Name Andy Margett
Age 39
Income £21,000
Occupation Warehouse operative
I was 12 the first time I placed a bet, of about 50p on the Grand National, and I gambled a bit as a teenager. After I married Becki, I worked at Toyota and earned over £25,000 a year. It was then I started playing poker online and gambling took over.
I started small, spending about £10 to £20 on a poker hand. Then I raised it to £100. At one point I was playing £600 a hand and it was gone within minutes. I never withdrew the money so it felt like numbers on a screen. I got a credit card and put £3,000 on it in six weeks. I got another, and did the same. In six months I had four credit cards with £3,000 on.
Then I started to get loans. I’d get a loan, pay off my credit card debts, then max them again. I took out two unsecured loans of £15,000, and a secured loan of £15,000 on the house, which I tricked my wife into signing for. I also had an overdraft of about £2,000. Altogether, I owed about £60,000 and hid it from my wife, who was pregnant.
The pressure built and I had panic attacks, put on weight and didn’t sleep. I didn’t care how I looked – my hair was greasy, I was spotty, and I bought cheap clothes. Gambling was all I thought about: I wanted to win the money back. My baby came along and the next day I was gambling. I remember having him on my lap while playing poker online.
I smashed my computer to bits with a hammer to try to stop gambling. I also planned to kill myself – I just didn’t want to exist. One evening I came home from work and Becki had found a bank statement, so I blurted out everything. It felt good to tell her the truth. I was dragged to Gamblers Anonymous kicking and screaming.
The biggest thing you lose is trust and your self-respect. I handed over all my finances to the control of my wife. After that, I was given pocket money and had to keep receipts for everything. It made me so honest. Time is the biggest killer – you’ve got to replace the time you spent gambling with something else. I started to run half marathons and lost about three stone.
I pay my debts with the charity StepChange, and more than 10 years later I’m still paying back about £350 to £400 a month. I’ve got about £6,000 left and hopefully within a few years I’ll be debt free.
We’ve had two more children and I can afford to take them to football and ballet classes and they go on school trips. I’ve also come full circle with my clothes; I’m 39 going on 21. I get my beard trimmed and shaped at the barber as a treat. I’m a bargain hunter, so I buy on eBay – you should see how many secondhand paisley shirts I’ve got. I never pay full price.
This year I managed to take my wife on holiday for the first time without any help. We went to New York for five days for £1,600. Booking that was a massive achievement. Everything I ever wanted through gambling, I’ve got now – but what I aspire to the most is to be normal.
I still have gambling dreams, but I haven’t placed a bet in 12 years. I decided to out myself on social media a few years ago and, since then, I’ve had about 600 messages from people in trouble, most of them lads under 21.
I hit rock bottom myself, so I understand. There needs to be education in schools about problem gambling. If I help just one person by sharing my story then it’s worth it.
• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
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