The east side gamblers the big machine download#
The east side gamblers the big machine free#

“There was never spare money for holidays because, in my eyes, that would be wasted money - anything not spent on gambling was a waste.”īen took out credit cards, loans, and overdrafts - and would transfer money between accounts frequently to try to balance the books.īetween the ages of 25 and 30, Ben would spend thousands a month on gambling. “Important bills would be paid, but every other penny was my gambling money - I became obsessed.

“I needed money and needed to be in control of it. “One of the hardest things of a gambling addiction is that it’s very hidden,” Ben explains. He never let on that they were in financial difficulty, and if Kelly wanted a new dress, for example, he’d borrow from elsewhere so she didn’t suspect anything. Nursery worker Kelly knew he’d always liked to bet, he says, but she never caught on to the severity of his addiction.īen would handle all of their finances as an insurance policy to keep Kelly from ever finding out how much he was splurging. They bought their first home together when he was 20 and welcomed their first child together, Ollie - now 12 - when Ben was 23. I was pressing a button constantly on my phone so I couldn’t do that in the vicinity of people I knew - I couldn't allow that to happen.”īen has been with his wife Kelly, 34, since he was 19.

The east side gamblers the big machine free#

“I only wanted to spend my time online gambling and needed to make free time to play. “When I was introduced to phone gaming, it just became so easy with card details. “My gambling was always an addiction, when I look back I can see I've always been attracted to not the win or loss, but taking part in some sort of gamble. “That’s when it started to become a problem,” Ben, a father-of-two and process operator for the petrochemical industry, says. The casino was brought to his home, and he could even play on the go out and about.Īs a football fanatic, he began betting on leagues all around the world at different times of the day - some teams he hadn't even heard of before.

The east side gamblers the big machine download#

The enjoyment of gambling soon turned sour by his mid-twenties following the introduction of online games and apps that he could download on his phone in seconds. “Any money I earnt would enable me to gamble on those machines.” “I thought it was normal - no one said to be careful about losing my money and you couldn’t put enough in them to lose. “The other games didn’t give me the same amount of buzz or thrill as these fruit machines. “Even though signs said you had to be over 18, it wasn’t controlled,” Ben tells The Mirror.

Having worked all his life, from the age of 14 he poured his pocket money from pot washing at his local pub into the machines, and if his parents questioned it, he said he’d spent his pennies on bowling and sweets.

While he didn’t realise it at the time, Ben, 35, believes his addiction began twenty years ago.Īs a teen, he would spend weekends with his friends at a popular entertainment complex in his hometown of Great Sutton, Ellesmere Port, in the North West.Īlthough typical arcade games were housed there, such as racing and shooting games, Ben was instead drawn to the fruit slot machines for 10p a play. “It was a never-ending cycle of having to do it more and more while the addiction took over.” And the more I lost, the more I had to try and recover the costs. It doesn't matter if I won or lost, I’d be straight back on it. “People I was with would say ‘what’s that?’ and I would just make something up. “‘Will it come? Will it come?’ - it’s the excitement of looking at it going off again. “Seeing the flash on my phone would give me a buzz, not watching the game or watching a roulette wheel, but just at remembering what bet you’ve put on,” Ben recalls - looking back at the height of his addiction betting on football matches via mobile phone apps - amid his petition calling to remove gambling advertisement from his club Everton FC. The pop-ups fuelled a habit that started at the age of 14 with fruit machines at his local leisure complex, and went on to see him spiral into more than £50,000 of debt and lie to his wife and family. Instead of giving his complete focus to a football game, he would be clutching his phone in his hand, secretly stalking the screen for the next notification on his latest bet. It wasn’t so much about the winning for former gambling addict Ben Melvin, it was the thrill of taking part.