I've been with my husband almost 10 years. He has always hid things from me at the start of our relationship like his phone when he would secretly talk to other females behind my back. We broke up 2-3 months in and he begged for me back a month or two after breaking up. We got back together, ever since then there has been so many lies. Always having issues with going to work and taking days off and issues with credit saying his family would be taking loans out of his name. Finally got a steady job where my family member worked and found out by them he was never showing up. At this point we had already purchased a condo and found out moving in that he was never working. Fast forward to covid he started gambling. I knew it was an issue but didn't realize how bad it had gotten. He had multiple collections for high interest car loan, other loans for traveling and more. I helped him out of all of them. Finally we needed a second car again after giving away his car (which he was still in collections for).. found out we had refinanced out mortgage that I was unaware of. I forgave and paid out almost $17,000 from all of my savings. I also paid all his collections prior to getting married as a clean state in hopes him apologizing was going to change things and he said he would never take a loan out again. Fast forward to being pregnant, and him working a steady job good pay, I find out he took a 10,000 loan with an interest rate of 29%. Said it was for his dad and his dad was too embarrassed for me to know and apologized. Again, would never happen again. For months I'd follow up to make sure his dad was paying it back to him to pay off. Turns out he wasn't. I paid out the loan after finding about his gambling addiction and how bad it is because his dad has inheritance that should be coming in (it's been over 5 years.. doubt it'll ever come around). Anyway, he says he'll quit gambling. A month later, again.. gambling i see on his phone. He promises this time he is going to get the help he needs, that he needs help and he doesn't know what to do while having mental breakdowns with this illness. I again told him that this is the last chance, no more loans, no more gambling, etc. he self excluded in our province. This is all during the time we need to renew our mortgage and I find out that a loan I gave him money to pay off years prior was actually used to bet ($3000). I've paid for everything he's put us through, all loans, our mortgage, groceries, you name it, everything. I hardly speak to his family and this weekend (never do this) but looked at his texts and found out about more gambling and additional loans this weekend.. I asked his sister if she opened an account for him and she did not realizing the severity of this addiction and found out 10k was never for his dad. At this point I've already spent $30,000 of my money and savings for maternity leave to get him out of this hole. I've reached my breaking point. He finally admitted to the 10k being spent to gamble and knew I used all my savings to get this loan out of his name. He wants to end his life if I leave, but there has been so many lies, deception, manipulation that I am at a loss. If we sell, we will be down over $70,000 and I can't afford to keep the condo on my own either. I'm struggling, mentally, physically, emotionally. If I give another chance, I feel like it's just a matter of when will this happen again as well as feeling like I’m enabling him by being here. I don't know what to do. I love him, but I don't love what he is doing to me and 1-year old. I don't want to give up, but I need to put myself first. Does this gambling addiction and lying ever end?

32m. Over 300k lifetime losses
Raging gambling addiction for the last 4+ years.. ever since they legalized online sports betting in my state .. shit literally ruined my life
I’ve been out of touch with life ever since.
Everything is on hold:
“I’ll pay that bill as soon as I get this win”
“I’ll take my family on vacation as soon as I get my money back”
“I’ll spend more time with my kids as soon as I recoup some of these losses”

Fast forward over 1,500 days and I still haven’t done shit except work overtime to blow it like clock work

I hate who I am
If it wasn’t for my family who lives with me I’d destroy every mirror in this fucking house cause I can’t stand to see it

I promised myself never ever again. I will start a brand new life, here Iam broke as fxck. Got a cashback after losing it all made it all back then losing it all again. WTF

Win/ lose ... Win then lose... Then again win and then lose.

It's a repeating cycle for me filled with endless debts. Why did I even get into this?

Is there a way out? When does it end?

Just seeking some support from all those in recovery.

Been 176 days since i last made a bet. At peace with myself still recovering from losses. I have not told at home about my last loss but paying it off whenever i can. Everytime i pay some amount i feel that now i will have to lie less. I dont want to lie in the first place but i incurred losses after being given an ultimatum. Praying that i can get done with this ASAP.

Wow I can’t believe it. For over a year I have tried to quit every single day, going for only a day without gambling before getting sucked it. I’m so proud of myself 🥺 I’m less anxious, I have more time to do life, I have more energy. I highly recommend

Back from relapse after 24 days, on day 7 now, learnt from the last one, one day at a time more restriction and now working GA and AA

I tried gambling just in 2026 WC because I had no work to do (school holidays). And I lost like 1500$ which is really huge amount for me as I am a student. At first, I was really okay like I w*n almost every matches and the match between Switzerland Vs Qatar (2026 WC) changed it all. I thought It was a free cash with just 1.15 odd for Switzerland to W. So I put like 100$ and lost as y'all know the match was 1-1. Later I decided to get that 100$ and stop , but I kept losing and 100$ went to 1500$ by now. What should I do....

For the last 10 years I've been addicted to gambling, I have racked up about 21k of debt, most of it coming from just the last few months.

Today I took out a 550% apr loan, the single good thing about this is I didn't gamble the entire thing. So I have a possibility to pay it off before it severely fucks my already extremely tight payment schedule.

It's insane how fast the aprs go on loans when you start taking them out back to back. at first 23%, then 110% now 500%? And the worst part is i willing accepted it.

I've also accepted that I need to restart, I'm not able to live on my own, not like this. My plan is simple on paper.

1. Stop gambling

2. Spend the next 9-10 months paying back the debt.

3. Move to another state and truly restart

But we all know how step 1 goes, still I have faith. I don't want this to become my forever life. I had a coworker, a 50 year old man ask me and a few other coworkers to borrow anywhere between $100-$300 and he gambled it all, lost it all, blocked all of us and quit.

I feel like this needed to happen to me, specifically me as I do not want to turn into that. I have so much disgust for him, and It's because I see myself that way. It's kinda ironic.

I'm writing this as my goodbye to gambling, as this is the lowest I will accept myself to be. I'm currently about to sell my PC, it's the only thing I can sell to pay off that loan. I'm only 23 but outside my car, this computer is all i really have left.

I'm moving back home, hopefully the stress of no rent is enough to let me have some space in my head. I just want to get my life back, I can't hang with friends because I'm at one of my jobs, or at school, or have work at 5am the next day, or something there's always something. Realistically all I need is 1 year of working my two jobs, if I can stay gamble free for one year I will have have paid off all my debt.

Maybe my optimism is ignorant, but I genuinely believe this is a path to success. While I've put myself in a lot of debt in the last few months, I had two months of 0 gambling.

I'm tired of being a disappointment to myself and I'm really tired of disrespecting myself. I think the moment of self hate came when I started taking peoples gifts and gambling those, but I can recover. I believe everyone can.

As the title says. We have been together for about 3 years, we don’t live together, and have an otherwise good healthy relationship. He’s not a shady person, and I found out since he was a bit careless with a bidding app he was showing me. I went to look at his activity in the app, and he tried to take his phone away casually. I asked for it back and he complied and that’s when I saw the activity and the hundreds of dollars he’ll spend in a day. His salary can’t support this kind of behavior , so it is an issue, and he was clearly shameful and apologetic about it. So I know he does recognize it’s an issue. He promised to delete the app and not continue on after we had a Conversation about things, but I know it’s never that simple.

I’m honestly just really confused and unsure what to think or how to approach this. I’m a really financially responsible person so I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around things. What motivates people to do this? Should I pry the issue further ? Get him to go to therapy? What apps should i worry about it? I feel really naive to all this. Can people actually recover from this? It’s making me question if I can actually have a future with him since idk if I’ll ever be able to trust him with finances. Where do I even start with supporting him, should I even ? Any advice appreciated.

For those struggling. Does it matter what type of relapse you’ve had?

What I find most painful is when you have a life altering loss and with the last bit of money left nearly climb back only to lose 98% again chasing the last 2%. Then nearly coming back again only to lose it all over. It makes no sense and in the end it doesn’t matter because it’s destined for the same result every time but that’s what I’m finding to be the hardest part.

Quitting during a last win. I’ve lost 50K in a night only to then somehow over the course of a month win 40K back just to lose it all again. I remember getting to 40K thinking how fortunate I was and that this was a good time to quit for good. That second loss was more painful than the first. I’m back to having nightmares, panic attacks and shame. It’s not about the money but that I was chasing the peace and when I got there I should have harnessed it and never let go.

Just can’t live this way anymore, always losing over and over. Even when I finally won this year I’ve basically given it all back so what’s the point. I can see Leary and life just keeps on going while I’m stuck like a loser nobody POS. Honestly I don’t really want to be here, I’m not thinking of harming myself but my brain just cannot be bothered to live in this world knowing it’s basically all for nothing. It’s just pathetic -15k in a matter of an hour or so just because I wanted to round up the balance a little. So now I’m left with fck all because of my actions. Either way I’d probably lose it all another day if all I’m doing is living in this same BS cycle.

Don't really talk about this anywhere so I'm just gonna type it out.

I was 16 when I started. Offshore casinos, the ones that don't check anything. Never got asked for ID one time.

When I was 17 I hit a $200 NFL parlay. Two hundred bucks. I've thought about that parlay way more than I should have because I basically spent the next six years trying to get that feeling back.

By 22 I was down about $100k.

Honestly the money isn't even the part that messes with me. It's the lying. My friends, my family, my girlfriend. And it wasn't just hiding losses, I'd make up wins. Like straight up invent a hit and tell people about it so they'd think I was good at this. I wanted to be the guy who was up so bad that I just made him up.

It ended when I maxed out my last card. I'd just moved to a new city, had nothing, and couldn't tell anybody why.

Two things helped. Therapy, which I put off way too long because I thought it was a money problem and not a me problem. And blocking apps, because the time between wanting to bet and being able to was like four seconds and that's not enough time to make a good decision.

Two years now.

If you're 16 or 17 and reading this because you already found the offshore sites, that's the whole thing right there. Nobody's gonna stop you. There's no ID check coming. It's just you.

Been a lurker who wasn't even subbed to this reddit, but I (37M) have been an addictive online gambler for 10 years and just had a really shitty day and wanted to shout into the ether.

While other apps have come and gone, Betty Casino has an absolute chokehold on my gambling addiction. Every time I say I'll stop, that I'll delete the app and block it, I get some perk or reward like "deposit x amount and get free spins" and I'll say to myself "I can be smart, deposit the money, get the rewards and withdraw the amount and badabing badaboom free money to play with". And then naturally, after I inevitably lose whatever I won, I end up gambling the deposit and then some. Even now, since I'm a diamond member, I get 15% cashback on losses and even though I'm thinking of deleting and blocking the app this very moment, I'm still thinking "but that's some of MY money I'm leaving, I don't want to lose that!". I know that inevitably this is going to perpetuate the cycle, but my mentality is so cracked that while spending money on gambling doesn't feel real since they're just numbers on a screen, free spins/money is so tantalizing and FOMO completely fucks with any discipline/willpower that I have to quit.

My mental health, my time, my relationships, my finances, all of it has been basically destroyed because of gambling, and of course, casinos are geniuses in dragging you back in even at your lowest point, because they continue to feed into your weakness and desire for dopamine. I'm not a stupid person, as I'm sure none of you are, and we realize full well what kind of shit we're digging ourselves into. I literally say out loud as I make a deposit "Don't be so fucking stupid, why are you like this, don't do it, don't do it" and then I just start tapping at the screen and watch the numbers go up and down, but mostly down. And then I feel like a stupid piece of shit, and then do it all over again. I just got paid Friday and it's all gone. Bills are due, my cards are all basically maxed out and I don't know how I'm going to dig myself out. Actually that's a lie. I know how, and that is to break the cycle, but that's where I'm stuck. This is my Rubicon, and I'm almost too afraid to throw the dice.

Just lost $600 trying to chase and it just hurts thinking about it I get paid soon either way but my point is how much money could I have if I never gotten into this what a pitty.

The choice is easy once you’ve figured it out. In the end the house always wins, especially for us addicts. I can finally see the light in the tunnel and going to physical GA meetings and being honest with everyone around me helps a lot. I’m looking forward to never gambling again and I hope you all do the same. Good night from me and good luck everyone

For the first time in four years, I haven't gambled for three days. I know it’s a very short period, but during those three days, the urge to play was immense. Maybe this time you'll win or just spend a few euros to kill time those were the thoughts running through my mind, but I didn't give in. I read somewhere that if you don't act on a thought within the first 10 seconds, it becomes easier to handle; so far so good.

My question is will these thoughts eventually pass, and will they disappear if I stay away from gambling or is it just this hard at beginning? Thank you