Posted 18 February 2009 - 03:55 PM
What's the most I ever lost? I one go, I have no idea. Probably about £1000. Over my playing
career, easily £100,000 if not more. OK, £1000 may not hit the record, but this was in the £15
jackpot era at 25p a play. I'm really glad there were no s16 machines at the time.
As there is at least one person on here who has a similar (worse??) case than I had, I thought it
might be beneficial to share my experience and how I gave up. For me, it was all down to finding
the correct motivation to quit, though I am still surprised at what happened.
During my playing days, I had a decent job in IT with really good pay. I could actually afford to
live well and indulge machines at the same time. I had respect of my colleagues, and was on the
way up.
Then, one day I was in an arcade in Newbury. I'd been in 100s of times before, and must have lost
£1000s there. At the time, the "attendants" were 2 old biddies who took (no joke) 10 minutes to
change £5. As the change machine was out of order, and note selectors were yet to be invented the
regular players used to change up notes with each other so save time.
One day, I'd actually managed to accumulate a load of coins, and was happily changing up a few
notes with people whilst waiting for the decent machines to come available. As I walked past the
desk, biddie 1 somewhat loudly remarked to biddie 2 (and the person getting change), something
along the lines of "I don't know why he (the owner) lets that bloke hang around in here. All he
does is change coins up". Red rag to a bull that. Not only was I doing them, and the arcade a
favour by doing this, the damn cheek of it after all the cash I'd punted there. Not only that,
but who the hell are these 2 sad old women to look down their noses at me??
And then it hit me, this is how people see me. Some saddo doley with nothing going for them that
hangs around arcades.
Anyway, I told them where they could shove their arcade and their crappy machines and left.
And that was that. I didn't put £1 in a machine for almost 8 years after that. What I did do,
was:
Get promoted
Start my own company
Get married
Have kids
Buy a couple of houses
All because I suddenly realised the contempt operators (I know not all, but the ones I dealt with
at the time) had for me and other players.
Do I regret the £100,000+ loss. Yeah. But I find it best not to dwell on money lost. The bigger
regret was the TIME I lost pumping cash into these things. It wasn't so much the extra money
that improved my life, but the time I could devote to better pursuits.
Anyhoo, to finish this rambling post off - I was waiting for a mate in a pub last week and I
thought "why not" and banged a few £ in the machine. 15 mins later, I was down £60! Once an
addict, always and addict? Yeah, for me anyway.
So, I guess my point is (yeah, there is a point to this post) don't worry about having lost £1000
per week. I did similar and it is all working out well for me now. Just find your motivation and
give it up. I wish you all the luck in doing so. But also, don't think that you are "cured" after
not playing for a while.
Years later, I'm still addicted even if I don't play...
Feck off, if your gunna lie about winning that much in a short period of time at least say a machine that might actually have the ability to pay that much aha =P
does life get any erm, better 
