I had nowhere to live and two kids, but I still couldn’t stop
49
Mum-of-two Lisa Walker managed to hide the extent of her gambling addiction from her husband – even on her wedding night four years ago.
While Gary and all the guests drank champagne, teetotal Lisa rushed straight to the casino.
Lisa, 49, said: “I’d engineered things so we got married in Las
Vegas but all I had in mind was hitting the roulette wheel.
“I blew thousands. I even called the UK for a £2,000 payday loan.”
Back home, Lisa rang her son
Danny to ask for help paying off the loan. But within 30 minutes, she spent all the money he gave her at a betting shop.
“That, for me was rock-bottom,” Lisa said. “After decades of gambling, lying and cheating, I knew I had to get help.”
Lisa, of Rainham, East London, had started gambling when she was just eight, playing cards during break times at school for money.
For her 18th birthday, her dad took her to a casino – but it wasn’t until Lisa was 29 that her gambling got out of control.
She recalled: “I went to the Rendezvous Casino in Southend where I got a Royal Flush
and won £127,000. Instead of paying off my mortgage, which I could’ve done twice over, I couldn’t resist the buzz of the casino and wasted it all.”
Even with Danny and her disabled daughter Georgia to look after, the then-single mum couldn’t stop – and in 2012, Lisa declared herself bankrupt, having remortgaged her house three times and lost around £500,000.
She said: “I was homeless with two kids and even then, I was still gambling.”
Lisa attended her first Gamblers Anonymous meeting in 2018 and last month, she started a new job at gambling charity, Bet Know More.
She has even secured the funding to start her own women gamblers’ support group, called New Beginnings.
Lisa said: “Every single person knows of a problem gambler who is hiding their addiction. If by telling my story I can help just one woman get her life back, it will be worth it.”