The significant number of women who reported having gambling addiction has been increasing at an alarming rate the speed. Betting is used by women as a get away out of stress and pain — but the debt which piled up could be catastrophic.
Nancy gambled off the 3,000 her dad had saved up for his own funeral. It’s what she feels ashamed of having done throughout her four-year addiction to internet gambling. At that time, nevertheless, she hardly thought twice about what she’d done.
“Women gambling addiction are just as bad as men. They’ll get money where they could and gamble it away, instantly,” she states. “The amazing thing is that through my gambling addiction, no one suspected a thing. I had been betting online for hours daily. I would sit down on the settee with my mobile phone in the first day and the next thing I knew, it was 3am. I had not moved except to press the exact same button again and again to work the slots. Until, my bank accounts could be empty.”
DRASTIC INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF FEMALE GAMBLERS
The amount of women reported having a gambing addiction problem has increased at double the rate of men within the previous five years, from 2,303 at 2014 to 2015 to 3,109 final year.
The increase, based on GamCare, which conducts gambling addiction helpline, is attributable to the ease by which girls are now able to gamble online with their own phones.
Previously, if they desired to wager, girls needed to brave the male-dominated kingdom of their bookies or even find the time and risk the vulnerability of a casino.
Nowadays, 70 percent of female gamblers with gambling addiction use their cellphones and websites.
BACK TO NANCY’S STORY…
Nancy would not have become a bookies or to a casino. “I’d not have begun betting if I had not managed to do it covertly, on my telephone,” she states.
“I had hundreds gambing accounts. As soon as I ran out of charge on a single, I would just go to some other website and start a fresh one. I’d five credit cards, multiple loans along with plenty of high-interest cash loans. I had been completely enslaved by this ‘thing’ called gambling addiction“
From the time Nancy searched help she’d spent 75,000 on gambling and was 25,000 in debt. She used up all of her savings, salary and some additional money she could put her hands.
“It is not possible for anyone who is not an addict to comprehend my problem, but I had been in this prison I created and couldn’t escape,” she states. “It was all I thought about: gambling was the best way to repay my debts. I recall one Wednesday, becoming home from work and yelling and shaking in the kitchen since I knew I needed to bet. I was a servant to whatever game I had been playing.”
“I AM A SLAVE TO EVERY GAMES THAT I PLAY.”
Despite her obsession with gambling addiction, Nancy did not demonstrate just one outward indication of not being completely in control. Even now, only her best buddies know what she’s been through.
She can not bear to tell her brand new husband. “I am a really smart, sensible, affectionate individual so it’s difficult to say why I did exactly what I did. However, the truth that it could occur to me means it could happen to anybody.”
Finally, Nancy went to find a health worker about another issue and broke the news about her gambling addiction. “All that required by the counsellor was to ask: ‘What do you do to have a good time?’ Also it hit me directly about what had I done? Why was I doing such things?” And then I was moved into an gambling addiction counsellor and is currently doing sessions for recovery.
Ian Semel directs Breakeven, a charity against gambling addiction in the united kingdom. He thinks that the most recent statistics hide the real amount of female problem gamblers, since a lot of reach out for assistance. “There is a stigma for women who gamble,” Ian states.
“Society has quite clear gender roles for girls and expectations they’ll function as caregivers.” To breach this dangers ”judgment, vulnerability, guilt and shame”, he states.
THE WAY WOMEN GAMBLE IS VERY DIFFERENT
Liz Karter is a therapist specialising in gambliing addiction in girls. She says how girls gamble is quite different to guys. “In Gamblers Recovery meetings, the men were telling females that they were not proper gamblers since they were not rush with the winnings,” she states. Rather, “females gamble to escape, stress and divert themselves from reality”.
“For girls, gambling calms them and numbs pain,” states Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, creator and manager of their National Gambling Addiction Clinic. “Sometimes, they would fall into gambling habit because of bereavement or since they are a carer for someone that they love, and it’s an overwhelming obligation for these,” she states.
“Many women will not seek help because they are afraid of having their kids removed. Several have embezzled or stolen cash and dread jail when they are found,” she adds.
GAMBLING HABITS IN WOMEN
Normally, women start gambling later in life compared to men, however, their problems grow more rapidly — that experts believe might be since they are inclined to choose fast, high-stakes games like internet slots and bingo.
Kerri Nicholls, 37, hadn’t gambled before she and her spouse began making #1 on the internet bets on the soccer games that they loved to see together. “It started as a means to make the matches much more interesting,” she states.
Then the website they employed gave #200 of all free stakes (“Except, of course, these stakes proven to not be liberated; they arrived with monetary strings,” she says).
“It had been fun at first but my spouse went back to college and that I had been stuck, in a not-great job, at a not-great brand new apartment. As my spouse was at uni, I believed I had to make more cash for us and gambling seemed like a fantastic means to do this,” she states.
In six months of making her first wager, Kerri was gambling every day. “It’d stopped being enjoyable by then. I had been pursuing my losses. It had turned into a psychological thing. I was addicted,” she states.
COUNSELING CAN HELP GET RID OF THE BONDAGE OF GAMBLING
Kerri was gambling raising sums of cash and abruptly found herself severely in debt. “Having gone through counseling, I know I had been using gambling to escape my other problems,” she states. “I felt failed and gambling replaced what I had been missing. I could invest my time inside and divert myself from my ideas and difficulties.”
The addiction lasted five years, she spent 50,000,” she stated, ”literally a 24-hour thing. I had been placing my phone to wake me up during the night with alarms of games being played across the world that I would bet . My spouse, sleeping right next to me personally, did not detect something.
“I don’t understand how I had a project. I’d like to get up from my desk continuously to take my telephone out and gamble. I used to bet on my telephone whilst sitting opposite my father .
“It made me feel quite lonely. I was living a different, secret life which entirely obsessed me and it appeared that no one cared for notice. That made me feel even more lonely,” she states. “I am mainly ashamed of the lies I told everybody. I am a really fair person and it was scary I could lie . They simply rolled off my tongue”
IT IS DIFFICULT FOR WOMEN TO BREAK FREE FROM GAMBLING ADDICTION
When Kerri tried to stop her gambing addiction, she was able for just six weeks. “I believed that after I confessed it, it’d get much better. My father paid off my 25,000 debt, but since I had not addressed the underlying issues, him draining my debt only meant I could begin again. In virtually no time in any way, I’d doubled the debt he’d cleared.”
Kerri was near killing herself following a row over gambling debts with her mum, her spouse and her spouse’s mother.
“I believed my life was crumbling around me. I’d had ideas about various methods for finishing things a couple of days before. That afternoon, my feelings of despair escalated. I had been in a daze. I didn’t wish to be here some more. I could not see how matters can be turned about.”
CONCLUSION
She was sitting on the edge of a canal once an elderly woman stopped and spoke to her. She inquired if Kerri was OK and it left something. ”She snap back to normal” in her mind.
Kerri then try to reach GamCare and Gordon Moody Association, a gambling addiction foundation which organized a weekly counselling via video connection. She attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings weekly.
“I have never gambled because,” she states. “I have given my credit cards for my mom, got a telephone with no online access and stopped watching sports. The main thing was to begin speaking to folks about it. I have come to be quite spacious and reflective. I bottle up things.”
Kerri would like to advocate other female gamblers to request assistance. “To some women bettors out there, I would say they ought to speak to somebody. Request aid since assistance can be found — and it actually does work”
All names are have been change for safety reasons.
For free help and advice on gambling issues, call a gambling addiction helpline.
Source: The Guardian: ‘I was living a secret life’: the agonising rise of female gamblers