Lockdown made me confront my £100k gambling habit
As the pandemic sparks an online betting surge, George Cooper reveals how he battled his addiction
My heart is pounding, my mouth is dry and my fingers are shaking as I type these words. As a recovering online gambling addict – a habit that derailed my life for three years and left me in deep despair – the prospect of spending months in lockdown was always going to be a challenge. My fear was that the isolation and boredom of it all, being stuck at home with my laptop for company, would undo more than a year of progress and drag me back to the self-destructive behaviour that had already cost me tens of thousands of pounds.
In fact, the opposite is true. Our collective “Great Pause” has allowed me to take stock and decide, finally, to talk about a problem that affects so many people in the UK, young men in particular – and which the coronavirus pandemic has only made worse.
This week, the Gambling Commission revealed that, against the odds, gambling increased in lockdown, in spite of there having been no sporting events on which to place a bet. The rise can be put down to a surge in online slot bets placed at the UK’S biggest online casinos, which increased from £4.5billion in March to £5.3billion in May.
I never dreamt I would suffer from addiction. I’m in my 30s, don’t smoke, hardly ever drink and never touch drugs. In 2016, however, I travelled the world and stopped off in Las Vegas, where I spent hours on the Strip. It was the first time I had seriously gambled, and it was intoxicating. I found myself feeding dollar bills into the slot machines. I knew right then that this could become a problem for me, and was relieved to tear myself away.
The trouble really began later that year amid a relationship break-up
– which is typical for gambling addicts; young men are generally at higher risk of addiction, but particularly those who are suffering from isolation and depression. According to recent figures from Yougov, there may be up to 1.4million problem gamblers in the UK.
Suddenly alone in a big house, with disposable income and work as a freelance journalist giving me plenty of spare time, all the ingredients were there. I signed up to my first online casino. Gambling websites make it so easy for you to join – in most cases, registration takes under two minutes and requires just your name, address and contact details. There are no background checks and dozens of casinos to choose from, each with hundreds of games. Within weeks, I was spending hours every day on the apps. Casinos usually offer new customers a welcome bonus, allowing them to gamble with twice or three times the amount they deposit. The catch is wagering, a process through which you must gamble your deposit a certain number of times before you can withdraw winnings. It upsets me now to say this, but most of 2017 and 2018 are a blur. I know for a fact that I gambled every
There’s nothing to break the habit – it’s just you, your laptop screen and five spinning reels
single day, virtually all my free time, pausing only to eat, drink and sleep. I would wait impatiently for wages to drop into my account, then immediately gamble away half of them or more. Huge losses were met with despair and frustration that I could not control my urge to gamble. Huge wins left me numb. Gambling addicts focus on the thrill of the chase, not the size of the win.
I have since been told by a psychologist that online gambling addiction is particularly difficult to control because the rushes of dopamine – a neurotransmitter released by the brain during enjoyable activities – are so frequent, they become almost constant, leaving the gambler permanently seeking the next high. Unlike in a real casino, there are no distractions online, nothing to break the habit. It is just you, your laptop screen and five spinning reels. As 2018 wore on, I found myself cancelling social engagements, and those I could not get out of, I escaped early, to return to my laptop screen and the comfort of the casino. I drifted from friends and became distant with my family. I became a nightmare to live with. Somehow, probably through a deep inner guilt, I managed not to fall into debt. While I am grateful for that, it made the addiction no less shaming, and I still look back with regret at the thousands of pounds I gambled away.
I don’t how much I lost between September 2016 and January 2019, but even a rough calculation tells me it’s more than £50,000 – and closer to £100,000. I cannot honestly say whether my addiction impacted upon my career. I do know that it helped send me into a severe depression that only months of counselling and the support of close friends finally dug me out of. I know, also, that revealing I had a gambling addiction to my employers felt like a step too far. That is why so many gambling addicts live secret lives, hiding their habit from even those closest to them. And it is why, tragically, some feel they have no alternative but to take their own lives. Online gambling addiction is called the “invisible addiction” for a very good reason.
My lowest moment arrived in December 2018. After losing hundreds of pounds in an afternoon, I didn’t have enough money to buy my family Christmas presents. It was then that I decided to take action to make it stop.
I signed up to Gamstop, an online service launched in 2018 that allows addicts and problem gamblers to self-exclude from every Uk-licensed casino.
That was when I took control of my addiction. I can’t say I have conquered it, and I’m still angry at myself for hiding this problem for so long – but I’m strangely grateful for the 100-or-so days of lockdown, which showed me that I can live without the thrill of spinning virtual slots.