If this person’s betting 30, 40 times a day, and this where it can go to another authority for an authority to contact them and to say, “Are you in a good place? Is this affecting you?” I know the industry’s doing as much as it can, and I know the Gambling Commission do fine these big bookmakers, casinos, and what have you, millions of pounds due to actually exploiting people really. They don’t know the story behind any gambler, whether it’s a woman or a man. They don’t know whether they’ve got a family, whether they’ve got a good job, a bad job, whether they’re in thousands in debt, it’s all about taking the money.

I would emphasise that when you bury something, it’s not in the light. When you bring it into the light, it can be dealt with. You know, it can be dealt with. But when you bury it, it just manifests and manifests and the danger from that, the shame, you know, it’s what it does to your mental health, really and your relationships. You know, I’ve done things to people that, you know, as a 14-year-old boy, my mother would have said to me no, that’s impossible. You know, I’ve done things to people that, you know, are shameful, shameful, shameful things

And money was quite easy to get hold of. I could take loans out at work with the company I was working for. I just used to roll one loan into another, into another, so I’d part pay it off and create a bigger debt, credit cards, all that sort of thing on top of that. And it just manifested, and I became more secretive with my gambling, lying, cheating, stealing all those, all those patterns of behaviour, more angry, more frustrated.

The pressure from the debt and all that sort of stuff. When I had my shop, it was a catering company and shop, there was a period of time where less and less stuff was going on the shelves. Or I was pulling stuff forward to make it look like the shelves were full, but there wasn’t a lot behind it. So, the stock was running down. You always think it’s never going to happen to you.

I have got my life back. You know and there is hope, there is hope. I never thought I’d run a business again. I didn’t want to. I never thought I’d get married again. I never thought I’d see my kids again. I never thought I’d be credit worthy. I never thought anybody would trust with me with money. And we’re a cash business because we’re so small that we’ve only just the week before got a card machine. We don’t take lumps of money in the business, but so I never thought those things were possible. But, you know, there is hope out there.