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A Year on GamStop: My Story


RichXTuta

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Hi all,

 

Just before we start, I am posting this in an identical way on both CasinoGrounds and The Gambling Community and happy to reply to anyone on both.

 

In writing this, I wanted to take the opportunity to share my gambling story – primarily around my experience of using GamStop from June 2019, and what I found myself doing during this year long ban – something I’ve mentioned on a fair few streams, and just to weigh in with some of my thoughts surrounding it.

Just to provide some background, as it stands as of today, and perhaps the strangest thing is I am actually at a lifetime profit, but my gambling has risen in terms of deposits and stakes over a very long period of time, from being afraid to use my own card to get an entirely risk free £25, to staking thousands per blackjack hand, on a bet or wagering thousands through the slots, this is built up over the course of many years, something which was largely dormant for a long time I gambled. For the first 5 or so years I gambled I had only chased once in my life.

Thankfully, there are some paths I never ended up crossing, I never spent more money than I could afford to lose, although I did come close, and I never ended up in debt to anyone or any business because of my gambling, and I do feel that in that sense, there are hard limits in my mind to which I would not cross, the rest of all the money I have – that’s a different story.

Following a simply miraculous recovery playing Blackjack one night which put me into about a lifetime profit of about 11k (bearing in mind, most of my heavy gambling escalated over the course of about 6-12 months), I made the decision to put myself on GamStop for a year on the 11th of June 2019, one big swoop to tackle the rash nature of what I was doing, depositing up to 10k a week, spending money I had gained through my work/business in the course of around 5-10 minutes, having all the sinking feelings that many of us know too well when we’ve made a big mistake. So, it was a dramatic decision I took – knowing I would be really pissed off at myself as gambling was such a huge part of my life. As such, here is a timeline of my experiences of GamStop.

The night of my session I chew over my decision briefly, put the block on, and check after to see if it actually works – some casinos are immediate, sending me e-mails, some even to this day are sending me promotional e-mails despite not interacting with them for many months/years.

The first week is difficult, the compulsion to log-in and either look at my betting account or online casinos is strongly there, but I have no way of fulfilling this, this was very difficult for me, later in the week I convince a friend to come over and play on his account, we break even and consider it a lucky escape. Around this time, I find myself angry at myself for what I have done – no sense of the fact I have in many ways brought a huge gambling issue to a sudden stop (despite the attempt to gamble through my friends account), this is roughly the way I feel for the next few weeks.

In early August, me and my friend play again, this time winning big, and celebrate accordingly. This gives a false sense of success and we narrowly avoid losing, sometimes depositing 5 figures between us over the next few weeks and somehow getting away with it, reaching at a peak at the end of August. These sessions satisfying my gambling urges, despite making a mockery of why I self-excluded, I am only able to play when my friend wants to play, which is dramatically less often than I was playing previously (pretty much every single day).

Our sessions become fewer as we start to naturally return the money over September to the start of October, over a mixture of Casino sessions and betting. At some stages my friend is unwilling to place for me, so for the first time I start attending the local Coral, something I was very resistant to do initially, due to my own anxiety, but this becomes something I do from then on, mostly due to the losses, I lose contact with my friend for the next 3 months. This starts a period of time I am totally away from playing casino games, which despite the possibilities within Coral – I did not feel I would have any success on their games, and as such, I never play them despite some passing thoughts of doing so.

I have varying success over the next six months, going to Coral, placing bets, and for the first time, starting to take a more structured and controlled approach to my gambling, I start to place mental blocks of how much I am willing and able to spend and due to the human interaction, I do not find it possible to go in recklessly and continually deposit. I use this period of time cold-turkey from anything bar sports betting to take the first real break in aspects of my gambling after so many years.

Over this time I have one reoccurrence on a smaller scale of my past nature – but this is not at the same level of spend as before, as I find that my national lottery account is still active (as far as I am aware, this hole in Gamstop is now covered), I put a small amount of money into this before I self-exclude specifically from their site that evening, feeling very embarrassed after the experience, especially considering it was just to pass the time and not something I even particularly enjoyed, and would not have done if I did I have access to my normal online accounts.

After a period of getting back into the good books with my friend, in March this year, we have 3 further sessions of online play, 2 which break us even, and 1 which puts us in a loss, these sessions are different, and the urge to continually redeposit by both of us seems to have gone, and I can accept the loss. This was the last time I gambled and find myself somewhat at peace. This is a period of time, as we all know – that all sport more or less disappears in Mid-March, and for the first time I have a complete expanse of time where I do not gamble, I also find myself watching streams less and breaking away from my urges – which may be coincidentally but is a notable point still.

This brings us up to date to today, where I await the soon end of my ban – and the key things I ask myself regarding it:

·       Why did I go on GamStop?

·       Do I feel I can be responsible by ending my ban?

·       What have I learnt from my ban?

·       What are my limits, and what are my triggers?

·       When in a session, can I resist the urge to redeposit?

·       Do I accept that gambling is for fun and not a way of making money?

My intention as it stands, is to complete my Gamstop journey, being able to now answer these questions in a positive way.

What I want to share most crucially, despite the fact at times I made a mockery of my early decision to self-exclude, is that my journey has happened over the course of the year, it started in defiance, frustration, control and finally acceptance. To say I did not even get to the stage of changing my gambling habits months into my ban would be true, and only after a longer period of time where I was forced to change my ways, I began to change my attitude towards gambling, learning to understand where I stand in position to my gambling and what is for me, responsible gambling.

All in all, GamStop is a great tool for UK Gamblers, but it’s important to remember what a sweeping shock to the system it can be, if you’re struggling with your gambling, and you feel you can’t take it anymore – then I fully advise taking it, but realising it’s virtually an intervention, akin to an IVA/Bankruptcy would be, ergo the strongest action you can take. I’d recommend to UK players that just to start, that you take the 6 months to start with, and get used to the immediate shock to the system, and of course extend longer if you really feel you cannot go on. The most important thing to gain from it is the change of attitude towards dangerous gambling, which will take time and in my opinion is the real reason GamStop exists.

I would be interested in answering anyone’s questions and I am somewhat hesitant about posting this, as I know that there is a lot of story about how I spent ages trying to circumvent the restrictions I put in place for myself – but I wanted to be as honest with everyone as possible, to discuss my emotions and the journey I went through.

 

If you read it all – thanks very much,

Rich

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