avoided all things flashy that called to me in such alluring tones - men included! (can‘t stand flashy men) As I was talking to my friend about gambling she began to tell me the tale of a mutual friends relative, the story of a woman who had gotten involved with online gambling, the first sign was when she started borrowing money from family members and then asking them not to tell her husband, and her saying that the money would be returned within a week, obviously when it wasn’t her husband was told and then the depth of the problem began to unfold… not only was she borrowing from family members, the lowest amount borrowed was £3k the most that they know of to date is approx £20k (and that was just what she asked her family for), unfortunately that was just the tip of the iceberg… credit cards in her mothers name, her daughter (currently at uni), she’d forged her husbands signature and gotten more credit cards, she’d forged his signature and re-mortgaged the house to the sum of £300k, the debt has amassed to approx £600k, (but it could be a whole lot more) the whole time she is telling me this tale I was thinking how could anyone be that stupid… to not get the point before reaching such a sum, to destroy the lives of her whole family, saddling her daughter with that kind of debt, not to mention the fact her husband was about to retire … he has lost everything. The entire family have been touched by this woman’s addiction to gambling and like many addictions it is a destructive force. I was lucky in that all I lost was 20 quid on that initial dance with an addictive force that was in my case a slot machine. This woman… found her demon in her own home, accessed via the computer her home that is now lost, her family gone- destroyed and her being investigated by the police and various banks as well as credit card companies. Every time I see those ads on the telly I cringe at thinking how many families will be wrecked and torn apart by these sites, gambling in general will always be a problem for some, I can think of quite a few friends I have known over the years who have parents suffering from gambling problems… and that was before the age of the computer and online gambling sites… that was just with the bingo… or the horses… or for the hardened gamblers the casinos, which we had one in the area and that was in the back streets, understated and seedy looking, now they are popping up in most of our major cities and they are still looking tacky but with more glitz and Las Vegas “style”. It scares me to think that so many families who are living on so little will be the ones tempted to try and win online… you can guarantee one thing, more families will suffer and be left without their homes, or pensions or more importantly… The family itself is ripped apart. Maybe I am oversensitive to this issue, but after seeing the damage it can do through the eyes of friends who have suffered the consequences… it is an area I am happy to remain over sensitive… I think those ads should be banned, but then I also think the ones where you have a group of women doing the lip pouting, chest pushy out posturing and selling themselves on the phone should be banned too. Anyway … this is one of those topics that I am quite passionate about, I don’t object to gambling in general... Hell I even have a flutter on the lottery, the hubby puts coppers on the horses every now and again… but I cant help but wonder with the current state of this country and it is about to get a whole lot worse for many of us from a financial point of view with taxes going up… just how many will be tempted to try their luck on the online gambling sites. I shudder to think how many lives will be torn apart and devastated, fuelled by desperation, greed and controlled by addiction to the adrenaline rush of a possibility of “the big win”, which of course never happens because that guy - the only winner is the owner of the site and he is sitting in one of his many villas laughing his designer sox off. Oh yeah…
and my run in with the slot machine all those years ago… some snot nose kid, about 8 years old came over to the machine just as I walked away and put 50p in the machine and dropped the jackpot on his first pull of the handle, I had to spend a week looking at that kids smug little face, and boy did I want to slap him one.
