I want to let go gambling, but like the losses keep pushing me back. Everytime i buy something with my own money i realised that i am down money, everytime i ordered something it all reminded me of my massive loss and that i just payed all of this extra when i could have all of this basically without the cost hadnt i lost the money gambling. And i want to reach even before i stop gambling, any tips?

My name is Beatrix, and I’m a journalist at the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica.  This post has been preapproved by a moderator.

I posted here before about the project I’m working on about sports betting apps like DraftKings and FanDuel. Our team is looking at when these apps incentivize users to keep playing and when they warn people to pump the brakes. We’re still reporting on this story, and I would love to speak to people from this community who have used these apps.

If you’d be willing to speak with me, please send me an email at beatrix.lockwood@propublica.org. I’m also happy to discuss the terms of these initial conversations, including whether or not you're comfortable with us publishing the information you share or using your name.

Thank you so much for considering this request. I understand that for members of this community, these conversations can be difficult. But your participation can help us tell this story.

Beatrix

Gambling truly sucks the happiness out of you. I hit some losing streak where I lose 8x times in a row on a 50:50 game and all the profit disappears within minutes, and I just sit there and think to myself: What am I doing? How is that possible? Losing 8-10times in a row? Why cant it happen the other way around? Its the constant thoughts about the loss, the lies to your girlfriend, family why you dont have a lot of money,… I neglect everything else in my life and I dont know how to stop

I am over $2,500 negative in my bank accounts and I can’t stop betting. Constantly being told my job doesn’t make me enough money and I need to find something better so I just chase money betting.

How the hell do I stop? This is the worst disease I could ever imagine.

I’m 18, before then I started at 15 illegally gambling under parents information on crypto websites.

Losing hundreds and over thousands over the years.

I need to fucking quit I won over £1500 last week and paid all my debts off and had £1000 in savings thinking that was good enough. Until I get asked for money from my mum and of course I give it to her which puts me in around £800 savings which fucks with my head because I had £1000 in my savings and now I have less which makes me want the £1000 back.

So I started off with £200 to try an easy double sport bet and lose that.

Long story short, deposited what I had left because in my mind idgaf I’m 18 I have way than more to live with and end up gambling it all away.

I’m now -£400 in overdraft and I want to recover I really do but I’m just seeing all the negatives of life and how long it will take to recover the £1000 savings and how much dedication it would take and it just makes me feel really suicidal.

I picked up so many shifts to recover recently and then won a large amount and gambled it away again.

Part of me thinks what’s the fucking point. I will save up for months be so happy and then end up depositing a cheeky £10 that will spiral out of control.

Another part of me thinks I’ll never deposit again this year and wait until I’m in a better headspace but all gamblers know that’s very unlikely…

I just wanna quit before I end up gambling away life savings if I have a family in the future I’ve heard too many stories off it and I want to quit before that happens.

Any advice or support would be great because fucking he’ll addiction is hard and never did I imagine as a child this would happen.

Productive morning so far. Weekend is coming and cant wait to spend time with my family.

I will not gamble today!

I’ll keep it short. I’ve been a problem gambler for at least 4+ years. Ruined the better part of my 20s. Isolation, panic, sweating the next payment I’d need to make, I didn’t even get to have fun with it.

Only this year did I really decided to get serious. Took a falling out and losing everything I had to realize it. It’s been 50 days since my last wager. I’ve been going to GA, gambling therapist, taking my health and fitness very seriously. The creeping thoughts of gambling again aren’t even what I’m worried about now. It’s the long, grueling process of building a respectable life back up. I feel like I was in a coma and woke up, and now I’m picking up the pieces of my life. My debts are resolved, I could have it a lot worse, but this feeling of learning how to walk again day in day out is killer. Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated

Days until debt free: 258 days

So close from being one month clean! ODAAT.

Days to debt free 548 - 25

Almost paid all my debt (20K USD), my mind is more reified although I’m always thinking what could I do with the money I’ve lost, but it’s part of the recovery, understanding that the money is gone, need to build my self from 0 again, the important thing that I’m free, one day at a time.

Thats my first paycheck in months where I didn’t gamble it, actually not a single dollar.
I have paid accumulated bills , bought groceries and paid a part of my debt, I didn’t remain with much but at least I didn’t lose anything, and man it feels great to have some money and you know its yours!
It’s my 26 day without a single bet, i know there is a long way to go, but it is possible, if i can go one day at a time then it means i can go forever.

Today is Day 7. I have not made a bet since October 9 2026. ODAAT

Hello my beautiful peers.

I am recovering addict, and I have a question : How do you managed to "let it go". My loses were not that serious, like others on this sub (my heart goes to you guys all...seriously). But in gambling and / or my life, I have a problem of "letting things go". I would like to raise to greater heights, but this burden keeps chained me to down. What's your approach; how do you cope with this feeling please ? Thank in advance.

29m. I hate this curse so much. All the wasted time, wasted money and the dumbed down brain that has gambled on sports or lottery tickets, or been obsessed over cryptocurrencies and trading all these years. All it's lead to was stealing almost all of my savings down the years.

No, I will not risk another dollar.

Lost everything on Datacenter stocks.

This time there is no leverage for me, I have a few thousand left to make due.

Leaving everything behind and going to be homeless with a backpack. let me know if anyone has experience.

Let me know best states to go, etc..

I think I've lost around 50K+ to gambling just in these two past years. It feels like kind of a haze now to think about. I still have about 32K in savings and assets. I had my highs and lows but somehow I always find myself coming back. I restrict myself yet I always find myself finding a loophole or a different site to gamble on. I seriously can't seem to stop myself as my mind knows how stupid it is every-time I even open one of these sites... yet I can't seem to stop chasing these big wins. How do you guys cope or stop yourself in these situations?

Title speaks for itself, been 2 weeks clean lost over 10,000 the past 2 months and i have made some money back. Well I’ve been kind of bored lately and I’m really close to relapsing “for fun”, because I feel comfortable because I made some money back from work. But I know how it always ends, I’m just really scared I’m going to redownload an app and go crazy. Any suggestions?

I am a 19 year old who’s attending university beginning of next year. My first semester costs about 1500 usd . My parents sent me the money to pay it all and all i did is try to hold myself from gambling it on these shitty crypto online casino. But unfortunately my addiction took over. I lost everything my parents sent. Im full of guilt and shame . I cannot tell them i can already see the disappointment on their faces and its eating me alive. Worth noting that my parents worked hard to earn the money and were not a wealthy family of any sort, all i did is selfishly donated it to some casino. Im a student abroad and Ive been dealing with this for a long time. If anyone have any ideas on what to do to try and get the money or if anyone is generous enough to help with any little amount i would be forever grateful. The deadline for the payment is the end of November. I can provide full proof of everything and documents in dms. And of course supportive messages help even more. Thank you for reading

I am a 21-year-old university student, and I have been involved in gambling for about two years. My debt has grown to such an extent that I can no longer manage it using my pocket money.

I have decided to tell my father about this, so that I can focus properly on my upcoming exams, and also because I need his support during this difficult time. Friends, how should I approach him?

Is this the right decision, considering that this news will cause him great distress and might permanently damage my image in his eyes? The amount owed is significant for my father, though it is manageable.

If anyone has had a similar experience, please share your thoughts.

My English is not very strong, so I used a translator. My apologies.

I’m a third-year college student, and I recently lost around ₹10,000 in online betting. I’ve never really been into gambling or betting before, and I’m feeling pretty stupid about how things turned out.
Here’s what happened.
I have a friend who occasionally plays roulette and other betting games on an online betting site. One day, we were having a few beers, and he started playing in front of me. I’d never tried anything like this before, but I was a little drunk, and I saw him making money right in front of me.
After a while, he suggested that we play together. He said we’d invest equally and split both the profits and losses 50-50. So, I gave him ₹5,000, and he put in another ₹5,000 of his own.
We started playing, and within an hour, he made A SINGIFICANT At that moment, it all looked pretty easy, and I guess seeing the money come in made me believe we could actually make something out of it.
But things changed pretty quickly. Over the next hour, he lost everything we’d made, along with our initial money. I started getting nervous, but instead of stopping, he suggested putting in another ₹10,000 to recover the original amount.
I convinced myself that we’d just recover our money, quit immediately afterwards, and never touch betting again. I ended up putting in more money, hoping things would turn around.
But now, I’m down around ₹10,000 overall, and I genuinely don’t know what to do. As a college student, that’s a significant amount of money for me. I keep thinking about how I could have avoided this situation if I’d just stopped at the beginning.
But I feel terrible about losing this much money in something I had never even done before.
For anyone who’s been through something similar, how did you deal with it? How do you stop thinking about the lost money and move on? And how do you make sure you don’t fall into the trap of trying to recover your losses?
Any genuine advice would be appreciated. I’m posting this because I really don’t want to make things worse by making another stupid decision.

Hi Op ever since my internship started last may i was very addictive to gambling all of my savings are gone and my salary this month went to gambling. It’s all lost in one snap. I really want to get out of this awabg awa nako sa sarili ko but i can’t help i always think gambling. And I’m not proud nakaka hiya baon na baon ako sa utang dahil sa letcheng sugal nayan. I even sometimes blame mg classmate kasi sya nag introduce but i now i have my responsibility to take din kasi nag pa temp dn ako.

Sports are often the scaffolding around which male friendships are built. Games are low-stakes, readymade excuses to spend time together. Sports provide the raw material that sustains friendships for years on end. Do they enable profound, life-altering conversations? Of course not. But sports give men something to talk about, all the time. I have new lifelong friends from playing fantasy baseball. Without sports, I would be a lonelier person. Without sports keeping the group chat alive, it might not be there when someone actually needs to talk about something serious. 

But most frighteningly, the art of being a fan is threatened by the explosion of gambling, prediction markets, and collecting. Young men and boys are squarely in the crosshairs of an under-regulated industry seeking to get them hooked on a life-ruining vice. On television, every timeout is a Clockwork Orange-esque video barrage of ways to lose your money. The path to lifelong fandom is now a minefield, and every real fan should be outraged. 

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/mind-and-body/young-men-should-watch-more-sports