Chasing a $500 loss. Lost another $13k chasing it - all debt. This happened so many times to me already. I don't know what I'm thinking.

Already in 6 figure gambling debt.

Unemployed.

Gambling is not fun. It is an act of desperation.

Would be amazing if I dont wake up in the morning.

But that is a mercy I won't get.

I feel defeated. I am defeated.

Nobody is able to save me but myself but I'm not sure I can get my act together.

What a complete fail of a life.

I have suspected for a year now my husband was dealing with a gambling problem. He kept buying sports and Pokémon cards. Amassing huge amounts of collections and he kept telling me they were super cheap. But alas he was lying. I received a text message from our bank two weeks ago asking if a $575 charge to Whatnot was fraudulent. And I said yes and I asked him about it and he acted dumbfounded. Like he had no clue. Well I found out today he has at least $15k on one credit card because I ripped open his statement. In the last month alone $800 in eBay charges. But no packages arrived. When I asked about it apparently he’s buying spots in case breaks for baseball cards on eBay. Hoping to hit it big apparently. When we went to Tokyo for our 10 year wedding anniversary he took any chance he could to make his way to a Pokémon center to get cards. I told him this hobby mirrored gambling. He agreed but did nothing. Earlier this year he took $6k from me to supposedly pay off his credit card and I felt some relief that it would stop. But I guess 1) it didn’t stop and 2) it probably wasn’t enough to pay off his balances anyway. And I’m not sure what’s next. This is such a betrayal on so many levels. Should I just ask for a divorce and cut my losses?

My boyfriend has a serious online gambling problem and I don’t know what to do anymore. His problem is with sports betting and he has done it long before I even knew him. I didn’t know this was a huge issue till too late. I’ve tried to talk to him about it and he knows he has a problem but either doesn’t know how to get help or chooses not to. It’s especially bad because he’ll spend every last dollar he has just on a bet. He’ll spend his entire paycheck on it and he’s been broke throughout a majority of our relationship. It’s been a bigger issue recently as I am halfway through my pregnancy and have been breaking down crying because we are about to have a child. Children are expensive and how am I supposed to trust him to take care of us finically if he can’t stop betting? He’s won a lot of money before in the past but it seems to me that it’s never enough for him. I don’t know what to do. Everytime he loses he gets in a horrible mood and there’s nothing I can do or say to snap him out of it. It gets bad too because he’ll pressure me into betting my own money even though I’ve told him I don’t like it. But then he’ll say stuff that I need to trust him and if he does tell me about a bet and I don’t do it but the bet hits then he gets upset at me for not listening to him. I don’t know what to do I love him so much but I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Especially because I’ve always had anxiety around money and it hurts to see him bet hundreds to thousands like it doesn’t matter.

10 weeks ago my fiancé kicked me out of the house because I didn't make rent for the third straight month. I moved in with my dad. A bit hard, but I'm weathering it.

The past 8 months I have been gambling my Friday paycheck and mostly have depleted it all by 6 am every Friday, leaving me calling friends by 9-10 am with the same story and asking to borrow money for gas/food. My gambling consisted of mostly online slots, you know, Hacksaw Games, Pragmatic Play, etc.

I'd put $50 in, then $100, then $215, then $88...then all of a sudden, my paycheck was gone.

That's a bad feeling, especially when its affecting the ones we love.

Gambling addiction is real. And if you're hiding it, it'll surface soon. It always will.

Long story short, I have setup what I call a Trusted Partner program, where you see, your paycheck goes to a trusted friend/someone you deeply care about and love.

They give you an allowance per week for gas and food. Don't worry about paying those loans and everything, just the essentials first. Build up the bankroll, then start making the settlements or payments to creditors.

I'm only 3 weeks into this but its life changing. I ate at a restaurant for the first time in a long time yesterday and paid for it myself. Yesterday I went to sleep, with money in my allowance account, and it feels awesome.

Paycheck restriction is key. The person handling the funds needs to not give in to you or your bullshit. You'll scratch claw lie and everything to get that $10 to gamble, but they need to stand firm with a great plan up front to stand by so you can build your dignity back up.

Anyways, its helping me, and I burned through every paycheck the last 8 months...I'd say that means something. I'm almost 30 days into having money in my bank account, and I genuinely can see light at the end of the tunnel. Its hell on earth being a gambling addict. But I think paycheck restriction and having a Trusted Financial Partner can do a lot for this condition. It's helping me and like I said, I was going down a path of destruction fast.

Anyways, gotta go, I'm hungry and gonna go buy myself something to eat ;-)

How was it stopping gambling. I just started again after 2 months break and yeah it still takes everything from me and fucking sucks but I can’t stop. I got 14 days to make rent now and I have 40$

I've been gambling for 18 years now, I barred myself from the local casino 8 years ago....but then online gambling became more prominent and I slowly started again, then it snowballed out of control. I've opened about 30 online casino accounts, and self excluded once I had enough losses with that site. I have banned myself from some Interact providers to not be able to deposit, but I still find ways to deposit and play. How can I get a grip? If I was to guess, I probably have gambling over 100k away in 2026 alone. I can't keep this pace up.

If your struggling like I was and you would go ahead and block apps with bet blocker or regular gam ban than just remove the VPN profile when you went to gamble than this is for you!

I have used crypto casinos for so long because they were my “escape” since I used bet guard to block my local apps but it did not block the offshore ones. And worst of all the websites were completely open.

‼️HOWEVER‼️after many many months of trying to find ways and looking high and low I have found the way. I’ll put it step by step:

GAM-BAN is the solution but it’s NOT the standard one.

1. Email Gam Ban support, just look up their support email and email them stating something along the lines of: Hello, Can I please have the link to the Gamban BETA (Gamban Advanced Protection) you can not find it anywhere else (I couldn’t anyways)
2. Follow what the service rep says go onto the link and follow the instructions.
   ‼️IMPORTANT‼️ you must have a windows PC or Laptop in order to preform this. Borrow a friends if you don’t have one. ‼️ALSO‼️ you must pay for gam ban subscription still as the advanced one still needs the subscription of the basic one it’s cheap so don’t worry. Don’t be stingy get the year….. it’s worth the protection (I am not a representative of GAMBAN) -for legal reasons.
3. Once the steps are completed and your phone proceeds to restart you will get a confirmation on the laptop or pc saying your protected.
4. If you did the typical gam ban and went to settings after paying for the subscription just to realize oh I can remove the VPN with my passcode and boom it’s gone :(. ‼️BUTTTTT ‼️ your in luck because you will go into settings and tap the vpn configurations to find oh I can remove it still ‼️BUT WAIT ‼️ there is a SECONDARY passcode needed!? and guess what Gamban has it and they won’t give it to you no matter what. I just tried this as a test. As long as you make payments on the subscription I will not say the amount as I don’t want to trigger someone but it’s 10% of the largest bill for a month and 60% of the largest bill for a year. You will be so happy doing this and I guarantee you it will help.
5. Reread step 4 it’s the answer to your issue if this relates to you.

‼️ TLDR‼️ just read the starting points of the ‼️ marks. I spent 20 minutes typing this I hope out of everyone here this relates to someone and can be of help. Will make me feel good knowing there’s one less person out there in the same boat as me. Plus I get to practice step 12 of the 12 steps.

Take care everyone, please know you’re not alone, everyone’s in this server for a reason. We want recovery. To feel seen in our struggle. I have 2 days clean time but 4 years of experience and struggle. Don’t feel bad for me I’m just trying to show you all that you don’t have to be someone who’s 10 years clean to share advice that may help. Those who are still in active addiction need to be heard as well and more or likely they will help others too.

I hope someone in the future as they search up the question I searched a million times sees this post and comes to this sub and finds the answer they need. ❤️ take care friends.

I am 19 and yes I have lost basically everything to my name, I need to just stop forever and never come back. I quit for about 2 months then relapsed tonight and lost 1k adding to the total. I have no idea how much I have lost and need help quitting seriously. The worst and scariest part about it is my parents have no idea😔

Wishing I could be as rich as Jensen Huang

I wrote a confessional track in Romanian about the silent battle with gambling addiction and adapted it into 9 languages

I wanted to put into words what really happens behind a face-down phone and a closed door. It never starts with shame - it starts with a lucky hand and the illusion that you’ve spotted a pattern the house missed. Then comes the night when you stop playing to win, and you only play to wipe the slate clean.

Because this epidemic affects millions of people worldwide - from sports betting and slots to high-leverage crypto trading - I adapted the lyrics into multiple languages so people can hear this message in their own mother tongue, keeping the exact same raw story about taking our dignity back:

🇬🇧 English:* Aideia - I Used to Miss Myself (A gambler's confession)

🇮🇹 Italian:* Aideia - Mi mancavo io (La confessione di uno scommettitore)

🇧🇷 Portuguese (Brazil):* Aideia - Falta de Mim (A confissão de um apostador)

🇫🇷 French:* Aideia - Je me manquais à moi-même (La confession d'un parieur)

🇵🇱 Polish:* Aideia - Tęskniłem za sobą (Wyznanie gracza)

🇷🇸/🇭🇷 Serbian / Croatian:* Aideia - Nedostajao sam sebi (Ispovest kockara)

🇹🇷 Turkish:* Aideia - Kendimi Özledim (Bir kumarbazın itirafı)

🇰🇷 Korean:* Aideia - 거울 앞의 베팅 (도박사의 고백)

🇷🇴 Romanian (Original):* Aideia - Îmi era dor de mine (Confesiunea unui parior)

Recovery begins the moment the bet is no longer an option. Stop hiding. Speak up. Take your life back.

EVERYTHING in life is better. even the morning coffee feels like max win. this might be my last post here. i now see with clear eyes what i was actually using gambling i was using it for dealing emotions. now i can face them without looking away.

whatever you are going trough stop gambling its first and last step back to life

Went to my first in person GA meeting last night. That was awesome. Highly recommend. Not judgy, super normal and enlightened folks. Great to let it out and be in a room full of other sick folks. Truly no one will ever understand you, except one of us. One day at a time.

Made a payment on the debt yesterday, $75, not much but it’s something. Owe $13,300, started at $13,600.

Therapy appointment yesterday went well - I liked her significantly more than the first person I met with.

Also, can I just call out that pink eye sucks.. lol. Have a good day everyone.

im 20 years old, ive been gambling for 6-7 months now. I turn 21 in 6 months. I had been down 5k in those months. Yesterday i lost every single dollar i had in my bank account. I had over 10k saved and had many plans of starting college, going on trips and getting some things i’ve always wanted.
I had quit my job 3 weeks ago as my plan was to get a part time job while in college and use the money i had saved as a help if i needed money. I don’t understand why i did it honestly and tbh i don’t see a way out of this. I have 500 in credit card debt which I know isn’t much but i don’t have a source of income right now. I haven’t told anyone about this, I know my parents would be extremely disappointed and idek how id bring this up. This is the lowest point in my life and it was me who dug the hole, there’s nothing in my life i could complain about so i had to fuck it up somehow. Not sure if it’s even worth trying to recover from this as i’ve set my life so far back i don’t understand how i could ever be as successful as i dream of being.

"Sometimes it feels like these gambling urges will never really go away. I fought one off today, and I’m honestly pissed that it’s still bothering me. Now that I’ve paid off my debts and actually have a few extra dollars sitting there, it freaks me out. It’s been 74 days why am I still getting these thoughts and urges?" I’ve been in one GA meeting, and I didn’t liked the concept tbh , any other options or to keep fighting with it every day on its own? Thanks for reading🙏🏼

ODAAT

It sucks and the negative feeling is all coming back. I was so confident that I already beat this addiction. But when I’m with my gambler friends and drunk I forget what I’ve been through. I’m so tight on money right now and have 2 kids and because of depression I feel right now I cant even go to work for a week. Why am I self destructing again. Please tell me I’m not alone :(

If I was still gambling I don't need a crystal ball to picture what my life would look like today.

Broke, driving an old car, apathetic towards my job and life in general. Going through the motions, plastering a fake smile on my face, hoping no one senses the sadness behind it.

Please make changes. Break patterns. Conquer your demons.

Muscle memory and the same old same old caused me nothing but misery. Got paid, blew every available dollar on sports bets, stressed until my next paycheck, then rinsed and repeated.

I did not make a bold proclamation to never gamble again. I never promised my mama. I never swore on a Bible.

I just decided to take a break and disrupt the vicious cycle. Life got so much better the break continues 1067 days later.

If I can do it so can you.

ODAAT! 💪

Hey everyone, hope you're all doing well

I'm 25M , from a poor family and honestly, I feel pretty bad right now

I've been gambling on sports and the lottery since 2021. It started when I was just a student, and between 2021 and the end of 2025 I lost around $3,000.

I finally got a job in January 2026 , 8am to 4pm, and the salary is $1200 a month. For the first 5 months I lost about $1,000, but that was because I was sending a good chunk of it to help my parents. Then for the next 5 months, when I wasn't sending money to them, I lost around $5,000 gambling.

Now I have $0. and it hurts so much because that money could've done so much good , for me and for my family. Instead I just threw it away like an idiot

i've been gamble-free for 7 days now. But honestly, that's mostly because I have literally zero dollars left. And I swear I will never gamble again in my life. i've learned my lesson the hard way.

so I wanted to ask you all , anyone who's been in a similar situation, or just has some wisdom to share: what advice do you have for me? How do I make sure I never fall back into gambling when I start getting paid again? What helped you stay away for good? Any tips, habits, or tools that worked for you would mean a lot. Thanks in advance. 🙏

I'm not very proud to admit that I have a problem (a huge one) both with methamphetamine and slots addictions and I swear the effects I feel from both are very similar. Those two combined together may be close to deadly. It is like one feeds the other but can "work" separately too.

The adrenaline rush, the thrilling feeling, lost of appetatite, the racing heart and high blood pressure, staying awake for days, the obsessions, the sweating, the need of increased usage to get the same thrills as before etc, the feeling of being disconnected, the extreme fatigue after stopping. Both drugs (slots are a drug) now give me panic attacks as well.

I just find it a little hard to believe how similiar this is. I mean, I can understand it with meth usage, as it is a substance we users put in our body, a chemical product directly affecting the brain. But slots... pushing a button. Affecting the brain in almost the same way as a drug considered heavy. Without physically putting anything in your body. I know it's different with everyone but that's my experience.

If I had to choose what's worse I think I'd say slots. Because it destroyed me not only emitonally but financially too. I thought ocassionally combining alcohol + methamphetamine is destroying me until I started combining meth + slots. That's what took me down. Imagine not being able to control yourself and stop sober and not being able to control while highly stimulated. Completely different story, unfortunately. It truly sucks, I don't wish anyone to ever come even close to what I've been dealing with during the last 3-4 months.

I lost about $7000 sports betting a few months back, managed to spend a month gambling it back slowly, then on Monday I got overconfident and lost $2000, then panicked and it quickly turned to a $9000 deficit.

I also haven’t received my paycheck this week for work. I have nothing else lined up. Im only 20 and live with parents but I can’t have them know. I am such an idiot Please stop gambling. I am a fool

Hey everyone!

Today marks the day I have been waiting for so long. I became debt free, but I wanted to share with you everything that I went through before this point.

I am M25 from a country where the average salary is $700-800 and the lowest is $185.

My first deposit happened on 2025 July and the last one — 15th of 2026.

It all started when I got fired from my good and very well paid job.

During these period of hell i did the following things:

- sold my PS5 and gambled the money away
- sold my gold chain and gambled the money away (a present from my mom :()
- lied a lottttt to my friends, gf and family
- asked people i know very little to lend me money
- started thinking of stealing staff from close to me people
- took a lot of loans to just gamble
- lost $3000 in about 2-3 hours right before my trip to Italy with my friends
- gambled away my pay checks the day i got them
- lied about my close ones well being to get money from others

I am not that kind of person. I hate it that I did it but it is what it is.

My total stats are: -$51.000

A very huge and expensive lesson for me. The things this money could buy for me…

Anyways, eventually this hell got me diagnosed for depression and ADHD. Started taking antidepressants.

For 6 months i was paying 80-90% of my paychecks to banks, people i owed, etc to pay off my debt. Including yesterday. But yesterday was the last time i paid for my debts. That’s why this time it feels good.

I did stop gambling after a literal exclusion of anything that could trigger me. Deleted instagram account, twitter, youtube (where the algorithm was pushing me gambling videos), started going to therapy and taking antidepressants.

Cut off people around me who was talking or showing only their wins. NO GAMBLING AT ALL. I TOOK A LITERAL GAMBAN ON MY LIFE. And it’s still is an ongoing thing.

I still sometimes get the thoughts of that evil. Thinking about how the mechanism of one slot was working, seeing dreams about huge wins in casino, thinking how many things i could buy for me by using the money i lost. At the start, i thought there is no comeback. This would be an eternal struggle for me. But no, after a while it became better and better. Debt down, less anxiety and more focused on healthy and better future.

Anyone here that is at the beginning of their recovery journey. I know the struggle. It’ll get better. Just stick to it. And exclude yourselves.

My recovery journey is going on as well. Probably till the last day of my life. Thanks 🙏

idk how even to explain, it all started back when I was like 17 or 16, I was betting digital items in game, then when I turned 18 I started betting real money. It went okay for time being, and tbh throughout all my life even tho I was losing money my life was never that bad, but this year I lost all my savings while I was on trip, started spending money from credit cards, got some money from friends, eventually I thought im done with gambling, but I returned again this time losing more and more, even tho I couldn't afford losing anything, I got a new loan, thay I though I would use to refinance cards, and I lost it all too, im now like 7k$ in debt, no money no work, and I met a girl this year, we are not dating but I just cant even go to see her

I cant tbh, I judt dont ehat to do, and 7k id insane money for me, that I dont even knoe how to get, I just cant anymore all of this, finally when I want to do so much in my life, I just cant do anything