gambling

It was not long after my eighteenth birthday that I began to work in a bar. I was fascinated with the idea of working behind the bar, mixing cocktails, learning about various spirits and libations. And it felt kinda cool.

Following some bar work in a cinema (where I attained my RSA literally the first week of my birthday), I began to work in a local restaurant. I felt cool. In between shifts, the chefs and waiters would spend their time at the nearby pub. We’d all have a bunch of drinks in the local before going back to work the dinner shift. This became the norm. Yet, it was only within a few weeks I started to see that everyone liked to throw some money into the pokies.

The “pokies” were an addiction waiting to happen…

The Chefs and kitchenhands would throw money into the pokies for fun. I wanted to be part of the group.. the first time I watched, several people were drawing out $20 here, $40 there, the odd $75. It was money. It was cash some of us didn’t have. Money that was more than the $14 we were earning per hour in our employment.

The whole concept of putting a $5 note into a poker machine like this felt alien. I couldn’t imagine the idea of spending money I’d earned in a machine like this which would or wouldn’t give it back. The pursuit of winnings didn’t seem that intelligent. It didn’t make sense.

But we’d drink. We’d have 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 4 schooners in the 1.5 hours of our break. The alcohol growing as I became accustomed. Witnessing the poker machines became normal. $5 here. $20 there. It was fun. It was a gamble.

I’d lose $10, and make $16. I’d lose another $10, and make $12. I’d waste that on beer. What a break, I was paying for the beers I was going to drink anyway with the money I won from poker machines. This was a revelation I found enticing. How come more people weren’t involved in this?! You simply won money!

Push on 6 months. I remember the first time I gravitated from using a $20 note to the soft yellow of the $50 note. It was a leap of faith I wasn’t entirely happy with. But there was a rush… the first time I truly understood the rush, the chase, the dopamine chase of the gamble. This was money I’d spent several hours working to earn. I only earned a handful of these per week. This was big money. Believe it or not, I won. Though I was only gambling 40c per button press, the press/release – win/dopamine effect was well and truly engraved. I was able to pull out approx $80. I had turned $50 into $80 and I felt like a god.

Gambling on poker machines slowly became a part of my life.

When I say gambling, I do not mean in the general sense of the word. I mean poker machines. As I look back, I can say that I was not addicted to the art of the gamble. Not the horses, the baseball, the football or any other sport. I simply craved the quick release of the poker machine. Even after several years and I learnt the true likelihood of winning, the true odds, the reality of these vile machines. I was again and again, back at them. Over long term use, I discovered if you lost, you could keep playing and gradually increase the potential of winning money back. Or winning close to – or more – than what you initially lost. It was a reason to keep playing.

I would be out with friends at a pub, and at some point I’d excuse myself and go to a poker machine. Sometimes spending long enough that they’d need to come and find me. Sometimes I’d lose all my available money.

The reward psychology of a poker machine isn’t even gambling. It is a dopamine release in the frame of a feature.. “win!”

Sometimes after being paid my salary I’d consider my available money and spend it all gambling. I’d spend the rest of the week on the down-low because I had no other money to do anything. During this time, I’d play video games. Little did I know, this was also a contributing factor in my continuing addiction to poker machines.

It took me 6 years to realize that this kind of gambling wasn’t sustainable. Even if I won several hundred bucks or more, I was back gambling it. There was no chasing the win, the win didn’t even matter. I was totally addicted to the quick release of the poker machines, the chase of a ‘feature’ and the psychological rush of throwing more and more money into the machine. Winning money didn’t satisfy it. NOTHING satisfied it.

A win was a chance to win more.

About 6.5 years after I first started, I would get paid, then within a day or two, whilst drinking at a local pub with friends, or the following day attending a pub solely to gamble, I would spend all my money. I would then need to wait another week to go again.

One day, I won $800. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was the most I had ever attained. The next day, I began to gamble with it. After all, $800 could be so much more?! This is the trap. That all money can be more. It can’t. It won’t. I lost the $800. It forced me to learn that I wasn’t trying to win money. I was simply playing a game that I was addicted to.

One day, $2500. Two days later, square one.

I convinced myself if I was to have a future, this had to stop. There was simply no future for me if I continued to go near these machines. It was all or nothing.

It was a very difficult decision, but one I was already onboard with.

Despite countless relapses, some lasting a year at a time, over a course of a further 10 years, I have defeated my addiction to poker machines. There is no desire to gamble. But if I go into a poker machine room in pub, the inclination is there. But I choose to shut down this appetite. It is a disaster to chase.

Even if I choose to play one, I’m not governed by them. I’m not guaranteed to throw in more based on previous decisions. There’s no predisposition to chase a loss. To gamble more. To press the button and wait for the feature. I have a choice. The choice is to remember reality. And that to walk away I win.