Contributions

There is no winning. They have the upper hand in everything. If you are winning, you’ll get locked out. That’s never in the back of your mind, really, that if I win in the long term with this operator, they’re going to phase me out. And that only ever happened to me once with one of the UK operators when they got in touch me and said, “We’re closing your account. We don’t need to give you a reason why. But we’re just closing your account”. And the reason was I’d been winning with them. That’s why it feels like an absolutely criminal behaviour. If you read their terms and conditions all of them say we can close your account. We don’t have to give you any reason why. So we don’t have to tell you that we’re closing your account because you’re winning. But if you’re losing crack on. Your losses are literally unlimited. Where, like I say, considering I had hundreds of accounts, for only two to reach out to me in that time and asked me if I was OK, it tells its own story. It’s yeah, it does feel like a, like a criminal operation in plain sight.

James
Gambling Companies

You just, they know exactly what they’re doing. And I think I, I personally, I take a huge amount of responsibility for everything I did and for everything that I have done with gambling. But I can’t help but feel incredibly angry towards the bookmakers as well and the way they operate, knowing what I know now of how they operate and how they treat people like me. Their business model isn’t on what they advertise, isn’t on the sort of mates, down the pub having a friendly bet. Their business model is on converting those people into addicts and getting the most money out of them that they can because you see how they treat you once you’re gone. They don’t care, as soon as you’re out the door, as soon as you’ve self-excluded, they just move on to the next person. And I just, yeah, I have so many, so many moral issues with the way they behave looking back now. And I think a lot of the stigma around gambling and around coming out of it is generated by the bookmakers because whenever you hear people confronting them about responsible gambling and things like that, they always put it down to kind of, oh, it’s almost like the dirty few, the small percentage of stupid people that that go too far. The majority of our players are good, but you’ve got these bad people that that go too far and make us look bad. We’re doing everything we can. I mean, they are doing nothing. They are doing exactly what the betting and license and the gambling authorities tell them to do. That is all they are doing. The controls don’t work. As an addict I can vouch for that.

James
Stigma

So I guess just to kind of go back to the question you ask, I think in a sense, kind of, the addiction side of it is more just for me anyway, was more about the chase. And, it was kind of when, whenever I was winning, I felt like a real expert. I was like, Yeah, I’m really, really good at this and I know, I know what I’m doing. I’m a savvy bettor, not like all those idiots that are losing all the money. But then when you start losing, thought process goes out the window, I’d be betting on anything, literally anything. I’d be, like I say, just, I’ve got to win this money back. I’d be betting on stupid markets like, will there be a goal in the next ten minutes? Yes, odds of three or something like that. So two hundred quid on a goal in the next ten minutes and then you’re sitting there and, Ah, okay, that time. I mean, time move so fast. When you’ve only got ten minutes, it’s amazing how quick that 10 minutes flies by. And then that will lose. So you’ll be, Right, okay. Okay, now put 500 on a goal in the next ten minutes. And yeah, you’re not even thinking. I think one thing that never crosses a gambler’s mind is what happens if these loses? You know, I personally never thought about the loss. I always thought, well, this is going to win, so this will get the money back. And I also had this weird thing of if I had looked at a bet and decided that it was a good bet, I had to place that because if I didn’t place it now, it’s definitely going to come in was my mentality. So I thought, well, stupidly, now I’ve looked at that, that’s definitely going to win, so I’ve definitely got to put the money on it, otherwise I’m going to lose.

James
Gambling Experiences

Well, I find it really hard to explain the sort of thought pattern that you go through when you’re losing and chasing. But it’s almost, you are really, my own experience of it is it’s like having this cloud and it’s almost like you’re in a complete knot in the sense that you can’t move on until you’ve either won the money back or you’ve lost everything, and you move away – when you self-exclude, sorry. That was the only way I could get closure on it. And I couldn’t think about anything else. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I just sort of had this cloud hanging over me. I’ve got to win the money back. How do I win it back? What can I bet on to get it back? And then you’d have a momentary bit of relief when you’ve got a bet on and you’re waiting for the result of that. And then if that loses, you’ve then, it all starts again.

James

It was almost feeling like you were a pundit, like an expert at football, like I am. And like I said, I think it was after the element where if I bet sensibly and if I if I researched a game and picked it out, I think I was winning more often than I was losing. It was just doing it that way. If that wasn’t enough volume for weeks, there wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough bats, it was, I think, in-play betting was probably my biggest weakness. So when I when I had bets that were placed before the match and were well thought out, they were often good bets and even if they lost, I could. I could sit back and say, Well, that was, I might hope I’d made the right decisions in getting to that bet. But then during the game, I’d be like, Oh, okay, I’ll bet on there being a goal in the first half, and then that wouldn’t come in, and then I found something else. And by the time the game is over, the money that I’d won from the central bank had all been wiped out by all in play betting at the same time.

James
Gambling Experiences

I loved football. Having a bet just added an extra element to it. And I felt like because I, because I loved football and I knew about football, it kind of gave me this, this edge where I felt like I could do the research into it and then pick a more informed bet. And so, so that went on for a few years. I think things only really changed after university. So around kind of 2005, 2006, when you had the likes of BetFair came along and gambling on your mobile phone became a thing. And I really got into BetFair in the sense that it was, you weren’t just, you weren’t just betting you could trade. So you could place a bet, but then if the bet was going your way, you could, you could then trade out of that position and lock in a profit and those sort of things. And I quite liked that angle of it. It felt like I wasn’t gambling, I was trading. So, so it’s kind of, I was, I was doing that for a while.

James
Gambling Experiences

And really it kind of, I’d say, although I started in 2002, throughout the rest of university, it was never a, because gambling wasn’t as prevalent, and me and my friends, we never went in bookmakers or anything like that. So, it was always online. It wasn’t on your mobile at that time, so you’d have to be in front of a PC. It wasn’t the sort of 24-7 access that you have now, so it was kind of we put a couple of bets on and then we’d go out or we’d go to university and we wouldn’t really think about it. And for all that time, really, I’d say that I was very much a sort of sociable gambler. I loved football. Having a bet just added an extra element to it.

James
Gambling Experiences

There are those kind of obvious checks that they should be doing and could easily be doing. But they’re not, they’re not going to until they’re told to. And you see from some of the fines the bookmakers are getting that they’re still at it. And the fines don’t seem to deter them from behaving the way they do. I think VIP schemes were outlawed a year or so ago, but they still have them clearly. I mean, they still have VIP players who they treat differently to other players. They just don’t call it VIP schemes anymore. They say you’re a silver member now, you’re a gold member. It’s like, well, you know you’re a VIP then. I mean, it’s staggering. Really staggering.

James
Change

And I’ve really lost my enjoyment for football as well since I’ve stopped because my favoured, my preferred market was always goals, so I wanted to, I would always bet on, over goals basically, so over 2.5 over 3.5 goals, those sort of things. So it actually stopped me watching football because I have a big bet on something and I’ll be watching the games and if there was a foul or if there was a stop in play, I’d be getting really stressed because I’d be like, no we need goals, we don’t need the game to stop, we need constant attacking. So I’d stop watching football and I’d just be watching on my phone and just be on scores apps just watching the, refreshing scores apps and things like that. And now I’ve stopped, I still, I just don’t get the same enjoyment from football anymore. I used to always watch football, watch my own team, watch other teams. I just can’t. I just struggle to sit there and watch 90 minutes now because I just I feel like I’ve lost that side of my emotion, that excitement I used to have football. I think because it’s so inextricably linked to gambling still.

James
Harm

I personally, I take a huge amount of responsibility for everything I did and for everything that I have done with gambling. But I can’t help but feel incredibly angry towards the bookmakers as well and the way they operate, knowing what I know now of how they operate and how they treat people like me.Their business model isn’t on what they advertise, isn’t on the sort of mates, down the pub having a friendly bet. Their business model is on converting those people into addicts and getting the most money out of them that they can because you see how they treat you once you’re gone. They don’t care, as soon as you’re out the door, as soon as you’ve self-excluded, they just move on to the next person. And I just, yeah, I have so many, so many moral issues with the way they behave looking back now.

James
Recovery

So, I was a VIP with a few different operators. And I think the longest, the longest period of time was with one particular operator. I still remember really vividly getting that first email from them to say, “Oh, hey, we’ve noticed that you’re staking amounts of money that are kind of interest to us and we’d really like to include you in our VIP scheme, I’d be your host, basically and it’ll open up all these different promotions and offers, I’m here for you 24/7”. And as stupid as it sounds, I can look back at now and think what a mug, like what was I thinking. But at the time, it made me feel really kind of like, “Oh, I’m sort of a high roller now. These guys, these guys really like me”. And I was probably on that scheme for maybe, that’s probably the longest actually I was on a scheme so maybe like nine or ten months, and my account my sort of account manager at the time, she would be in touch with me all the time, just, “Oh, we got this promotion”. And when you look at the promotions now, it just staggers me. So if you deposit £2000 today, we’ll give you a £500 top up to that £2000. And they know from their data that the chances are I’ll very quickly lose that £500, which will then lead me to lose the £2000 that I’ve then deposited over time. Because it’s funny there are times when you’re winning as gambler where you think, “God, they’re going to close my account here, because I’m winning loads”, but they know. The ridiculousness of it is like the losses are unlimited. As soon as you start winning, if I was to open an account with an operator and I was betting sensibly and winning, they would limit me as fast as they could.

James
Gambling Companies

And you look back and you just think like, they were just throwing money at me knowing that they could. It was just numbers on a screen. I was never going to get that money. And yeah, it was, it was honestly relentless. And if you went a couple of days without betting, it would be the case that they’d get in touch, not to check on your welfare or if you’re OK. It was to find out why you’re not betting and if there was anything they could do to get you back in. And I really wish I’d kept a lot of the emails around that time and things like that because I think it’d be quite damning, but it’s yeah. They suck you in and treat you like a friend. And then the moment I said enough was enough and I’d self-excluded, never heard from them again. I think in all the time, I was gambling and with all the operators I gambled with, I think two reached out to me and said, “Are you sure you’re in control?” And the patterns of my behaviour clearly pointed to somebody that was seriously out of control.

James
Gambling Companies

And after that point, I think self-exclusion became a real just, if I got through a week without self-excluding myself from an account, I’d done pretty well. It was just, I went through the cycle of I’d open an account with an operator. I’d have three or four days of heavy betting, and after that it would either be a point of I would, I would have won some money. So maybe, maybe that gives it a few more days. Or I’d have lost so much that I just think I need self-exclude and stop. Self-exclusion would generally stop me for about 24 hours. It would almost be like a cool down period. And then sort of the little voice would be on my shoulder would be like, “No, you can remember you can, if you do it sensibly, you can make money from this”. So, okay, right, I’ll open another account with somebody else, but I’ll do it sensibly this time. And again, I’d open an account for a couple of days. I’d be quite sensible. Then I’d lose a bit of money, start chasing that. Maybe five or six days later, that account would be gone. I mean, over the last maybe six, seven years, I’d say comfortably, I’ve had well over 100 accounts with different operators, in my name, in my wife’s name, in my family’s name, just to keep going because self-exclusion always felt like the right answer, but in the reality of it, it probably wasn’t, because it just made me more determined than ever to then find another account. And I mean, hilariously, some accounts lasted a matter of hours. I’d open an account, place a couple of massive bets because I’d be chasing, lose, self-exclude and move on to the next one and yeah.

James

Deposit limits. I mean, that only works if you’re going to monitor how somebody uses deposit limits. So a good example for me is I had an account with, I was a VIP with Coral and I would, my pattern with them was so degenerate in a way in that I would, I would say, deposit a bank of money, so I’d put £500 in and then I’d put my deposit limit down to £10. I’d be like, Right, I’ve got that money now, if I lose it, I can only deposit £10. So that would be my incentive to not lose it. I’d start off having like £10, £20 bets thinking, I’ll just use this as my gambling bank and just do that. That would then quickly descend into chasing. I’d lose all £500 and then immediately reset my deposit limit to unlimited. And then I’d deposit a big amount again, I’d put my deposit limit down to £10 pounds. And there’s like a 24 hour cool off window when you change your deposit limit. So I could do that pre-emptively. I could think, right, it’s looking like I might lose this money, so I’ll change my deposit limit. I think in the space of a couple of months I must have changed my deposit limit up and down like that maybe 20, 25 times and nobody reached out to say, “Are you in control, do you know what you’re doing?” So what’s the point in having it there? But they still put all of the responsibility on the player.

James

There’s also another slightly sinister arm to this, where there are non-UK, non-GamStop operators out there, which I get targeted by all the time. I get targeted emails. I was getting relentless text messages from some companies as well, saying we’re not GamStop, come and bet with us. There’s a whole unregulated market, which I don’t know what you do with that. That is pretty much a criminal operation, and you can guarantee if I put money into there, getting that money out with those people, if I was to win is almost impossible

Change

I mean, when you see these spokespeople come out and talk about responsible gambling week and these responsible gambling controls. I mean, in Responsible Gambling Week this week this year, Sky Bet sent a promotional email out to thousands of excluded gamblers, apparently in error. But you just think it’s not going to stop.

Change

There’s a couple of things that changed over time in terms of betting on credit cards. That was ridiculously damaging. I racked up tens of thousands of credit card debt gambling. But, yeah, things like I mean, I’ve never relied on payday loans and things like that. I do have loans, with sort of more reputable companies, but things like that do still exist. There is access to quick money with high interest rates and stuff like that. So as a gambler, there was always ways to get money.

Gambling Companies

This myth that they don’t have the data. I mean, they’ve got plenty of data on the winning gamblers… I remember reading a story, somebody who used to work for [gambling company] saying that they would attach a value to players to say this person over this period of time is going to be worth this much money to us because this space on their pattern of play, this is how much they’re going to lose over time. And I 100 percent believe that… I mean, the sophistication of the data they have on people they can spot straight away within hours of somebody opening an account… The thing is a lot of these companies are interlinked now… they would be sharing all that information across all of those providers. So they would all know exactly how to get to you.

Gambling Companies

The controls don’t work. As an addict I can vouch for that. I mean, self-exclusion, self-exclusion works in the sense that you come from that operator. GamStop is obviously one of the best things that’s come about for me in recent times. Because I’m an online only player, I’ve been able to use GamStop to pretty much control that side of things. And it does work and it’s good. But before that came in, I could just bounce from casinos, from operator to operate to operator and have no problems at all. So self-exclusion that works.

I think it was like an element where if I bet sensibly and if I researched a game and picked it out, I think I was winning more often than I was losing… In-play betting was probably my biggest weakness. So when I had bets that were placed before the match and were well thought out, they were often good bets and even if they lost I could sit back and say, “Well, that was, I’d made the right decisions in getting to that bet”. But then during the game, I’d be like, “Oh, okay, I’ll bet on there being a goal in the first half”, and then that wouldn’t come in, and then I’d bet on something else. And by the time the game is over, the money that I’d won from the sensible bet had all been wiped out by all in-play betting at the same time.

Gambling Companies

I felt like because I loved football and I knew about football, it kind of gave me this edge where I felt like I could do the research into it and then pick a more informed bet… I think things only really changed after university. So around kind of 2005, 2006, when you had the likes of BetFair came along and gambling on your mobile phone became a thing. And I really got into BetFair in the sense that it was, you weren’t just, you weren’t just betting you could trade. So you could place a bet, but then if the bet was going your way, you could, you could then trade out of that position and lock in a profit and those sort of things. And I quite liked that angle of it. It felt like I wasn’t gambling, I was trading.

Gambling Companies

I know I’ve opened up quite a lot today and spoken to you about it, but I can’t see a day where I can sit down with my dad and talk to him about what I’ve done. I just, I can’t because he’s of a generation as well where gamblers are thought of even worse. The sort of stereotypical gambler from his generation is kind of the guy that spends all day in a smoky bookie, just getting his salary in an envelope, taking it straight down there and losing it all.

Stigma

I’d put £20 on, then £50, £200 and before I know, I’ve lost all £807. I’ve then deposited another £2000 and just desperate to get back to that £800 that I had…. And yeah, the sums of money are just staggering. And I think it leaves some, it’s left some real, lasting, lasting damage with me there in the sense that I don’t feel like I don’t value money in the same way that I used to. There was a time of day where £100 would have seemed like loads of money to me. It just doesn’t anymore. Numbers seem insignificant and that’s totally as a consequence, obviously of the gambling.

Gambling Experiences

I was off work sick for a couple of weeks and I’d actually turned to sort of keep myself entertained because obviously no one else is off, my wife was in work. I was bored all day. I’d started betting on horse racing. I never had any interest in horse racing. I had no real idea what I was doing, but it was just something to, I thought this would keep me ticking over until the football starts in the evening.

Gambling Experiences

There’s also another thing that the operators need to do better is I could open an account with somebody, and I could deposit £500 day one, a £1000 pounds day two, £3000 day three, then get a winner on day three and request a withdrawal for £4000. Only at that point would they get in touch and say “Okay, we need to verify your account before you can process this withdrawal”. It’s like, why did you not care about that stuff when I was depositing? It’s like “you could be using a fake credit card to get the money back” and it’s like well you didn’t care when, would you have got in touch if I lost that other two grand or the other four grand?

Change

The effect it’s had on my mental health has been dreadful. It’s to the point where I’m signed off work at the moment. I’m due to go back in January, but I’ve had to get a lot of counselling and had to seek professional help to recover from it. And it’s almost like, it’s been described to me as a kind of PTSD kind of thing. So I have this kind of trauma now from all those experiences.

Harm

You don’t talk to people about it because it’s seen as quite a dirty habit almost. And my wife’s the only person who has ever known about it. Other people may have deduced, I mean, I’m nearly 40, I’ve always been in well-paid jobs, and I don’t own my own home. We rent and we don’t have loads of money because we’re covering other stuff so other people might have made their deductions. I’ve always managed to, with my own family, kind of talk myself out of it in the sense of, “So well, we’ve badly restructured”, and things like that. And whether they believe that or not, I don’t know.

Harm

My wife, I mean, she’s been incredible, incredibly supportive. But that thought in the back of my mind of every time I go to a different room or if I’m upstairs and she’s not with me and every time I go out. Is he having a bet? Is he? Is he gambling again? Trying to pick up on those signs. I just feel like I constantly have to reassure her that I’m not and constantly have to do things to kind of reinforce that I’m not. So, yeah, I think that side of it is, is the sort of aftermath of it all. Although you can look back and you kind of have this story, it’s kinda the aftermath of picking up the pieces around it is the sort of difficult part.

Harm

I think that side of it is, is the sort of aftermath of it all. Although you can look back and you kind of have this story, it’s kinda the aftermath of picking up the pieces around it is the sort of difficult part. And now I’m sort of looking ahead like I said, I’m almost 40 and you’re thinking, well, I’m still maybe 10 years away from owning a house, assuming everything stays to plan. And I pay my debt off and then we’re able to save up and I don’t go back to gambling

Harm

There’s a couple of things that changed over time in terms of betting on credit cards. That was ridiculously damaging. I racked up tens of thousands of credit card debt gambling. But, yeah, things like I mean, I’ve never relied on payday loans and things like that. I do have loans, with sort of more reputable companies, but things like that do still exist. There is access to quick money with high interest rates and stuff like that. So as a gambler, there was always ways to get money.

Harm

Because the sad fact is, as much as you want to say you recovered and you’re fine, it is always going to be there. I am going to have to be on guard the rest of my life to make sure that I don’t sneak back into it. And when I look at the things that have got me back into it in the past, it’s so innocuous. It’ll be an email, or it’ll be just something I’ll see on TV or something like that. It’ll just trigger something in my mind saying, “Oh, I’ll have a look. What harm can there be in having a look?”, and then you’re back in.

Harm

And it’s so much more sophisticated now, which is so scary and I think having two young kids. That’s something that really motivates me to stay, to stay abstinent now is for them to have never known me as a gambler. That’s what I want more than anything is for them to, they’re still young enough that they would never know that I’ve done what I’ve done and I don’t want them to know.

Recovery
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