Contributions

Dealing with a hugely powerful industry, it’s challenging to make any progress and get beyond that tick-box exercise. I think for the last few years, it has been a tick-box exercise just to put it in small print at the bottom of gambling literature. When the fun stops, stop. I still don’t see in 10 years, that they’ve made any great progress in terms of advertising or signposting gamblers to help. I don’t see any billboards; I don’t see any TV adverts. I think people like Paul Merson have done really well in sharing their stories. There’s got to be more of that. There’s got to be more to that. It’s happening in Scotland to an extent. There’s been a few footballers and other sportspeople that have been willing to share their stories. I would like to see more of that in the same ways that mental health, we see that too when somebody is willing to really open up and bare their soul and share with people the difference it made to their lives. It can help others and if it’s only helping one other, it’s progress.

Colin
Change

“To describe the addiction, it’s all consuming. It gets its tentacles into– it’s quite a silent addiction, gambling. Alcohol or drugs, you can probably see. It’s more visual, you can see that you’re drinking more spirits or beers or whatever or you’re drinking more frequently. With drugs, it’s what you’re using and how often you’re using it.
With gambling, it can be that build up and it’s driven– it’s more a game of chance because if you win, you’re maybe not going to experience the real ill effects of the addiction, whereas if you lose and continue to lose, that’s when you’re on the slippery slope and you really are going to have the worst impact of it be it through your mental health, relationships, your job, your health. It’s something to watch out for.
That’s something you have to be really wary of because probably I don’t like to keep comparing it to other addictions, but drinks probably the same, it’s that socially acceptable level where you’re having the odd blow out with your pals or you’re just having a drink here and there, but when it really tips over the edge, it can be too late and you need to at least be ready to try and find that opportunity to accept that you’ve got an addiction and seek help for it.”

Colin

Really, it just pulled me in big time. I was just on it all the time and including at work, which I feel, unfortunately, if my work had a really good firewall, I wouldn’t have been able to do that, but because they didn’t, that’s down to me abusing their trust, really. During the day when I was at work, I was constantly betting or certainly, doing it at the side.
I wouldn’t say– I don’t know if I could have done better at work or whether it affected my work, but certainly I was preoccupied and distracted at times by betting and that constant stream of sports events and horse racing, which had evolved by that time to the all-weather tracks, evening racing, Irish racing, occasionally worldwide racing. It was just too much choice and too much temptation for me that I found it really hard to resist.

Colin
Harm

It affected my marriage on some level. I think my marriage was failing anyway, but it certainly was a contributory factor that my gambling was putting pressure on the family finances, there’s no doubt about that. That completed the vicious circle of unhappiness, pressure as I say, I was always – consumed is the word, I was so consumed by the gambling and trying to pay bills and trying to juggle things and knowing on some level that a lot of this was of my own making. I shouldn’t have been under pressure to the extent I was with the salary I was earning. You know, it’s tough raising a young family and I’m sure there would have been financial challenges anyway but looking back my gambling certainly made it more of a challenge and I probably felt in that moment that gambling was a way out of it.

Colin
Harm

I can’t remember whether it was Betfair, I just Googled it but there was 10 questions that you basically self-test. If you answer honestly, if you answer yes or no, whatever it was to each of these questions, you have a gambling problem and every one of them answering them honestly, yeah that was me.

I was quite horrified. I was like, I’ve always felt I’m honest to myself and I knew these, I couldn’t deny it to myself but to see it laid out in black and white that I’ve done this, I’ve done that, “Have you been secretive or have you lied about finances? Have you bet down your last 20 pence,” that kind of thing. It was all the classic patterns of a problem gambler. I self-excluded. I absolutely just in that moment decided for the sake of the relationship, for the sake of me, just to get this monkey off my back of gambling that I used to enjoy, but it just became a grind and a chore and just consuming me. Probably affected my health. I didn’t have any health issues per se, but it must have affected my sleep and my stress levels and how I behaved. It just spiralled out of control.

Colin
Recovery

I think at the time, it was just a novelty. It was like nothing that had come before. It was probably something I had always dreamed of being able to take other people’s bets. I was attracted by all the mechanics of it, sitting on a website and all the different sports, just being able to go from one tap to another to keep track of your electronically what you’re winning, what you’re losing, what you’ve laid all your active bets. It just really appealed to me at the time as a more imaginative way of gambling. It was attractive to me rather than just going in to your bookmakers, putting down your money, bet each way on a horse or a lucky 15 or a fixed odds coupon. This new way of gambling was really, really kind of floated my boat. Especially the in-play element as well, I really liked that, that you could– I got really into it that– wasted way too much intelligence in doing it, but if I had backed a couple of horses in a sprint race for example as soon as the straight from the off you could put in-play bets 100/1 on to lay off or 105 as it was on the betting exchange, 20/1 on. If your horse got picked in the shadow of the post you’re going to get that money back, it’s like an insurance policy. All those kind of permutations and the possibilities. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn’t because what quickly became clear in the betting exchange and the nature of in-play was that happened quite often, there’s horses that could be out to some even 1000/1 could win because some people’s computers were quicker than others and you had to have good technology for that to work. It just took betting to a whole new level for me. I think the marketing was very clever at the time. It was built as a thinking man’s way of betting and the odds were better too. They didn’t take taxes in the way they do now either. It was tax-free at the time. They did take a small commission. It was easy to get your money in and out.

Colin
Gambling Companies

Sorry, just quickly, I’ve just remembered going back to your other question about the addiction of gambling, I think the secrecy and the stigma is a massive thing. I mentioned that it’s not as visible an addiction as others and that feeds that paranoia, secrecy, shame. You start to bottle a lot up; you don’t even know you’re absorbing it, you’re internalizing it, you’re carrying it around, you become quite cynical. You hear about others that maybe have a bet and you hear their stories and if you’re a thoughtful gambler and you do a lot of self-analysis, you can pick up the signs that are classic patterns of behaviour; shouting about the wins but covering up the losses.

Colin
Stigma

I would like to see the industry take a genuine view of the existence of gambling harms and address it meaningfully and whether that’s through a levy to produce support, education, treatment where necessary when it gets to that stage. I think that could be a good thing.

Change

It became something that I enjoyed doing. At that stage, I wasn’t gambling large amounts. It was just I didn’t have a lot of money. I suppose I had a paper round, and then I moved into being a student so I had a student grant. I think when I became a student, I started to gamble more, definitely, being given that lump sum of money, getting my grant money.

Gambling Experiences

I just got completely sucked into that way of life that I was forming opinions all the time on what would and wouldn’t win, backing myself to make money on that and often getting it wrong as every gambler does.

Gambling Experiences

Dealing with a hugely powerful industry, it’s challenging to make any progress and get beyond that tick-box exercise. I think for the last few years, it has been a tick-box exercise just to put it in small print at the bottom of gambling literature. When the fun stops, stop. I still don’t see in 10 years, that they’ve made any great progress in terms of advertising or signposting gamblers to help. I don’t see any billboards; I don’t see any TV adverts. I think people like Paul Merson have done really well in sharing their stories. There’s got to be more of that.

I swore there and then that– first of all, admit I’ve got a big problem here, I’ve been living with that. I told her the truth, she asked for more, kept digging like, “Tell me everything.” I had a real heart to heart about it. She basically said, “It has to stop here. It has to stop now or I’m not sticking around.” I swore to her, “Yes, absolutely”. The very next day went about excluding myself from sites and closing accounts and producing the proof to her that I had done that. I think I even at that stage try to keep one account open just in case that I might go back to, but then again there was a further chat, “What about this one?”.

Recovery

She just it had out with me like, “What was going on here?”. By that stage, I was so sickened with myself and the gambling and living with this addiction, that it was a relief, that’s all I can say. It was like, “Thank God it’s out in the open now,” because I felt deep shame that I was keeping it from her and I knew deep down this is only going in one direction. This isn’t going to end well for me and I’m jeopardizing this new relationship I’ve got and if I don’t get help where is this going to end?

Recovery
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