Sports Gambling Ruined My Life
Dec 21, 2017 Arnie Wexler made his last bet on April 10, 1968 after gambling seized his life and finances and nearly ruined him. Since recovering, Arnie has dedicated his life to helping compulsive gamblers, driving through blizzards to help sufferers, and making himself always available to those in need.
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I am a gambling addict.I'm not broke, I'm not in debt right now. I've never missed a credit card payment or defaulted on money I borrowed. But that doesn't make me any less of a gambling addict than anyone here; it just meant I had ways to deal with the problems I created for myself. And it doesn't mean I haven't ruined my life any less than anyone here either.
I guess I should start from the beginning.
Gambling was instilled in me from a young age by my grandfather. Almost all of the time I spent with him as a young age was playing card games, games with spinners he made, a miniature roulette wheel picked up from a thrift store, anything with an element of chance; and of course, being the adult, he stacked the deck so that I would win almost all of the time. So when I could legally start gambling, of course it was in my head that I was smarter than the house, could win a $#%^ load of money, someday I would hit big enough that it would pay for everything for the rest of my life. That was always the big allure - to just have enough money handed over to you from that one big win that you'd never have to work a day in your life. Oh, but if I only knew...
When I just got into college, I essentially had a silver spoon in my mouth; my four years was paid for, and I only had one semester I had to pay for after those four years, so I didn't have the responsibility of dealing with loans for that time. On top of that, I had money pretty much falling into my hands - I had a gig flipping collectibles, a magazine writing gig, and had another steady income in resale. As a result of all this put together, I had virtually zero concept of the value of a dollar. Sure, I knew what things cost, but with no responsibilities any money I took in was free money to spend - and gamble - however I pleased. Right after I finished college, I paid off the one semester worth of student loan...only for a casino to open up about 45 minutes away. I had a seasonal job while I looked for work in my field, and while I was there, I bought some $20 scratch cards. Won $500. Figured I would take that, plus a couple hundred I had on hand, and go with the family to the casino with that as my bankroll. The worst thing that could have possibly happened to me happened.
I won.
I won $5,000 and left with it. Had I only known the life I would have averted if I just stopped there.
The next week I went back to the casino with my family again. I won $2,500 twice in the same day, had them take the taxes out, and managed to piss away the entire profits from that night, leaving with my bankroll intact but nothing else to show for it. With three handpay jackpots in such a short time, I was hooked, and figured it would be that easy every time I went to gamble. I quickly found out that wasn't the case.
Before this started I had a box where I saved almost all of the money I made from the magazine gig. There was $5,000 in that box. After a number of bad trips to the casino and buying scratch cards, that was gone. Then the credit card balance transfer checks started entering into play. I got dangerously close to maxing out the card I had. Got another one. Had a winning streak that (combined with other money I had coming in) actually got me back to even. But of course that wasn't enough. I remember the day I went down to the downtown casino, completely free and clear of debt, and wanted to win enough money to buy a laptop and pay for a vacation. Of course that never happened, and that session was a $1,500 loss that further led to chasing losses.
Got close to not being able to borrow any other money. Got another card opened solely to transfer balances off. What had started with bankrolls of $200 to buy scratch-offs and $500 to go to the casino, which is bad enough as it is, quickly spiraled further out of control. The gas station by my workplace quickly became a place I withdrew from the ATM and stayed there and scratched and scratched until I either had a huge win, hit moderate wins on every $20 ticket they carried, or ran out of money. Usually the latter. Casino trips were wild swings, often up or down $2,000-$3,000. I remember the day in mid-2011 that I said enough was enough and self-excluded for five years from the casinos in my state. But even that wasn't enough to keep me from gambling entirely. I started making the trip an hour away across state lines to gamble there. Had a couple wins, then losses, then more losses. Hit the point where I was seriously doubting I would be able to make my payments. I self-excluded from there for five years too, and in a panic called my credit card company asking about personal loans. That never happened, but enough moving money around with balance transfers kept me from any late payments.
I actually did stay out of the casino for those five years. I played the lottery, to excess even. Always seemed to miss that big payoff. There was a half year where I had more coming in from one of my side gigs than my actual job, by a wide margin. All went to the lottery. As much as $30/day on 6 numbers each. Hoping for that big score to get me out of the hole. I eventually ran out of cash on hand to play it, gave up - of course it hit a week later. I deserved that miss. I remember playing a good few hundred dollars on scratch-offs on Mother's Day one year after having our lunch out. Thought about playing my number and said '###$ it, I lost enough already today.' Of course it hit. I deserved that miss too.
My finances for the next couple years were like treading water. I was able to pay down cards sometimes, but other times I'd charge expenses, and take the money that was meant to pay those back and - you guessed it - more scratch cards. At my worst, I owed about $17,000. And as it was, I had a fairly big deadline coming up. It was going to be time to move out of my parents' house and start a life with my boyfriend soon, and I had not only no savings but a huge mound of debt to deal with. Panicking, I figured the only way out was to gamble. I took the money I made every week from my one remaining side gig of the three I used to have, and put that on my number every day. $40 a day, on one number. And right after Christmas in 2015...it hit.
This was the miracle I needed, wasn't it? $20,000, free and clear! I can pay off everything! And I did! I paid off every credit card, my line of credit, bought a laptop to replace my ailing one (which I would have done years ago had I not went back to the casino to try and win the money to do it starting this whole spiral of death), and gave the rest of the money to my mother to help with her bills. That should have been the end of it, right? Of course not. It never is.
The middle of the next year rolled around. I was on top of the world. I had savings! I was putting away $200 every pay into an account I didn't go into! I didn't have a balance on any credit card! And then the five year mark of my self-exclusion came. I went through the process of formally removing myself from the list - I was five years wiser this time, right? I wouldn't make the same mistakes again. I would never let myself get back into that deep of a hole. And the first two times I went back, just as all gambling addictions seem to start, I had huge wins. I not only had savings but had a nest egg! ...of course that didn't last. I lost back all but a couple hundred dollars of the wins. It should have ended there (again) and been a painful lesson of what could have been. But nope.
I took a balance transfer check to have money to play with. My boyfriend was in town. I snuck to the casino to gamble while he was here. I only had a half hour to gamble both times, managed to piss away the free play plus a few hundred dollars on top of it. And once I had more time to gamble, it only got worse. Three consecutive times I went a month after that, where I lost a four figure sum - won it all back! - didn't leave, and lost it all back and then some. After the third time, I had lost about everything I had borrowed on that transfer check. I saw myself going down that road again, and self-excluded from my home state a second time. It kept me from the casinos as it had before, and my lottery was mostly in check, but what I was playing a week still hurt my ability to save anything.
Funny enough, the last two special days to me where I would have played the lottery en masse, hundreds of dollars on my number of choice in every possible combination...I decided to not do it because I wanted to stop being such a degenerate. It hit in box those days too. I deserve those whiffs just as much as all the other ones.
It wasn't until drama regarding my work and family came to a head, where it would have made the most sense to bail and move out, that I ended up confessing to my boyfriend how much I'd gambled over the years. I told him everything. And it was only then that I felt I LOST something, and I'm hoping this is my wake-up call. Seeing a minus in front of some numbers on a screen didn't really bother me. Losing the direction my life was supposed to take, and possibly the love of my life...that sure as ###$ has.
Video Games Ruined Life
Those losses will keep adding up, even if you manage to scrape up enough to pay them off, and if you do win enough to cover your losses, you'll just feel empowered to play more. I should have easily had $50,000 saved over the last ten years, and while I don't have debt I sure as ###$ don't have even a fifth of that right now. That's the first goal - not gambling and being able to get that much free and clear ahead.
I hate everything right now.
I hate that I have a member of my family that was supposed to look out for me, was specifically asked to look out for me with my gambling problems, who did little if not nothing to stop it. Deep down, I think she knew the more broke I was, the less the chance I'd ever be able to start my own life and be free of her.
I hate that my grandfather taught me gambling and made it seem like the easiest thing in the world, and then caused so much drama with my family that gambling seemed like the only way I'd ever get enough money to escape having to deal with him.
But I hate myself more than any of that, and I hate damn near everything.
Sports Gambling Ruined My Life Meme
I hate that I had so, so many chances to stop when I was even, ahead, or barely in the hole but able to work out of it, and couldn't do it. I hate that there's literally nowhere you can go that's not five minutes away from somewhere you can play the lottery. I hate that I knew the math behind every single bet I was making yet did it anyway. I hate the feeling that comes from feeling compelled to make a bet thinking it's insurance against how bad you'd feel if it comes up and you don't have money on it. I don't want to do this any more. I can't do this any more. I've ruined so much of my life, and all I want to do is try and fix what I've ###$ up. I'm not going to let that bag of losing scratch-offs get any bigger. I'm not going to throw my life away hoping three white balls come out of three drums in the right order any more.