Old Article from the Guardian: May have been posted before but a good read.

[AnothrSpacecat]

Time to stop running


Ed Assad had it all before him - education, a career, and a great social life. Then gambling took hold and life became a series of quick exits and severed friendships

Monday February 5, 2007
The Guardian


I am 27 and have, my bank manager tells me, the worst-managed account he has ever seen. I am £22,000 overdrawn. At this point I think I should take advantage of a rare run of honesty and admit that I am a gambling addict - £100 says you are still reading.
The term "addict" attracts various interpretations and competing definitions. To me, it represents my inability to resist the urge to gamble regardless of the consequences; be they financial, physical, or emotional. To put this into context, my most destructive gambling binge, back in September, lasted just shy of 24 hours, from when the betting shop opened its doors to welcome me, to the following morning when the croupier called "last spin, no more bets" and the casino doormen ushered me deferentially - for they are always deferential - out on to a London street.

As I emerged from the trance that had occupied me for the past day, I gradually became aware of my surroundings. Edgware Road appeared particularly grey and miserable in the drizzling rain as a Westminster road-sweeper busily collected the aftermath of the previous evening's revelries. I drifted slowly towards Marble Arch, passing the first commuters on their way to work, Mr FT with his Costa coffee, women in business suits and trainers, hair still wet from the morning shower. I had not shaved, showered or brushed my teeth, and I craved a warm drink and a fresh sandwich as I passed Pret a Manger. I had not eaten since the evening preceding my binge: why hadn't I kept £5 in reserve for some sustenance? How foolish. And then it hit me. First came the cold sweat, then the rapidly increasing heart rate.

Somehow I had taken advantage of the restriction that had been lifted on my debit card (supposedly to allow me to get to work the previous day) and had managed to withdraw in excess of £12,000 through transactions in a betting shop and then casinos across London. My last attempt to make a payment by card had been declined, the chip and pin machine telling the merchant to "retain card". It was now 6.30am, the banks would open in a couple of hours, and my fraudulent activity would be discovered.

I started running, hoping that the adrenaline might quell the panic attack that was threatening to overwhelm me. If I could just get home, somewhere safe, it would all be OK. I had no credit on my Oyster prepay card - I never use money when I can keep it for gambling. As always, I had promised myself a taxi home with my winnings. The panic increased, I ran faster. Frantically I rehearsed the same story I had used countless times before about my "stolen" wallet in order to gain access to the underground. I settled into the seat of the Central line train - my charm and skills of manipulation had not failed me - and started to relax.

I arrived home shortly after 9am. There was no way I was going to work. I did what I have learned to do in these situations. I switched off my phone in advance of the inevitable calls from the bank and concerned colleagues - and, in effect, resigned on the spot. I never saw my workmates, like so many others, again. A cursory examination of the fridge confirmed the absence of anything edible - money spent on food is gambling ammunition wasted. I crawled into bed without undressing, and prepared myself for the waves of nausea that would prevent sleep. I began to concentrate on the negotiations I would make with my creditors and, perversely, began a review of my gambling performance while considering how I might access further funds to gamble and thereby retrieve the situation.

There is an ongoing debate over whether gambling meets the criteria of other more recognised addictions such as alcohol, drugs and nicotine. Ingestion of a physical stimulant provides an obvious and comfortable chemical route by which to explain a dependency. I will leave any acute medical diagnosis to the professionals; I just know that I am ill. Palpitations, cold sweats and insomnia are only the surface signs.

I cannot say exactly when the symptoms began. Was it the time as an eight-year-old when I put my week's pocket money into the machine with flashing lights at the fish and chip shop? Or maybe it was the school trip to Germany where I outlingered my classmates by the slot machines on a cross-channel ferry. Perhaps it was that lottery ticket, innocently purchased for the first ever draw? It is impossible to say. What is clear is that my desire to gamble matured into a compulsion; unconsciously at first, then perniciously, creeping up on me like a shadow. The occasional spell on a pub fruit machine unwittingly evolved into entire evenings away from friends. At university my exposure to gambling increased, the anonymity afforded by being away from home making it easy to pursue my habit unimpeded. First it was the overdraft and credit cards, then the student loans. Pleas to family and friends soon gave way to outright demands for money. Fatally, I was introduced to the "glamour" of a casino in Newcastle by the owner of the pub whose fruit machine I used to fill. Hopes of a respectable end to my university education evaporated when I spent one of my final exams at the blackjack table, oblivious to everything except the turn of the next card. How was I to explain this one away?

No need; just run away. I left university, thus avoiding the humiliation of the graduation ceremony. What did it matter? I had exhausted all friendships there. By this time gambling was consuming my life. My only concerns revolved around securing the funds to continue. I became an expert manipulator, charming banks into increasing overdrafts, friends and family into lending me money or "bailing me out". No one was immune.

That was 2000, and I have been running ever since. Seven years on as I write this, I am still very much in the grip of my demons and, as with any addiction, my behaviour - and its consequences - have become progressively more severe. I now possess an impressive list of ex-friends, ex-careers and ex-family. I am very much an "ex" kind of guy. I carry a mental map of places that must not form part of any future travel itinerary for fear of stumbling across a person I have shamelessly ripped off.

There is not space here to detail the acts I have committed or the lives I have upset in my ruthless pursuit of gambling; the desperate measures deployed to obtain money, and the outlandish stories concocted to conceal how I had spent it. Suffice to say I have gambled and lost - lost careers, lost a lifestyle, lost the respect and love of some truly wonderful people. Ultimately, I have lost myself.

I do not seek sympathy or empathy. I am aware that I am wholly responsible for my actions. In any case, compulsive gamblers don't do emotion particularly well. If you doubt this statement, just pop into your local betting shop: they are miserable places, full of people whose emotions are typically confined to displays of anger at yet another loss - or false happiness at the anticlimax of a win.

And so it is that I allow myself the luxury of anger and frustration at the current trend to portray gambling as an innocuous, even glamorous pastime. I readily accept that, for many, gambling is no more consequential than a visit to a local hostelry, an enjoyable activity when indulged in in moderation. For an increasing minority, however, gambling is a highly addictive behaviour with consequences no less severe than those that befall an alcoholic or a drug addict.

I detest gambling and bemoan the day I discovered it. But I am not an abolitionist. I accept that gambling will be present in our lives as long as personal choice remains. But I cannot condone the manner in which such a potentially destructive, addictive behaviour is being allowed to permeate our society unchecked. Despite its recognition of the adverse affects of alcohol and nicotine abuse, the government continues to promote expansion of the gaming industry. It is, I believe, the ultimate irony that an activity that is so inherently at odds with what much of society would classify as cultural finds an advocate in a government department headed by a minister for culture.

While Britain embraces the exciting possibility of a more liberal gambling culture, I contemplate the creation of more losers. More people, like me, who are what the industry likes to refer to as "problem gamblers", as if we were but a mild irritation they wished would only go away. Unfortunately, gambling addiction is neither that agreeable nor accommodating (a fact to which my collection of "exes" will testify). That is the desperately sad thing about addiction: there is so much collateral damage. I am not the only loser.

(i posted this reply a few days ago elsewhere)

pains me to say it but ive been there in the past.

literally running home just to get away from it all, turning the phone off, going over excuses/escape routes in bed, leaving bookies without enough money to eat or get home, getting into debt, 'charming' banks into giving me money, dropping out of uni, wasting careers (im only 24 and already couldve been doing very f'king well for myself, i say that from a position of earning well now for my age despite spending most of the last few years unemployed and gambling online. i once took a job in a fast food kitchen and stayed there for months because the hours could fit around the afternoon BAGS action) ... i never got to the same monetary level as the guy above but was in just as serious a place. i understand what he is saying about 'wasting' gambling money on food, i always positioned myself in the past so that i have no bills, rent or mortgage payments to ever worry about, so that i could concentrate on gambling and so that my winnings wouldnt be wasted on sh1te like electricity or phonelines. as it happens im actually in a position now were every penny i earn can be spent on me and nothing else, i just choose to pay for a flat elsewhere that i never stay in so i can quit this job anytime, that aswell is because of gambling somehow

id like to think it was all behind me but reading that article has really hit home to me how awful a game i was playing (i wouldve typed a dangerous game but it doesnt seem appropriate given the dangerous outcomes were realised rather than threatened). infact things ARE different now, apart from in october where i lost 600 on football games and 300 on the poker, fueled by a large summer bonus from work, i havent spent more than £30 in a week gambling. for that i have been getting an hour of poker a night and about 10-12 for a bet on the weekend football. this weekend i deposited 50 in a new betfred account and traded it off on betfair, i used their free 50 to settle any gambling urges i had this weekend and it worked (i placed a pretty stupid bet with it out of frustration that i was even looking at my old website haunts for football info, just genuinely punted it away in the end!) and i will be doing the same thing again later in the week. as insane as this sounds, i started to feel the addiction that i used to get when punting every penny i had on football for the free bets, i found myself at 4am last night scouring the internet for more and more sign up offers. i clocked it after 20 minutes and couldnt turn the computer off fast enough

as it happens, even though i referred to the hour a night above, i actually detest poker now. this is a recent change, since i was paid in november i havent deposited a thing into any of my poker accounts and i really dont want to, just living off the scraps but i dont enjoy it anymore. ive no idea where the shift came, it'll be resentment at something happening in a hand but nothing sticks in the memory. i hope its my brain finally rejecting gambling, in styleee my stomach rejected the diesel i had to suck out of a boiler last week....

ive no idea what the future holds once i burn through all the sign up offers online, itll take 3 or 4 weeks of football to do that, if i hit a winner in there then itll last for a handful of weeks more, but the time will come again for me to take money from my bank account and lay it down for the bookies. thankfully my experience of working within the industry on the high street, the track and online, has turned me well away from gambling on machines. the closest ive been to that is playing poker online, which should be safe as youre attempting to win other peoples money but its blatantly not. (call this a losing gamblers theory but it is the case that ALL poker sites throw up regular opposing hands, if you are dealt a pair then somebody else will inevitably have one too, its to encourage raising. when a fish pulls a flush on a draw the better player they beat gets pissed off and feels confident enough to deposit and come back for more, the bad player will eventually lose anyway, and redeposit... good player loses, bad player loses, bookie wins)

the other way ive curbed my gambling urges is by making money elsewhere on the internet, ive had about a dozen different websites on the go this past couple of years and they have all scratched an itch somewhere in my head, ebays just the latest to fill the gap. i think thats essentially what was at the root of my problems, when i dropped out of uni i knew in myself that i was of a higher caliber than your average macdonalds monkey and could potentially earn more given the chance. i wasnt stupid or arrogant in thinking that at the time, though i was complacent in that i didnt believe i had to change anything about myself in order to get money coming in, i was just eager to have the things in life i felt i 'deserved'.

i used to view 'working' and 'jobs' in a very different context to most i met in person (alot less so online as the next few posters will confirm!), i always saw working as purely being a means to an end, job satisfaction was an alien concept to me. infact for a while i started scaring the other teenagers by looking at what i was being paid for working as food + time, bypassing all ideas about currency, trade and consumerism. if it was possible for me to eat, survive and enjoy my health and free time with what i had in my pocket then it was worth having a job (its difficult to put into words now but i wrote extensively online about it in the early 2000's!) . in the beginning, the beauty of gambling to me was that it appeared to be the easiest way for me to trade purely in money, i never looked at a bet in the way i do now, there was no need to manage liabilities as what i was attempting to win was priceless, risking anything to win the chance to take a few extra shifts off was all i wanted, if i lost then it was fine, i just went in.

ive placed some massive bets in my time, biggest win was 4200 on boca juniors in an ante post bet, ive actually won alot of money this past year when ive concentrated on gambling alone and spent alot more, july 2006 saw me spend a 1300 tax rebate over the course of 6 weeks despite making over 800 ontop of that amount through gambling (huge turnover in that period, hundreds a day but always finishing up). in the april of that year i deposited 30 pound in my betfair account and withdrew 100 a day for two weeks and a further 60 a day for a week afterwards, ive had other runs but that was the most in terms of ££££. where the hell did that money go? i was working at the time and earning more than enough to live on but it still vanished.




err.. im starting to lose my point now and ive already written enough, ive no worries about getting this off my chest on here as it is all in the past for now, the ridiculous gambling habits of the last 6 years are gone but the urge to look for new opportunities is still there. aslong as i can continue to channel them into earning money-fae-nuhing elsewhere then ill be fine.

as much sympathy as i feel for the lad in the original article im also delighted that i dont have to go through that anymore and never will again.

all said i would never put anybody off gambling, i would always encourage people to read, read, read and read.... to gather as much information as is possible from this elctro superhighway we're all using before doing so. my life a few years ago will always serve as a reminder and a warning to NEVER let myself get that low again but it shouldnt serve as a warning to others, we each have our own reasons for making mistakes.

similar to anybody who has had a low period in their life, or indeed similar to a long losing run gambling; the appreciation, joy and contentment you feel after nailing a winner is what i feel every single f'cking day when i goto the office, get a taxi when its raining, buy new socks or pick up an extra pack of sausages in the supermarket, as once upon a time i had countless days where i wouldve cut my eyes out for a fiver on a saturday afternoon or an 80p bag of chips. during my worst gambling days i remember going ballistic with happiness as i found £8 down the back of the couch, after tearing it open for 50p. i used to check peoples couches when i went into their houses, if i had no money i would still wal 25 minutes to bookies incase somebody had dropped a fiver or a pound, i have to remember i was that bad in order to work my cunt off to stay where i am now.


__

just to add to that, although ive said its all behind me, in about 10 clicks of the mouse button i can deposit everything i have and gamble it at any time, that thought is always at the back of my head and it scares the shite out of me. ive never gambled as a reaction to an individual event, argument or fight and ive rarely gambled on impulse alone, even when i have ive always been clear enough in my head that i shouldnt gamble much as id leave myself with nothing to gamble with later. ive gambled more since the weekend than i have since october, which isnt that long ago. (before october, there was a gambling month in june but before that you have to go right back to 2006 to see it at its worst)

its so difficult for me as i like gambling, ive won money this past 3 days and ive been ""controlled"" in my staking, laying, targeting and knowing when to stop. its easy if you win eh?!! also the ""'s around controlled are a bloody joke, ive been controlled because ive shut out everything else in my life for 3 hours a day in the afternoon, including workmates and family on the phone, it cant go on, but im addicted, theres no doubt, winning £50 in an afternoon will not change my life, the doubt comes when i try to decide if i should stop or not. £30 a week should be enough to satisfy my needs in terms of poker and weekend football, but it cant stop me looking at betfair every so often, the time will come when ill see a team on a saturday afternoon and want to stick a few hundred on them, as £10 isnt enough for such a good thing, itll come and whatever i decide to do then will set up the next few years of my life.

i dont want to stop gambling just now but have too.. i know that when ive found the next thing that can truly replace it in terms of making and risking money ill stop again, as thats exactly what has happened in the past.


i made £70 profit today (140 in the bank total minus fees and postage, sold 5 pairs) selling shoes on ebay over 2 accounts and ive barely considered it a good one, its the most sales in one day ive made and its more than i won on betfair. i shouldnt even be thinking about tomorrows racing with that going on. it will be good for me to lose tomorrow on my first bet and then go onto sell a couple more pairs of shoes, in the past thats been whats put big gaps in my gambling, when its hit home to me there are other ways..

fucking hell what a rant, maybe we should have a gamblers anonymous forum all to itself??

[kompressaur]

bloody hell spacecat i missed your reply. I have to go out but i wil have a read as it's facinating all in. I moved this from Gen Chat btw as none of them cnuts would appreciate it down there (and other reasons)

edit: sorry i was just being flippant. It's just the gambling chat forum is for chat about any gambling not fitting in elsewhere and general chat is for non gambling chat really. I think thats the way

[all_funkt_up]

Brilliant read, both from the original article and spacecat too. Brilliant. Kept me interested over me lunchtime.

[Wittmann 44]

Great post mate. Should be stickied and put on top of the forum.

I thought for a long time that I had a gambling problem – not to the extent that is described above but rather the fact that I just wanted to bet almost every day. I’ve finally managed to convince myself that I haven’t a problem by a number of things – I have firstly and most importantly cut out betting on football almost totally which was a steady drain on my finances and for the last two years have taken a 2 month break at the end of the tennis season where I bet on absolutely nothing. This has been absolutely brilliant as I feel that it (1) recharges my batteries and (2) it proved to myself that I could actually stop betting on something that I enjoyed but that I was no patently not particularly good at.

I don’t miss it at all and to be honest I’m having very serious thoughts about not doing any betting at all this coming year. I have a very nice bankroll built up and I’m actually thinking maybe I should put it into the house or take a big plunge on the stock exchange. I made a nice profit last year but I figured out I put so much time into it that it worked out as so far below minimum wage per hour that I would be better off financially just getting work at night.

I think personally like every other addiction that if you have a gambling problem that there is no happy medium between gambling and not gambling. As they say about alcoholics “1 is too many and a thousand is not enough”. If you want to stop then it has to be total – there is no “just betting” at the weekends or only with “free bets and offers”.

[AnothrSpacecat]

i had considered posting this in here komp first of all but felt it was more of a general chat effort, leading on from jezzas alcohol post and actually because i think this topic (as more people post) will start to cover much bigger ground about life, self worth etc than merely gambling. ive had a few wake up calls over the years but reading the above article and realising that somebody who regards their gambling as a serious problem has been through alot of the same shite that i have in the past.

Originally Posted by Wittmann 44

I think personally like every other addiction that if you have a gambling problem that there is no happy medium between gambling and not gambling. As they say about alcoholics “1 is too many and a thousand is not enough”. If you want to stop then it has to be total – there is no “just betting” at the weekends or only with “free bets and offers”.

agree completely with that last part mate. same as you its a real shame as i enjoy it but it has to go, i need to find something to replace it with like yourself and the stockmarket is something ive seriously looked at but have always felt out of my depth. i followed the european markets for a while after working with a polish lad who was heavy into them, he was turning over 2,000 a month and making about 400 profit with the odd 600 month thrown in through the year which was more than i made and a fuck lot less stressful than i was getting with gambling on football and greyhounds.

being honest with myself, in comparison to rhe depth of knowledge ive picked up on the gambling scene i dont know anything about trading stocks and never felt inclined to learn, thats an indication of addiction in itself. let me know how you get on, its gambling just dressed up in a shirt and tie though really isnt it? im fine with that and hopefully that doesnt sound patronising as i do look at it all seriously and with some envy

i need to find something to replace punting with, have to, i didnt gamble today and im feeling annoyed with myself,, thats mental i didnt lose anything and im still up on all fronts. if i know a few days in advance that ill be having a bet it isnt so bad, if there was no football this weekend then id be much worse off. ill gamble tomorrow and try to win £50-60, got set bets i play from day to day and need two to make the profit, which over the course of a day is in theory.. easy (remind myself to read the guardian story again). i want to win but a loss could be good for me, busy christmas period coming up and little time to get online and not much racing on the go.

this is probably a good time of year to take stock of everything and where i want to go over the next year, light racing schedule amongst other reasons, will be seeing alot of old friends and family, sounds a bit cheasy but its actually true.

[kompressaur]

sorry spacecat... i dont have demons looking over me. I bring my on demons to the equation and truth be told you can't be ever than anymore wrong against those you want to beat. Ok so i dont sucum to the gambling bum of the moment. I don't kno what i do but UEFA Cup nights are easier to get away from. I am the cleasend i am the unwashed. i fall bitterly so between it alll

[Beanie]

Interesting reading AS.

Some of what you say rings very true for me - I'm 24 too, I sit all day at my desk, going over and over a million ideas for businesses, for websites, for ebay trading, for buying and selling anything, anywhere, anytime. I scribble things down, I think them through, and I chuck them away or stash them for later. I don't want a desk job, I don't even want the security of the salary such a thing brings, however comfortable it could make my life. I've done the eBay trading, car boot sale trading, a few websites, the poker, the gambling, and all pretty well, and look forward to upping the ante with my own bricks and mortar businesses in the not too distant future.

To get to the point, and you mention it too, gambling is probably the most potentially destructive of all those challenges...the one that can unravel most quickly, but the realisation that something like buying and selling on eBay can scratch that itch just as well is a comforting one, given that it carries far less of a downside and often more of an upside.

It sounds like you(and me) have a fairly incessant will to pit your wits against others - I don't really think such a thing goes away as it nags at me 24/7 just as it did 10 years ago, and if channelled into gambling it could be extremely destructive. But as you have found with ebay and whatever else, it can be just as easily satisfied through other means with the same potential rewards, and not so much of a risk, and putting efforts into those things allows you to keep gambling as nothing more a nice little hobby, as it probably should be for 98% of punters.

[rockshark]

I thought it was self indulgent drivel. The bloke was a loser end of, moaning and making excuses. I dont blame anyone, but.... I make bloody good money at sports investment but it didnt come overnight took years of fine tuning and several false starts (and hard stressful work) but thats the same in any business- some people just cant cope with running a successful enterprise be it investing, selling etc.

This guy didnt have the nouce to run a decent investment portfolio and keep track of results in a professional manner.

[rockshark]

poker however thats just an evil game..........

[Seen]

I think you're being a bit harsh on the guy, rockshark.

Yes he was a loser, but gambling addiction is a serious problem and once you get gripped it's hard to get out of it.

This guy didnt have the nouce to run a decent investment portfolio and keep track of results in a professional manner.

That's like saying an alcoholic hasn't got the nous to keep a running total of units he consumes each week. It doesn't come down to nous or intelligence or common sense, if you're gripped you lose all sense of rational thinking.

I thought it was self indulgent drivel. The bloke was a loser end of, moaning and making excuses.

Surely the most important part of recovery for any addict is to admit his addiction, I can't see where he was making excuses - he attaches all blame to himself for his weakness, yes he rants at the government at the end but it's a fair argument I reckon - hypocritical cunts they are, they don't give a flying fuck if millions of people are gambling away billions and spiralling into depression, debt and despair as long as they get their cut.

A good read from both the original author and Spacecat.

[AnothrSpacecat]

agree with seen. too single out the lads poor book keeping as the reason he was doomed to failure is unfair.

ive yet to meet a gambling addict who is stupid, almost all of them (have to stress this is in my experience) are intelligent and they do 'know better'. i did read elsewhere while looking for advice and further reading on gambling addiction that when scrutinised through personality tests, gambling addicts had a far higher iq than alcoholics, drug addicts and a scored well above the national average.

i dont want that to read as me trying to apologise for my admission that im addicted or in anyway trying to claim i fall into that category, as my actions have proved im certainly not there yet. it also offers me no comfort that others in my position (and i to an extent beanies, good post btw and im sure what little audience this topic has will identify with it) are theoretically smarter than the average bear.

to update on what ive said already.. im still gambling but as above, nowhere near the levels of the past, i have a good opportunity coming up that is worth more to me than any bet im likely to win. over the christmas period ive spent 85 pound gambling, which is roughly 20 a day of football, ive won once and recouped only about £40 of that amount (there were alot of postponements on the 22nd of december which left me with a £17 double on leeds and peterbrough).

am i happy with that level of gambling? i suppose i am, £20 a weekend is still ok for me aslong as thats all it is, i can afford that no problem at all, the real problem still remains though.

as the original article said and as i repeated, today i was viewing the money i spent on nights out and would you believe christmas presents as money wasted, but not the £80 odd gambling. presents and socialising both gave me far more in reality and i do know that, its just i cant help thinking the 250 i spent pissing up a wall couldve been invested elsewhere. its worrying and i do fear for my future knowing that im happier punting £200 on a football game than i am on living a life.

im still making money on ebay, £60 last 48 hours (£180 last week), thats more than ive made in a fortnight gambling and its all pure profit, when i received the email with the payment details all i thought about was 'at least ive got money for next weekends football on betfair..'. how ridiculous is that? the money i wasted on a ridiculous bet today was ebay money direct from paypal, when i was laying the bet down i didnt care for a second what i was going to lose it, i never saw it as really being 'mine' and now i never will.

the next step in my ebay plan is already in action and will hopefully pay off the same profit as my current items except in 10x the speed. even the next step after this one will never be enough for me to make a living from it all, its doing me no harm though, genuinely is money for nowt. i can see now that theres no real future in it, which isnt actually scratching thee olde itch i talked about a few weeks ago. it frustrates me and im counting every penny i make from it now as a bonus (note to self - dont gamble with a bonus!)

im still looking to leave my job very soon, ive been hunting for all kinds of things but ive been a bit snookered with the time of year, progress should be made from monday onwards.

i still want to earn money for myself though, is still the long term goal, not sure what your ambitions are beanie but its been a long time since ive wanted to make myself rich through a personal venture. if i could earn a reasonable standard of living without sitting at a desk all day then ill be happy, aslong as theres the potential to grow. whatever happens it has to be viable over the long term and im desperate to get something started now that'll put me in the right direction.

beanie you said something there that hadnt occurred to me before

It sounds like you(and me) have a fairly incessant will to pit your wits against others

you know, youre dead right. i view gambling as a personal battle. its destructive to both wallet and soul, im sure at some point over the years we've all been there and taken it hard.



im going on a bit now and ive well crossed the line into 'self indulgent drivel' but fuck it, this is the thread for it. progress from the rambling is easily done at this stage, in the form of structure, which im goign to add below, though i can tell you now itll be loose as the rest of this! hopefully next time i update my unofficial gambling addiction blog itll be with good news,

the targets over the next 4 weeks are the following:-

Gambling and Online
- to spend less than £20 a week gambling, 1 treble or double as odds dictate on the football, saturday only
- strictly no poker, no midweek, no laying or backing of greyhounds or horses.. nada.. not a bloody thing extra.
- withdraw all funds from paypal instantly, regardless of fees for amounts under £50 or covering potential refunds. track all withdrawls via online banking and use the total amount (..to two decimal places...) to invest elsewhere


Offline
- no gambling (i wont get the opportunity too anyway)
- research alternatives to gambling, ebay etc.. any alternative income streams, no amount of time or investment is too much for the right project. paper trade charting skills on the stock market (this could be a dodgy one, i can see it being very very addictive and it costing me a bundle if i ever did go for it), skower (scower? sku-wer?) the world for something to sell independently of ebay... recreate the website efforts from the past that HAVE worked..
- get.a.new.job. its ok to take a pay cut for this one, i just need out of here and back to edinburgh while i have the window. <- top target.
- learn to relax in my own space and time, without thinking constantly about the future.

[AnothrSpacecat]

Gambling and Online
- to spend less than £20 a week gambling, 1 treble or double as odds dictate on the football, saturday only

I score 0/10 there so far.

Currently risking over £150 a day laying dozens of horses to small stakes, today (Wednesday) I'm looking at an exposure of £177, have £300 set aside for running my own bookies on Betfair to test some private ratings me and a few other ex brighton race course types have been working on, I've made an average of £30 a day this past week and the method I'm using to pick the runners wouldve turned a profit for the past 10 years... the worrying thing is theres a hell of alot of room to grow in terms of what liabilities im will ing to give up. Could double that £30 a day in a second.
Stil gambling though... more than ever.!

- strictly no poker, no midweek, no laying or backing of greyhounds or horses.. nada.. not a bloody thing extra.

10/10, aint done any of that, just horses, so actually 1/10

- withdraw all funds from paypal instantly, regardless of fees for amounts under £50 or covering potential refunds. track all withdrawls via online banking and use the total amount (..to two decimal places...) to invest elsewhere

10/10


Offline
- no gambling (i wont get the opportunity too anyway)

0/10

- research alternatives to gambling, ebay etc.. any alternative income streams, no amount of time or investment is too much for the right project. paper trade charting skills on the stock market (this could be a dodgy one, i can see it being very very addictive and it costing me a bundle if i ever did go for it), skower (scower? sku-wer?) the world for something to sell independently of ebay... recreate the website efforts from the past that HAVE worked..

5/10, continue to make waves on ebay but have not researched future possibilities. probably should look at something but im getting really excited about the horse thing from above, im not in it on my own, theres 4 of us who want to 'be the bookie'

- get.a.new.job. its ok to take a pay cut for this one, i just need out of here and back to edinburgh while i have the window. <- top target.

2/10. Not even bothered applying for anything, sent my details and made a short phonecall to a recruitment agent, i was offered jobs within 3 days on the strength of my cv alone, so I'm taking my chances and most of the next 4 weeks off. by that point i will NEED a job in another month.


- learn to relax in my own space and time, without thinking constantly about the future.

7/10. Started listening to music again which has been pretty rewarding, still eating well and staying healthy, lots of positive things going on socially. I do seem to spend alot of time watching or talking about my horses online and getting banned on the Betfair forum trying to put people off bets (and swearing round the swear filters).. nah things are alright and fairly relaxed, have plans for the next few weekends ahead and have put aside plenty of time for myself to do the things i like. i enjoy having my afternoons between 2 and 5 to myself, even if all im doing is sitting down the grassmarket having a coffee and reading a paper or watching a film in an empty cinema, i like my afternoon pints watching tv in the pub, when theres just me and this old lad who tells us kids stories about the days when 20,000 people used to sing his name. no idea who he is but he played for hibs in the late 60's[/quote]


Doing pretty shite on giving up gambling I have to say, rather than giving up and spending all my time worried about the future, I've actually been doing nothing but gambling and trying to make it my future..!

Its all change soon though, the pressure will be on to start making some money, I know I'll crack if I end up relying on 30 horses a day running to earn it. So the plan is changing slightly, I'm going to get a new job to cover the cost of a roof over my head and the cost of living a fairly basic life, 25 hours at about £6 an hour would do it and should be a piece of piss through an agency..



Jesus how mad does that all sound given everything I've said earlier in this thread