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Col

Col is 43 years old. He first started gambling when he was 13 and gambled for the following 27 years. During his time gambling, he would enjoy placing football bets, but this would often lead him to playing online casino games which he found incredibly addictive. He worked as a police officer for nearly 20 years before moving into various gambling support roles. He works in the gambling support community where he uses his experience to help others who have experienced gambling-related harm. 

 

Contributions

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But certainly, with gambling everybody feels the shame. You know, when you’re in it, it doesn’t matter who you are. I felt shocking shame and an inability to speak up and speak out because the worry of what that might bring, you know, that the embarrassment factor as well. Will that cost me my relationship, which might then cost me my house. Which might mean then if I have to go bankrupt as a police officer, as I was for years, and years would I then be allowed to continue as a police officer. Can I speak up at work and say that I’m experiencing this problem, this addiction, because I’ve got massive financial problems, because then would that then prevent me from applying for certain roles within the police where there might be a significant amount of cash handled, for example. So, you’ve got this type of shame, which all then inhibits your ability to be able to speak up and speak out.

Col
Stigma
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I don’t know about stigma in terms of people’s attitude towards me, because the problem, the biggest problem with gambling is the invisibility of it. I mentioned Christmas Day was a great example of that, that nobody would have known so. People that have alcohol dependency, people that have substance misuse issues, things like that, they are stigmatized in a way because often and this is a generalization, I realize it’s not exclusive. It’s a generalization. You can see it, they become, you know, they physically change, or their behaviours and characteristics change. With gambling that doesn’t happen. If anything, certainly from my perspective, I’ve always been sort of the happy go lucky, jack the lad, life and soul, and always cracking jokes, full of banter and all that. Just generally arsing around and just being a bit of a laugh. You kind of…that’s the facade. You put this this face on, so nobody would know. The amount of people that had no idea what I was doing.

Col
Gambling Experiences
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My daughter has never wanted for anything in her life, but I wish that I could have given her so much more. She’s never wanted for anything. She never lacked anything. She never lacked any material goods. She’s never lacked any love or anything like that, in that sense. But the shame that I feel for stuff like that. I remember, obviously, when I split up with my daughter’s mum when my daughter was five. So, you know, certain events for the last sort of 10 or 11 years, she’s nearly 16 now like I say but when she was sort of 6, 7, 8, 9, you know, we used to have like dad and daughter dates. We’d go to the cinema. We’d go bowling and things like that. Just little things that always stand out in my mind. And we would go to see every single Disney film. We’d go to all the Marvel type films and stuff. And I’d be sat there on my phone. You know, my daughter would be having this dad daughter time, but my phone would be turned as dim as it would go. I wouldn’t necessarily be watching the film. I would be betting. I’d be gambling on blackjack or roulette or whatever it was at the time and that, you look back on that. So, I was always present in the physical sense, but I wasn’t there in the way that I should have been.

Col
Harm
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And by sort of telling my story, that’s kind of why I do what I do because I want other people to go, well, hang on a minute, this is just an average bloke. That’s all it is, and he had it his entire life this gambling addiction. 27 years I were gambling, like I say I were 40 when I stopped. I gambled from 13. And yet here I am again, without complacency. You know, I’m only ever one bet away from it all falling flat on my face. But I hope that I’m now stronger in my recovery because of all these things that we’ve spoken about and the network that I’ve built up and the friends and support groups that I’ve picked up, particularly through online communities as well. I’d like to think that I’m stronger than I’ve ever been in my recovery, and that will continue, and hopefully other people can see that in me and in the other that have helped me with, and hopefully that I could be now somebody else’s support and inspiration which sounds like a backwards thing to say. I don’t want to consider myself an inspiration but in terms of that proof that it can be done, really.

Col
Recovery
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I remember I saw an advert at the time for Virgin, Virgin Gaming, Virgin Betting whatever it were called. I can’t remember. And I remember thinking to myself, I thought do you know what, I don’t think I’ve ever had an account with them. And so, I thought well I’ll just see if I can open an account and I did. I opened an account with them, and I thought brilliant, I’ll just put a football bet on. Sorry, I’ll have a bet on the darts. I put a couple of quid on the darts. So that’s what I did, couple of quid on the darts. I thought brilliant, no problem. That’s easy. I’m alright with that. And then I thought I was doing… this is how daft it were I was trying to sort of safeguard myself. I thought right, so that I don’t spend more time in the app I’m going to put a football accumulator on, but I’ll put it on for a week ahead. Something like that. Normally, I’m the gratuitous, instantaneous one with that gratification. Give me it there and then. So, I was even trying at that point to think right I’ll put this like a future bet on, so I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to be in the app. So, I put a football accumulator on for X amount of days ahead and a couple of quid on darts. Again, like I were thinking… And then darts finished, and then I was suddenly sat there then. Darts has finished and I’ve got access to this brand-new gaming account, betting account. And the next thing you know I’m on the blackjack tables. This was before the credit card ban came in, so I was doing this on my credit card. And I spent a few thousand pounds on my credit card just in the matter of a few hours on the blackjack table

Col
Recovery
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For me I would like gambling advertisement, certainly within sport to be stopped in terms of like your football shirts and things like that. In the same way I honestly don’t see any difference to like when Formula One removed tobacco sponsorship and things like that. Formula One there was worry at the time. There was a lot of handwringing about, “Oh well, tobacco is going to be pulled. The sponsorship of Formula One is going to go to the wall because there’s not going to be any money”. Well, that didn’t happen did it. And the same applies in my opinion the same applies to the football side of things. Football will survive. The money that football gets from advertising is only a very, very small amount in the grand scheme of things. It’s a lot of money but in the grand scheme of things. So, I would like to see that removed. I would like to see gambling advertisement, I’m somewhere between gambling advertisement being banned completely or if it isn’t going to be banned completely it certainly should be after the watershed. I don’t think there’s any need for gambling to be constantly advertised all day every day. So, if we said after nine o’clock at night. I don’t know. I’m somewhere between after a watershed or ban it completely.

Col
Change
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Then just other things like soft caps to proof of funds and stuff like that. People have got different opinions, but this is just my opinion. Maybe just £100 a month because everybody’s got the right to… I don’t want gambling…. The phrase prohibition is thrown around so often, I’m sure you’ve heard it several times. Certain people call people like me a prohibition-stan. Absolutely not prohibition. I don’t want gambling to be banned just because I’ve not been able to do it in moderation, recreationally or whatever you want to call it without harm doesn’t mean that somebody else shouldn’t be able to. Anybody that wants to have the odd flutter should be able to do that. But I don’t want them to stop that enjoyment just because I’ve not been able to but what I do want is the exploitation of that, things like when I had that relapse and Virgin happily let me put thousands and thousands of pounds on my credit card. I know that side of things has been tackled already, but at the time it wasn’t, and I was allowed to do it. There would still be nothing to stop me doing that now with a debit card. You know, I’ve got an overdraft facility of five thousand pounds on my bank account. I’m not in it, but if I wanted to, I could open a Virgin account in the same way that I did before using a debit card. And I could do £5000 of not my money, it’s the banks money the overdraft. So, I’d like to see some sort of soft cap in the way that you can’t apply for a loan without proof of funds. You can’t get a mortgage without proof of funds. If you’ve got the proof of funds, and honestly in my opinion I don’t see what the problem is. You’re just going here you go, this is my income. This is I can therefore afford it. Because I think sometimes people can be a little bit selfish because they almost see that from themselves and they go well if I want to spend that, then I should be able to but what about those people who are more vulnerable, such as me? You know, that would struggle to stay within a budget and then would go over like I did, like so many other people that have had this gambling addiction as an issue through their lives.

Col
Change
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I used to play them like you would not believe and the thousands and thousands of pounds that I spent on those machines, always with a… I’d start out with a strategy in my head what I was going to do. I’d have limits in my head and within seconds of being on there, you know, it just immediately went out of the window. It was just constant chasing, absolute…You know, nothing was ever enough. It didn’t matter. There was never a win that would have been enough because every time I was at any sort of level of profit, which wasn’t very often but if ever I was at profit while I was playing that my gamblers mind saw that profit as free money, if you like, it’s winnings so that you can play with the winnings. So, I would then play with the winnings, but I’d lose the winnings and then my brain would remember what I had when the winnings was in my pot, and I’d suddenly start trying to chase that figure again. And of course, that figure was always, it were ever changing, be it up or down and so you’d just chase, and chase, and chase.

Col
Gambling Experiences
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I’d like to see some sort of soft cap in the way that you can’t apply for a loan without proof of funds. You can’t get a mortgage without proof of funds. If you’ve got the proof of funds, and honestly in my opinion I don’t see what the problem is. You’re just going here you go; this is my income. This is I can therefore afford it. Because I think sometimes people can be a little bit selfish because they only see that from themselves and they go well if I want to spend that, then I should be able to but what about those people who are more vulnerable, such as me? You know, that would struggle to stay within a budget and then would go over like I did, like so many other people that have had this gambling addiction as an issue through their lives. There needs to be more accountability from the industry to be able to look at safeguarding. You see things all day about how the data’s used for exploitative purposes, targeted marketing, things like that. This is not, it’s not a game. These are people’s lives, and it literally does destroy lives.

Col
Gambling Companies
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I got a smart phone and before you knew it, I was then gambling via apps. You didn’t need to use the tele anymore. You know, it were all on apps. I had accounts with absolutely every gambling operator you could think of and name and then some more on top. Every single one of them. And I’ve to be fair, I used to… in my brain I used to like having a football bet. I love my football, my darts and my boxing and without blowing my own trumpet I’m not bad at it to be fair in terms of knowledge and you know, picking a winner and things like that. That was never a massive problem as such, but the problem was what that would lead to because I’d go into the app to have a £5 football accumulator and find myself in the online casino. That’s where the real problem was, and I used to play roulette. So, you know, I played roulette and spent a ridiculous amount of money on roulette online.

Col
Gambling Companies
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I feel with gambling but that’s not yet. I honestly think that in 10, 15, 20 years’ time, we will look back on all these advertisements, the saturation of advertisement that is on there now and every other advert, every other programme is sponsored by, you know, gambling operators, and so on and so forth. I think that we will look back in 10, 20 years’ time. The same way that we now look back on the Marlboro man with his tobacco advertising and go, “Wow, can you believe that we did that?” I think that’s what we’ll do. But we’re a long way off the that at the moment with the gambling side of things. So, yeah, there’s no two ways about the power of advertising. If it wasn’t as powerful, they wouldn’t spend the millions and billions of pounds that they do on advertising. They just wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t worthwhile. It clearly does something.

Col
Gambling Companies

I would like to see gambling advertisement, I’m somewhere between gambling advertisement being banned completely or if it isn’t going to be banned completely it certainly should be after the watershed. I don’t think there’s any need for gambling to be constantly advertised all day every day. So, if we said after nine o’clock at night. I don’t know. I’m somewhere between after a watershed or ban it completely.

Change

I said the fixed odds betting terminals went on for an awfully long time. And then from, blimey, like I say, I’ve done every, every sort of variation of gambling if you like because of the age that I am, and the ages that I’ve lived through, you know with the advent of the internet and smartphones and everything like that. So as gambling has evolved, so has my gambling that went with it really.

Gambling Companies

I do sometimes feel as sort of a middle-aged bloke that you know, I don’t want to sound like a chip on my shoulder, but it does sometimes feel a little bit like your middle-aged guy is the one that has the least ability to sort of go, yeah, I feel shame. I feel stigma because it might not be anything to do with my, you know, my gender, my beliefs, my culture, my background. I’m just your average bloke without anything that I can attribute that shame and stigma to other than the fact that I’m a gambling addict, and I am a recovering gambling addict. That is enough for me. We all, everybody should be able to feel like they can speak up.

Stigma

I know I’ve used drugs and alcohol many times during this conversation, but there’s only so much, there’s only so much drugs you can put into your system before your body goes that’s enough, and it shuts down. There’s only so much alcohol you can drink. Gambling you can lose absolutely everything in the space of a night, in the space of an hour if you want to. You can just literally do everything and that needs to be tackled.

Gambling Experiences

And what I always say, especially having worked in drug and alcohol recovery as well, if I had gone upstairs, you know, smoked a crack pipe or injected heroin or drank a bottle of wine or something like that, I would have gone back downstairs you would have seen it, you would have smelt it. My behaviour would have been different, you would have noticed it. Gambling, nothing at all. I went down with a smile on my face and that’s the thing with gamblers, because gamblers become incredibly adept at lying and putting on a front.

Gambling Experiences

I was then suddenly not in a relationship, not having to go to work. I had all day every day to myself, so my gambling just spiralled even worse. I was in a terrible place mentally. I had nobody to answer to if that makes sense or be accountable to or be part of that relationship. I spiralled out of control, like I say which ended up with an attempt on my own life Christmas Eve that year. I spent three days in hospital on sort of drips and blah blah blah blah. But after a couple of days in hospital, I was laid in my hospital bed gambling on my phone. That was how powerful it was. I was still in the hospital bed using my phone to gamble.

Gambling Experiences

I would encourage anybody to access absolutely everything. National Gambling Helpline, counselling, Gamblers Anonymous, make use of all the GamStop, GamBan, all these different self-exclusion things. There’s different things. It’s difficult in person because obviously you know your self-exclusion is only as good as the staff member, you know, and it’s not often – they can’t be expected to remember everybody. But put as many barriers as you can in place. You know, if you speak, speak to people, friends, to family, if you’re comfortable doing that.

Recovery

As I picked up followers on my works Twitter, I ended up following them on my personal and it suddenly became a bit of a blur. The convergence between the two happened over a period of months and months, and it just it happened naturally to be honest with you but that was my experience. It was really, really good because then I was able to speak to people that were in this environment, which were working in this environment, and I was connecting with them initially on a professional level. But then, as I was explaining that I was no different to them, I was a recovering gambling addict and you start to form bonds and relationships and friendships, and then that network grows. And I found it really, really, really useful to be fair.

Recovery

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