Andy’s Story
Hi all, I have been gambling from the age of about 14. It all started when I used to play snooker near my home on the coast. The best place to go was the arcade because it was close and cheap. Without realising I started playing less snooker and more on the 5p fruit machines. There were a few times I would do double paper rounds/extra chores to get more money to gamble and when I lost I started feeling sick and moody. When I started going to pubs I played the higher stake fruit machines and had some success but never made profit obviously. At 18 I moved to Leeds for Uni and started working in a nice bar. I would work 40 hour weeks whilst studying so had a decent income but still managed to get into debt from playing fruit machines. After several years of doing this you can imagine the state of my finances and now I have a lot more debt than I care to have. About 10 months ago I was introduced to online poker and my addiction has left the pub and entered my own living room. Although I only play small stake tournaments it is the volume of the games I am playing and not winning that is becoming a problem. I had a period where I lost my job in May and had a month out of work and that’s when the volumes of play shot up. It wasn’t until recently when my partner found a credit card statement with all the withdrawals/deposits to online accounts that I actually realised the scale of my problem, so I am addressing it now. I have my first meeting on Tuesday so if anyone else is in the Leeds meeting on Tuesday I look forward to meeting you.
November 13 2008 11:27 pm | 2008 Share Stories