Parents pay nearly $100,000 to clear gambling debts
His losses:
1999: $20,000
2003: $30,000
2005: $20,000
This year: $20,000
By Genevieve Jiang
29 November 2007
AT 14, he bet that Argentina would beat Germany in the 1990 World Cup soccer final.
Argentina lost the game. He lost $50.
That was how it started. But what he thought was a harmless flutter among friends turned out to be an uncontrollable addiction that was to last 17 years.
John (not his real name), a 31-year-old systems analyst, has lost close to $100,000 in soccer betting.
Four times, his parents bailed him out and more than once, they made him give up his credit cards.
But he ended up gambling again.
Finally, John's family forced him to go for counselling in March this year.
Counsellors say John is typical of problem gamblers here - a Chinese male in his 20s or 30s who has been gambling for more than 10 years.
When he was in school, he used to get a monthly allowance of $100.
He would bet on soccer games with friends at least once a week, $10 each time.
He kept his betting habits from his parents.
'I would eat less during recess and lunch time so I could save the money for betting,' he said.
'I would lose most of the time, but the occasional wins kept me going.'
When he started work as a part-time sales assistant at 17, the gambling got worse.
The stakes went up to $50.
At 21, he got his first credit card and discovered the world of credit lines and overdraft facilities.
And he started betting through illegal bookies, at least $100 per game every other day.
Said John, who was then earning less than $2,000 a month: 'I applied for at least 10 credit cards and applied for bank overdraft facilities on a few of them.
'I would pay the minimum and let the debts roll over. I kept thinking that I would be able to win big one day and recover all that I've lost.'
Within two years, he owed the credit card companies more than $20,000.
He could no longer hide his addiction from his family members when the credit card companies started calling.
His parents, who own a gift shop and earn about $4,000 a month, were livid.
CANCELLED CREDIT CARDS
Said John: 'They gave me an earful, but at the end, they forked out $20,000 of their savings to pay my debts.'
They also forced John to cancel his credit card subscriptions.
John did not want us to reveal his identity or talk to his family members, because it would be 'too embarrassing for them'.
Senior counsellor Charles Lee, from the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Problem Gambling Counselling Service, confirmed his story.
A few months after his parents cleared his debts, John returned to his old ways.
'It was hard to stay away. The temptation was just too much to resist,' he said.
'My friends introduced me to online betting and even when I was at work, I would be distracted and thinking of which matches to bet on.'
He applied for new credit cards, and began betting through illegal bookies, online and through Singapore Pools, putting down up to $2,000 each time.
When he was 27, he had accumulated another $30,000 in credit card debts.
John's parents again paid his debts, cancelled his credit card subscriptions and even denied him access to the computer at home so that he couldn't bet online.
But John still couldn't control his addiction and bet through bookies.
'I felt stressed and had trouble sleeping. I would be thinking of which games I wanted to bet on and whether I could win,' he said.
'At work, I couldn't concentrate and had the gambling website on my screen all the time.'
By the time he was 29, he was another $20,000 in debt.
His parents bailed him out yet again.
Then this year, just before Chinese New Year, John lost more than $20,000 in just two weeks.
It was the last straw.
His parents advised him to seek professional help at the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Problem Gambling Counselling Service.
Since March this year, he has been attending counselling twice a month, and has since learnt to set limits, as well as to rely on family support to curb his addiction.
Said John: 'I have not bet on a single game since March.
'There is something seductive about gambling that can draw you into a abyss.
'If you don't have the will power or self-control to stop, then don't start at all.'
Centres to help gambling addicts
AT the Care Corner Counselling Centre, 83 gamblers have been counselled since last October.
Said senior counsellor Jonathan Siew: 'People cannot extricate themselves from gambling because they hope to recoup their losses.
'They think there will eventually be a big win, that it will solve all their problems. Some even hope to use gambling as a means to prove themselves so that others will not look down on them.'
Care Corner is one of two centres providing lifelines to problem gamblers since early last year.
The Government set up the National Council on Problem Gambling in 2005 to tackle social problems linked to gambling.
This has become important ahead of the 2010 opening of the two mega integrated resorts here, which will include casinos.
At the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Problem Gambling Counselling Service, some 605 gambling-related calls were received between January last year and March this year.
Of these, 398 were followed up with counselling, said senior counsellor Charles Lee.
Genevieve Jiang
HELPLINES:
The National Council on Problem Gambling's website, www.ncpg.org.sg
The Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society's problem-gambling hotline 1800-X-GAMBLE or 1800-9426253.
Care Corner Counselling Centre problem-gambling hotline: 1800-6668668
IMH's Community Addictions Management Programme (Camp): 63892387/63892389
Copyright, 2007, Singapore Press Holdings Limited
