'Gaming machines cost me £250,000 and ruined my life': Cost of the high profit games boosting bookmakers' profits

By Sarah Bridge
PUBLISHED:16:22 EST, 27 October 2012

He hardly gambled until he was 38, apart from an occasional £2 flutter on the horses.

But a lunchtime trip to the local bookmaker changed his life. David put £10 into a roulette machine and won £100.

David (not his real name), now 44, said: ‘I left that shop high as a kite.’

Early start: Betting shops are to open at 8.30am for the first time on Boxing Day and New Year's Day at all major chain

Thrilled with his easy winnings on the controversial fixed-odds machine, he returned later – and lost his £100 winnings, plus £200.

David has decided to reveal the horror of his addiction to the controversial machines as bookies gear up for bumper profits from fixed-odds terminals this Christmas.

Betting shops are to open at 8.30am for the first time on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day at all major chains, even though live racing does not start until the afternoon.

Instead, punters will be enticed in by roulette and slot machine games, plus virtual horse and dog racing.

This is despite increasing protests over the fixed-odds machines, which have been described as the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling, able to hook punters such as David.

He went back every day for the next three years. Sometimes he won, netting £1,700 for a few hours’ play, and once walking out with £5,000. But the winnings would not make up what he had already lost.
‘I was always chasing my losses and it just spiralled out of control,’ he said. ‘I knew I was in trouble but it just took over my life.’

Almost from the start, David was gambling with the takings from his small construction business. He lost his house and his wife and two daughters.

Desperate, he borrowed from money lenders and was beaten up when he couldn’t meet the sky-high interest payments.

He stole to pay back the loans, was caught and got a criminal record. He even turned to dealing drugs to try to make some money. In all, he reckons he lost more than £250,000.

‘If you had said five years ago that I would be telling you about all the things I have done, I wouldn’t have believed you,’ said David. ‘I’m just a normal, run-of-the-mill bloke.’

The final straw came one Saturday afternoon. He walked out of the bookmakers having lost £1,000.

‘I felt so low, I just had nothing left.’ That was two months ago and he hasn’t been to a bookies since. ‘The first two weeks not gambling were horrific,’ he said, ‘but every time I wanted to gamble I would distract myself, think of something else and just use all the willpower I had.’

David now lives with his parents, never carries cash and has handed his debit card to his mum.

He is fighting to save his business and wants his story to be told so others realise the harm these machines can do.

‘They should be banned,’ he said firmly. ‘You can win so much money so quickly, but you can lose it all, too, and much more. It’s not like casinos, it’s just so easy to walk into a bookmaker – there are four round the corner from where I live.

‘If politicians haven’t the guts to ban them altogether, they should have just one in each shop with a time limit. Otherwise you’ll have many more people like me.’

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Sunday, October 28, 2012