Affected others talk about how gambling companies produce products that are designed to be addictive, and you can lose so much money so fast. Many said they did not initially know much about gambling products, or how they were designed to be addictive, but now understand different ways that gambling companies create products that encourage people to lose money and become physically and psychologically addicted to the experience gambling gives them. They are angry that dangerous products are so accessible 24/7. Also, online gambling especially on smartphones had helped the gambling difficulties to be hidden from them.
Design of bets and games
Affected others talk about the way the ways gambling products are designed to keep people gambling more and get them to lose more.
A lot of the posts I see [online] would be talking about the failures of regulation, and about online games being addictive by design very intentionally. I get comfort in just knowing that other people see this problem.
Because also from knowing what I know now, there are certain products out there which, they’re designed to keep you engaged and keep putting money in.
What I know from [son] is that he said I can’t think of anything else other than gambling. I can’t close my eyes to even try to go to sleep because if I do, all I see is a roulette wheel, flashing round. I can’t relax.
The products, the online casino, the in-play gambling, fixed-odds betting terminals, all the stuff that’s highly addictive is what he got into. I’ve got a couple of his DSARs back and for someone who wasn’t earning a lot of money he had in some of his accounts up to £80,000/£90,000. If you look at how much he wagered, not how much he’d lost. But he was winning £30,000 putting £20,000 back and then cashing in and there was reverse withdrawals.
Affected others remark how fast people can gamble, get the result and gamble again, in a few seconds. They can lose large amounts of money in a short period of time.
We went to see our MP about Chris Philps and the white paper. [Partner] said to him, “I’ve seen you in a casino shaking hands and saying, “Job well done.” We told him that [partner’s] gambling and that what we want him to do is that we want him to write to Chris Philp and the government, which he did. When I said to him, “My husband can put up to £900 in a fruit machine in one go.” He went– because like me he thought a fruit machine has a few pound coins, not– He didn’t know you could feed notes into slot machines either. I didn’t know and he didn’t know.
The only way to walk out of a casino as a millionaire is to have walked in as a billionaire. You will never ever, ever get money from gambling. You only ever borrow it. You give it straight back. You might win a £500 jackpot that probably cost you £1,000 to put in. You will never, ever make money. You will only ever lose it. They don’t give you money. You don’t win money. They just lend it to you. You’re going to give it straight back to them, and they know it.
One person explained how the pattern of wins is designed to keep people playing for longer. Gambling gave them a “buzz” and made them believe that winning was much more likely than it really is, so they kept gambling because if they did, the win would come in.
It’s that buzz of that quick win. Those algorithms, they’re just so clever, aren’t they? They give people the win at the exact time. None of it is accidental, but they give people that win and that buzz, that buzz that minute gives you or that relief because you think, “Oh, I’ve made some of that money back, and maybe I can buy the kids some food,” because that’s the point he was living at. It was not for anything nice. They always work at that point to keep people hooked in. It’s a terrible industry, don’t get me started, but it really is. It’s cruel and it’s so accessible.
People talk about how gambling games feature bright lights and sounds. And they use images that appeal to young children.
I think it was a new Lion King movie years ago, and I think it was Bet365 used the Lion King as an advert. They used the launch of the new movie as a new online slot machine. I thought, how can that be allowed?… If you look at a lot of online gambling sites, they use pictures from, that look like Moana and things like that. These pretty princesses, they have no place in gambling at all.
Access and availability
Affected others are angry about how accessible gambling is. They said a big issue is the vast variety of gambling now, and how easy all of it is to access all the time online. They said that the regulations around online gambling are not good enough. When you are gambling in a venue like a bookmaker, you physically must get there and there are closing times, so there are some limits. Online gambling, particularly smartphone gambling, would keep people gambling anywhere at any time. Because there are so many different gambling companies, all giving offers, people sign up for lots of different accounts. This means they end up being inundated with promotions from many companies, and gamble more across many accounts.
It’s too easy, like a casino in your pocket. It’s not just the land-based stuff that you’ve got to worry about, sadly, and the lack of regulation is really concerning.
I guess I’ll always be angry about the circumstances around it and I’ll always be really sad. We were very, very close brothers. There’s not a day when something doesn’t, whether it’s a little picture of Twitter and you think, “Oh, that’s…” Like anybody when people die… but I’m very, very, as you would imagine, anti-gambling. It makes me so cross how readily accessible it still is.
[Son] would gamble on poker online, and then he moved onto slot machines, physical slot machines, which he always went to the biggest stake slot machine. Then, of course, slot machines moved online as well, so it wasn’t just online poker, it was the slot machines.
I know thousands of people gamble every week. They wouldn’t consider themselves addicted, but I suggest that there’s far more people that are quietly addicted because they’ll be quietly addicted in their own homes doing it online. They’re not going to join in some survey, are they? They’re sat at home and that’s what I found when I went in the families and friends rooms that a lot of the family members were on the laptop or the mobile and they weren’t part of any great statistics because they were hiding it from everybody.
He really was living no life at all. Worked from home, would be gambling throughout the day and everything while he was supposedly supposed to be working, but would work from home, clock off, play video games, all interspersed with gambling through the day.
Gambling in private
Affected others say that online gambling allowed their partner of family members to hide their gambling more easily. Often, partners or family members would be gambling online using their mobile phones.
Then in February last year, [partner] was always on his phone. He was quite secretive.
It’s obviously all the online stuff, all the stuff that’s easily accessible on your phone, it’s so accessible, isn’t it? He would never, ever have gone into a betting shop, place to bet. He would never have gone to a casino. It’s all online. It’s that accessibility.
I’m sure we’d have been sat there with [name] sometimes, like my mum’s thinking he’s texting somebody and he’ll be placing a bet or waiting for a bet.
If he’s on his phone and I can’t see his screen, you get completely paranoid because he would trick me into going to sleep at night by saying he was really tired. Put the light off, I’ll fall asleep… As soon as I was asleep, and I did catch him a few times, he’s on the side of the bed on his phone, you could see the light. If you get really sneaky and moved gently, he’ll still hear you, and then he’ll flip his phone shut.
The trouble is, as parents, we had no idea. We had no idea that gambling was so toxic. It had gone from a day at the races when I was younger, that was our gambling. And to put a bet on you had to go into a shop. But now because of the mobile technology it’s completely changed. And everyone’s addicted to their phones now anyway. But you don’t know what people are getting up to when they’re on their phones.