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Dear Katie,
My boyfriend has a gambling problem and recently lost his entire monthly salary on payday. We had an argument and afterwards he went online at William Hill and spun away everything he had in his bank account.
Now he owes me and other members of his family significant sums of money because he’s lost all of his, and cannot pay for bills or food. I myself am disabled and claiming disability benefits, so I really need him to repay me. Obviously the cost ofliving crisis isn’t helping the situation either, with everything going up in price.
My boyfriend used to work at the betting shop William Hill, which is where he developed his gambling problem. As an employee at William Hill it is part of your job to regularly play the “crack machines” in order to familiarise yourself with the games and also improve your product knowledge. This is how he first became transfixed by these disgusting games which he now plays on the “casino in his pocket”, sitting there spinning away his money and prospects. It is just so depressing.
I also used to work at William Hill and am familiar with the mechanisms which have been cleverly adapted to keep people playing. “Near misses” on games are now optimised with industrial precision to encourage users to carry on trying. It seems to reinforce their gambling habits because the near misses stimulate the same part of the brain which is responsible for the reward system. I believe this is why my boyfriend became so hopelessly addicted.
It breaks my heart that this money is now in the clutches of William Hill. We emailed them explaining that we now have nothing to live on but my disability benefit and the “safer gambling” team said that the correct department would be in touch to discuss the potentiality of returning the money. But they have only been in touch to tell him his account is blocked, with no mention of the lost funds. I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall here, please help.
– Anon
Dear reader,
This is by no means the first time your boyfriend has gambled recklessly like this with William Hill, and you say he’s had his account restricted twice before. However, for some reason the betting shop has not been able to explain, he started receiving promotional material again, leading to him gambling away £650 in one sitting. This was his entire salary for the month.
It appears that your boyfriend is trapped in a vicious and self-destructive cycle of gambling. You have arguments – as most couples do sometimes – but then, unlike most people, this leads to him gambling. You say that following these episodes he sometimes even threatens to kill himself, which must be very distressing for both of you.
You were recently diagnosed as autistic and as a result you are now receiving disability benefits. However as a result of your boyfriends’ behaviour you find yourself bailing him out, leaving you struggling to afford the basics. You say it breaks your heart that this money has ended up in the clutches of William Hill and I’m sure I speak on behalf of most taxpayers in this country when I say the final destination of your money here was a complete and utter travesty. The support you receive should be spent on you only. Obviously I recognise this is an easy thing for me to sit here and say from a distance and with no emotional connection to the situation. But you feel you have no other choice and I also sympathise with this.
When I asked William Hill to investigate it said his account was blocked from any further deposits within 12 hours, and within 24 hours the account was handled by its safer gambling team in line with its standard procedure. As your boyfriend experienced no overall loss on his account (and was actually in profit so must have previously won more than £650 over the lifetime of the account), William Hill was not prepared to refund a penny.
I know this might be hard to hear, but I think your boyfriend needs to learn he can’t have his cake and eat it. While I’d fight tooth and nail against William Hill profiting from his gambling addiction which he feels it helped foster, he can’t expect his losses returned on bad days while pocketing the winnings on good days. That is simply not how life works.
That said, I felt your boyfriend did deserve some help, so I proposed an alternative resolution to William Hill: I said I’d like to see it put the money your boyfriend lost on this occasion towards some therapy to help him beat his gambling addiction for good. But I’m afraid William Hill refused and instead started crowing about its generous donations to gambling addiction support charities. It added that while employees were “asked” to test gambling machines for “technical functionality” and were advised to familiarise themselves with gaming products it was “not a requirement”. Now your boyfriend’s account has been permanently closed and the company wants nothing more to do with him.
Every time I delve into the dark world of gambling I am left feeling deeply uncomfortable and your case is no exception. You probably wish you and your boyfriend had never got involved with William Hill in the first place. However, we will never know what might have transpired in an alternate universe where you were both on different paths. Some people have an innate propensity for addiction, so I’m afraid your boyfriend may have found himself in trouble some other way.
I’m sorry I didn’t win you the refund you so desperately wanted, but I hope this process might provide you with a fresh perspective on this situation. I think it’s clear something needs to change. I can tell you’ve been an incredibly loyal support to your boyfriend, but you bailing him out like this is not a sustainable solution to this problem. You’re in touch with a charity called Bet No More, which you say has been very helpful indeed.
But here’s the thing: you wanting to fix this problem will never be enough. He also needs to be as determined as you are to get a handle on it. And until he does nothing will change. I wish you both the very best of luck.