Gambling addiction cost me £100,000... the industry needs to change

A GAMBLING addict is campaigning to change industry rules after losing an estimated £100,000 over the last 14 years.

- Sam VOLPE

Samuel Badcock, 36, first got hooked on fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) after visiting a Bristol branch of Betfred on his 23rd birthday.

Since then his addiction has seen him homeless numerous times, carrying out petty crime like shoplifting, and even trying to kill himself. Sam has set up what he has called the Members Only campaign to push for changes to the way in which problem gamblers can "self-exclude" - ban themselves - from places like bookmaker's shops and arcades.

He said that as it stands a "fragmented" system was difficult to enforce and easily flouted.

He said that despite banning himself from more than 60 venues over the past 13 years, he had only been asked to leave somewhere a handful of times. On one shocking occasion someone even let him gamble after spotting he had banned himself - because he told them he only wanted to gamble £100.

Sam wants to make it so that you have to be sign up to a scheme to gamble - in the same way that online betting and bingo halls work. He said he believes this would then make a mobile-phone based self-exclusion scheme far easier to implement. He also wants people to be able to set spending and time limits for in-person gambling on their phones.