Casino Mate • MrPokies

Intro
My name is Zach 28 years old, I am a compulsive gambler from the Gold Coast, Australia. I have been gambling for close to 10 years now. My losses would be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands now without a doubt. I live a good life, I live close to the beach, have a fantastic border collie called Switch, and I have my dream job for where I am at in my career at the moment that pays me six figures. I also have a fantastic family, that are somewhat aware of the gambling problem, but definitely have no idea as to how bad it truly is.
But due to gambling, I have basically not a cent to my name, and I have lost a lot of good friends, especially over the last 3-4 months. So a lot of the above has been what has been able to keep me going in life, and not look to drastic measures.
I have been trying to stop gambling for the better part of three years now.
Where it began
Gambling started for me back when I was about 18. I had some mates that I would go down to the pub with and we would have some beers together and then go to the pokies(slot machines) and put maybe $20 through, and it seemed fun and innocent at the time. Little did I know that my addictive personality would take a hold of this and drive my life to where it currently is.
My biggest weakness would be the pokies, especially once I discovered online casinos.
But it was never really an issue through my early 20’s, as I usually only gambled what I could afford to lose and it never affected my day to day life such as paying bills or anti social behaviour. It was just a “casual” gamble at the time.
Where it got bad
It was probably around the age of 24-25 where it got really bad. I was dating a girl at the time, where from the early stages I would manage to weasal money out of her to feed my addiction of the pokies. She would lend me money or give me money not realising what the problem was. I truly took advantage of her in this situation. There were even a couple of nights where we had been drinking with friends, and she passed out to go to sleep and I would take her bank card and go withdraw $1000 or so, just so I could go play the pokies.
She forced me to go to GA at one stage, I went once, but I was no where near ready to give it up. I mean why would I when I could keep syphoning money out of her?
After that relationship ended, things calmed down a little bit. I was still gambling in a bad way, but I wasn’t stealing money to feed the addiction. I did it through my own means. From time to time I would need to borrow money from friends or family to keep my head afloat, but I always paid it back to them.
In the last 2-3 months is where the addiction has got me real bad. I was living a bad living situation with a housemate that basically forced me to keep to myself in my room or the study. This is where I really discovered online pokies.
I put $300 in, over the course of about 3-4 days I managed to get that up to around $80k. I said alright I am gonna withdrawal at least 60k of this, but going to see if I can use the other 20k to see if I can turn it into more.
As online pokies have it, they really draw out the verification process. They do not make it easy to get your money. It goes without saying that within 3 days I managed to take that $80k and turn it into $0. Because I am a compulsive gambler and self control around gambling is not something that I have.
The follow on effect
Having gotten up to $80k, I was convinced that I could easily get up to like $10k or something. This resulted in me using money I didn’t have and borrowing money, and lying to borrow money in order to gamble.
As I sit here now and write this up. I went from having no debt, to now about $5k in debt and having blown around $15-20k over the last 1-2 months.
Going forward
Now I sit here contemplating the road ahead of me. Here is what I have done so far
- Called my bank and banned any form of gambling transactions
- Installed Gameban on my phone and computer
- Told a friend about my gambling and the true extent of it.
- Looking into counselling and GA meetings around me.
It’s a long road ahead, but I have to start somewhere.

I’m not usually one to get on reddit and post something but here goes nothing.
This is a recount of the past 3.5 years of my gambling addiction
FYI - grammer is shit
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It was slowly coming up to my 18th birthday and I couldn‘t wait as I knew I could legally go to the casino. On my day of first going to the casino I was so excited as I saw all the flashing lights and jackpot noises. I only ever played blackjack, so I started there on the $10 or $20 table and won over $200 and I was quite happy. Ended up losing a few 100 that night. I went home around 2am after all my mates were out clubbing. There is countless times when I’ve lied about being in the casino to mates who were out clubbing, friends and family.
Ive got a very addicting personality aswell which does not help.
Over this 3.5year period I was on a rough pay check of $1600 clear into my account every fortnight on average. The first year between 18-19 i would play pokies and put money on greyhounds every week. I would spend my pay check sometimes within the first few days.
i never saved anything,
When I first lost $500 I was very mad with myself and couldn’t believe I could do that to myself. By the time I’m 19-20 im losing $2000 in one sitting regularly and I still can’t believe I keep going back. This would happen once or twice a month.
i would have deposits on sportsbet in total which would be over $20000K in the first two years of gambling. My Total loses at casinos in couple states of Australia would be over $35000, my total loses online casinos and other punting sites and pubs would be around $30000.
I’ve had some pretty crazy win/loss moments over the past 3.5yrs, which some I just couldn’t believe happened.
I got a personal loan out aswell which currently has around $12,000 owing but very happy with myself to say I’ve been gamble free for a month and never going to gamble again.
This will be one of the biggest lessons I’ll ever learn in life but I’ll always stay positive and keep looking forward
I’m currently 21 and have just started a full time position with a good salary and can say my life has changed
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Thanks heaps for reading,
Please if you have any comments or any stories id love to hear them!

Hello.. posting here because I don't know what to do anymore. This first week of March has already felt like months of hell and I want to know how to get out of this hole. I have never said anything about this to anyone as I am embarrassed by it and would rather not deal with any extra judgement that may be received.
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I believe that my problem started at the age of 15 - I had just discovered bitcoin and decided to play $50 which I had received as a gift - after transferring everything and doing the exchanges, I ended up with around $20 to play with online. I lost it.. and I felt like utter shit for 2 days - I was a 16 year old who had lost $50 I had received as a gift. A week goes by and I feel better, and I had recently started a job at a fast food chain so I was making 100-200 a week. A few weeks went by playing $50 each week, until a miracle happened - I had turned $50 through a variety of different websites using martingale (I know, stupid indeed but by some odd change I had managed to make a huge amount) into around $200,000 AUD at the time (worth much more now in bitcoin rates). This was the day after Christmas of 2017 I believe - I withdrew the money and went to sleep finally after a long night of gambling (I had withdrew and redeposited into multiple different websites multiple times through the night constantly telling myself I'd stop soon.. so I did, at 200,000 - or so I thought). I woke up the next morning and instantly put it all back in - I did some very stupid bets (they got very large, I did not realize just how quickly a bet can go from $10 to $20,000) and ended up with $0 - well, this was the end of it. Or so I thought. After a day of beating my self up, I kept quite - went back to school, didn't say anything to anyone - of course, it might have been noticeable how miserable I was. Fast track a few weeks later, I started stealing. Yes, I know - I regret every decision I made and I have always felt guilty for what I did - I was midway into 16 at the time and spent every school night on my iPad making around three to four hundred dollars through different schemes which I always put back into the websites. Not once did i get close to repeating what I had made during the big win - I always thought, next one. But the next one was never it. Eventually, I started betting during school every few days and some mates caught on and started playing with me - small amounts, but we had fun gambling together during classes. It was when I was the only one playing all day and all night by myself that I realized I may have had a problem - but no, I could stop at any time I said to my self. This was the first stage.
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What happened next, was I turned 18 and discovered sports betting. After a few thousand dollars in losses, I stopped myself from that and found my new preferred method of gambling - online casinos (not bitcoin, but aud) - I would spend every day playing on a new casino trying to beat the odds and not once did I do it. I did make a few big wins, but never pulled out and always (and i repeat, always, no matter how much I pulled out, I ended up losing all the profits and more the next day) lost. A few weeks into being 18, I discovered my worst enemy - the poker machines. I was new to all of this - me and a few friends went into a pub and saw a couple of machines - we were curious and each chucked in a few dollars. After we all lost our money, they all wanted to leave but I was different - I was the only one who put in more. I had no idea what the machines were or how to play them but I ended up spending an hour playing a few dollars - it was boring to me. I didn't understand it - "how could anyone be addicted to these piece of shit machines?" I thought. Fast forward a few weeks and I started going more often - I would play larger amounts and win larger amounts - it was getting more exciting (and would still get more, the more I learned about features and different machines.) After getting arrested and losing my license for a year around the time of my exams (two separate incidents which happened very closely to each other) I ended up with over $5,000 in fines to pay (court fine, impound fee, etc). I had a plan to pay them all off in a few months time. But at this time, I was falling in love with the poker machines. My family kept questioning where I was until 4am every morning, my girlfriend was constantly asking what I was doing - I always had an answer. This was my issue. I am a compulsive liar and have no problem lying about anything to anyone - it happens easily. My plan to pay off my fines did not happen. Couple months passed and I had spent almost every dollar at the pokies going every night hoping to make enough to pay off my fines - I spent all my paychecks and if I hadn't, I would have had enough to pay them off and not have this massive headache. I had to take out a loan. I took out a loan for double what I owed last week (around $10,000) - and this is where the real issue began. I had lied about my fines to everyone - my family, friends, etc. I told them I owed nothing more than $2,000 and that my loan was no more than $3,000. With this in mind, I had the mindset that the surplus of $5,000 was disposable - so what did I do? I went to Crown. The big place where it all happens. 3 days of playing and I made a few thousand dollars - i was up. But I was not happy with where I was. I started to skip university to go to Crown and in the span of 2 days, lost more than $8,000 which I had from the loan and all my extra savings/paychecks. One would think that these events would help me to stop - but no, this further worsened my problems. Since I was 16 I have had a problem with drugs (I would do a range of drugs, usually at school or at night when I wouldn't have to deal with my family, and spend the days messing around). Around a few weeks ago I had developed an addiction to cocaine (I say this as I am about to snort another key at 4am with uni work due in 8 hours). For the past 2 weeks I have spent the beginning and end of every day at a venue in an attempt to make back my very first massive win - but this has become more of an issue as my once a week cocaine habit had become daily (every couple of hours, which became every hour, which became every 30 minutes of playing) so while I was playing, I always always snorting before, during and after which made me very, very, compulsive - I had made many large wins which any smart person would have cashed out but to me - it was never enough. No matter how many massive features or wins I had (which attracted the attention of many onlookers) it was never enough for me. One more spin, I would always say as I drained my last few hundred down the drain.
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Now I'm here, 3 hours after losing my last thousand dollars and last bag of cocaine, in bed at 4am contemplating whether to start my uni work due in a few hours or to just sleep and hope for the best, thinking of ways to fuel my addictions for the next few days knowing I should stop.
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But that's the thing - I can't stop. I know I should. I want to. But I can't. My urge to do these things is stronger than my will to stop - "you should stop" becomes "you can stop when you want, but why stop now? it feels so good and you'll win eventually" - I know if I talk to someone it won't help me because I'm stubborn and will relapse very shortly so I am posting this here in hopes that maybe someone can relate or to find out if anyone can provide any advice as I am very lost and have no idea what to do anymore and I'm absolutely sick of it. I'm hiding my drug and gambling addiction from family, friends, my girlfriend - it is so obvious and everyone is suspicious but I am still lying to hide it. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm done.
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Thank you if you managed to read this far and I hope that you can provide any advice at all about what to do to cut these addictions - I'm so fed up with this life already.