Warming Up

Saturday 15th February 2003

I had stopped playing on the internet casino because I had had a lucky streak, and then lost a couple of hundred pounds (still ending up over £600 up overall).
Today Ladbrokes tempted me back by sending me the software, that I had cleverly uninstalled, on a CD. I decided to give it another go.
Now I’d like to be able to use this entry as a cautionary tale, letting you see why gambling is bad and why you should never go back. But unfortunately I kept winning. I became a bit obsessed with it. I played on 9 occasions. Here’s a run down.
On my first go I took out £100, played for ten minutes and won £360 (a profit of £260), thought, “that’s not bad for a day’s work!” and banked the cash back on to my credit card.
About half an hour later I thought, “Well you’ve won £260, so you can afford to lose another £100.” So I gambled £100 and this time won £190 (£90 profit - £350 overall. I was keeping a tally to ensure I didn’t do anything mental.)
Within the hour I was on again. I gambled £100 and won £265 (now up to £515 profit). Something had to go wrong.
But the next two goes were even better and I made another £575. I was over a thousand pounds up.
I should of course have left it there, but if I’d done that when I originally said I would I’d be £800 worse off.
I played 3 more times and lost £290 pounds. I was still £800 up. But decided that enough was enough. My lucky streak was over and I uninstalled the software again.
So I’m around about £1500 up on Ladbrokes so far this year, which isn’t too shabby. Beats working for a living. Certainly beats working in Leicester for a living!
But I have just been lucky. I don’t want you all joining in with this one. This isn’t like CNPS (nor is it as spiritually rewarding).
You can see from just this one day’s gambling how addictive it is. If I had had a bad day I would be £900 down (though I probably wouldn’t have played on if I hadn’t done so well). I feel I should maybe re-install the software and have a really bad day, so I can live you with a healthy moral to this story. But knowing my luck I’d win another £1000.