‘I didn’t go out, I didn’t sleep’: a life unravelled by problem gambling

Jenny always dreamed of owning her own home. Her family had little money when she was growing up but she trained as an accountant and got a well-paid job, finally buying her own place in 2016.

“I worked really hard to get my career,” she said. “I did a lot of studying and I don’t come from an affluent background. Then I got my own house. When you’re younger you wish for those things and I did that.”

Two years later things started to unravel. A friend got into financial trouble and Jenny tried online slots. “I thought that if we could win some money, everything would be OK,” she said.

Jenny, 40, had grown up around horse racing and had never considered that gambling was anything other than an occasional bit of fun. But the games on her phone and laptop were addictive and soon she found herself spending up to £5,000 a day.

“When I started gambling, it was my own disposable income but then there was no disposable income all of a sudden and that’s when things escalated.”

By January this year her life looked very different. She had lost her home and her job and moved back in with family. Now she is facing legal proceedings after taking about £275,000 over several years from her previous employer to fund gambling losses.

Clinicians say a growing number of people are in situations such as Jenny’s, affected by the development of highly addictive online gambling products. National figures published on Thursday revealed an estimated one in 40 people face serious harms as a result of gambling , including turning to crime, relationship breakdown and losing their home.

When lockdown began in spring 2020, Jenny’s addiction deepened. “During Covid it got a lot worse, and I was gambling a lot more, not just to help my friend now, but to try to win the money back, too.

“I was just constantly chasing the money. And I wasn’t speaking to anyone.”

Then the friend she had been trying to help took her own life and soon Jenny was consumed by gambling. “By that time, I guess gambling had sort of got hold of me. I became more of a recluse and I was living a double life. I would go to work and be this person and then come home and just gamble. That’s literally all I did all the time. I lost touch with family and friends, didn’t go out. I didn’t sleep, I was in constant panic, constantly worrying.”

She said she kept being offered free spins, which encouraged her to play different games and bet more.

The experience of online games made it feel detached from the reality of spending. She said: “It’s a bit like it’s Monopoly money – but it’s not Monopoly money, it’s real.”

She said she was never asked for proof of income or to take time out by the platforms, despite it being “all the time I was doing it – most evenings, most weekends”.

Once her money ran out she started transferring money from work. She said: “I know what I did was wrong. I’m not disputing that,” but at the time she said she was unable to think clearly. “That logical thought process, you just don’t have it. It’s not there at all.

“It’s very addictive and you think you’re winning and then you play some more and you’re not winning. You’re never really winning, you just think you are.”

When her employers discovered the missing money she was suspended, but still could not stop. “I never walked away from it until it all came to a head. And then I still continued to gamble, even though everything just sort of blew up around me … I still had in my head that if I had that win it’d just make everything OK.”

In December last year she tried to take her own life and in January decided she had to do something. “I thought: I need help, or what’s the alternative? I won’t be here. So I reached out for help.”

The Gambling Survey for Great Britain found that about one in 20 adults who considered suicide said it was related to gambling either a little or a lot.

Liz Ritchie , who co-founded the charity Gambling With Lives after her son Jack killed himself having become addicted to online gambling, said the new figures could help to remove the stigma around gambling addiction.

“For too long the public has been told that it is only a tiny minority of people who are harmed by gambling. We know that this has had very damaging and dangerous consequences of shame and stigma to what is a common experience suffered by millions. This has directly increased the suicide risk.”

Jenny found help in time from the charity GamLearn and the NHS. “It’s only thanks to the support that I’ve got over the last six months that I’ve been able to develop the tools to stop and to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

“If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I’d be now – or even if I would be here.”

• In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found through GamCare on 0808 8020 133. In the US, the National Council on Problem Gambling is on 800-522-4700. In Australia, Gambling Help Online is available on 1800 858 858 and the National Debt helpline is at 1800 007 007
  

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org