Betting addict: ‘I gambled away £8,000 in one day’

A recovering gambling addict who bet almost every day for eleven years has shared how it controlled his life.

Declan Cregan, from Belfast, started betting when he was 16 and said his problem worsened when he started working, with his salary “basically feeding my addiction then. I was able to gamble more money and as more money was coming in then I was even starting to get loans, things like that, payday loans, everything.”

Now after not placing a bet for three years, he said: “I still have so many dark days – it happens, it’s normal. So it’s been super difficult for me too but again my life is so much better without gambling in it so that’s what keeps me going every day.”

‘Rock bottom’

Cregan reflected that gambling previously “did rule my whole life”. He said he would wake up each morning thinking how he would be able to bet that day, and if he couldn’t afford it he would have ensured he “got money some way”.

When he received his salary he would stay up all night gambling it away. For example: “There was a time I got paid one month and I didn’t even have money the next day to get a black taxi to work, which is £1.50, so that was just staying up that night just gambling.”

He added: “I lost quite a lot of money in a very short space of time. And on my last day of gambling I lost £8,000. So for me I had to hit rock bottom and basically that was the day it all changed for me, that I stopped gambling that day.”

Consequences

Earlier this year, a long-serving Peer warned that dire consequences will follow if the Government fails to tackle addiction in its promised reform of gambling legislation.

Writing in The Times, Lord Butler of Brockwell urged the Government to seize the opportunity afforded by its greatly delayed White Paper to address gambling harms and “make a positive change” to countless lives.

Lord Butler is vice-chair of Peers for Gambling Reform, a cross-party group of around 150 members, which is calling for stricter controls on the industry.