The first day I walked into a bookmaker, I felt a rush of excitement tingle through my body. An hour later, I was £60 down. But despite walking out riddled with shame, I couldn’t forget the exhilarating experience of the bookies. From then on, I constantly looked for my next gambling fix.
I was raised in a middle-class family and never went without. But as the months went on and the gambling continued, the debt piled up. Looking back, I could have won a fortune and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
My vice was horses. I would start the day with single bets on horses to win individual races, then accumulators (AKA high odds bets with big wins), often with the dream of claiming back the money I had lost. On countless…