Never actually posted a story before, I've been on/off gambling for around 5 years though so have always found these forums useful when I've been in bad places in the past.... I hope this could potentially help anybody and I think I'll feel better unloading this off my chest.
So, I'm 23, probably been gambling since I was around 17 and before January 1st 2016 my overall career net-loss was probably around £4k - £5k (Still bad I know). After the usual Big Win - followed by - Big Loss just before Christmas I made a New Years resolution to not place a single bet all year.
Anyway, that didn't happen.... and as per usual I'm starting to place bets around February, when all of a sudden I struck my biggest Accumulator win and won around £4k off a £50 acca. This is where it all went a bit crazy.
In the space of about 5 months I managed (somehow) to turn that £4k into £70,000! It was a long process and there were a few scary moments where I could have been close to £0 but the more money I made the less those situations arose. I have to explain that by this point I'd quit my job, was focusing on a Music Finance and Marketing course I was studying and planning on using £45k to start a Music Events business. For the first time in a while my whole life was falling into place. I was quite content with the £70,000 and although I'd finished with 3/4 losses in a row (lost around £2,500), I was determined that this money was **mine** now and I didn't want to throw anymore away chasing losses.
This brings me to Sunday.... I'd been out with a few friends and on the Saturday night, and decided to put about £400 on Murray to beat Novak in the French Open Final. He obviously lost. and what followed was about 5 losses in a row. Suddenly I was £3000 for the day and instead of taking a T/O I went on a binge. What followed was me losing the entire £70,000 in about 5 hours. I had a £30,000 bet on a Mexico v Tunisia Volleyball game (don't ask), and at one point in their match Mexico had 2 match points and were 1/45 on to win... so when they went on to lose I felt physically sick.
So all my money I'd 'worked' towards had completely vanished in about 8 hours of madness, I was in turmoil, total panic and didn't know what to do.... Actually I did, dip into my savings. My Grandparents did okay for themselves and they left me and siblings about £100k each, although previously I wouldn't have dared dream of touching it until I was putting a deposit on a house, needing emergency funds or putting kids through University in the future, something in my brain changed; Hey, I could win back most of my winnings with that £100k! Easy right?
So without any sleep I carried on betting into Monday, I actually was at a stage where I recouped about £27k, and was close to calling it a day when I had an urge to put that £27k profit on a final 8/11 bet and be done with £50k (still would've felt like I was losing £20k from the original £70k I'd built up but that would be ok). That obviously went on to lose and in desperation I lost the rest of the £100k over about 7 consecutive losses. So from £70,000 profit to £110,000 down in 2 days.
That evening I was partly in shell-shock, I didn't know what to do and to be honest the whole experience didn't seem real. I'm living at home at the moment, so my first thought was to take the £500 cash I have stashed away and just pack my stuff and leave, or just take a long drive somewhere; I didn't.
So I woke up on Tuesday morning and although I was going to wait until my parents got back from work to tell them I couldn't wait, I came downstairs and absolutely broke down in tears and was a mess for about 30 minutes whilst I explained. Now I've had to explain gambling losses to them in the past for £500 or so, and that was usually met with anger; but this time it was different. They were unbelievably supportive and have been the last few days trying to turn me around.
At this point every single morning the reality sinks in even more..... I'm un-employed, I feel like I've ruined my life, the plans I had in place to use that money, the guilt/selfishness at the fact I've spent SAVINGS to fund this. I've had a fairly up and down few years recently and this was supposed to be a fresh start, and now I'm back to square one with absolutely nothing to offer. I just want to rewind time and forget any of this happened but I can't no matter how hard I try.
Whilst all of this is happening ALL I keep thinking about is 'IF' some of those losing bets would have come in (the Mexico game, another tennis game and a cricket match), I'd be in a totally different place. Before any of this happened, I had planned for this week I was going to put deposit limits of £500 per day as well (seriously!), as I was content with my lot.
I'm absolutely terrified of death but honestly the idea of just falling asleep and never waking up sounds wonderful at this point in time. I'm totally lost.
My Dad actually spoke with *name redacted* yesterday and they wanted to chat with me so they can review this with their operations team and see if they can give me some sort of refund; is this even possible?! I'm not holding any hope anyway....
I don't know what I can achieve from posting this but I guess any advice would help, and if it scares anyone from placing another bet then that's great. Just remember that throughout my winning period I would regularly check up on these kind of stories to 'scare' myself, and it would remind me that if you play with fire eventually you'll get burned; which happened!
Trying to take things one step at a time but I don't know how it's possible to live with the self-loathing, pity, anger, guilt - especially considering the amount lost. I'm not angry with Beway/betting companies, I'm just so frustrated and disappointed with myself, which feels horrible.
Sorry for the long post, any advice would be welcome...
Thanks