[CARD SHUFFLES]
This is a joker.
Uh-hmm.
OK.
I'm going to take the joker.
I'm going to wave it on top of the jack of spades,
and I touch it.
Now I have the jack of spades and you have?
Joker.
Hah.
My name is Alex Conran.
Since childhood, I've been fascinated
by gambling and by cards.
It got me a job presenting The Real Hustle, which
warns people about how to avoid getting conned.
It's all a bit ironic if you know about my dad.
My father was a gambling addict, who
turned into a conman and a fraudster and ended up in jail.
So what was this urge that drove my dad away from me?
His been a life of gambling and crime,
but might I be under its spell too?
Well, if I did have that problem,
it would make me one of up to half a million people in the UK
estimated to be problem gamblers.
[CARD FLIPS]
Yes!
And that number is rising.
[SLOT MACHINE BEEPS]
What's the most you've ever lost in a day?
In a day?
4 grand.
4 grand in a day?
Or in 20 minutes.
The machine has been in my life more
than anybody else has been in my life.
You've become best friends with a machine that
takes your money?
Yeah.
Their brains really are different.
Something different happens when they gamble.
So this film is a journey to find
why a fun pastime for some people
can become a compulsion or even an addiction for others.
And I'd like an answer to the one question I want
to ask my dad, Dimitri, why?
[CASINO CHIPS CLINKS]
Blackjack.
Yes!
[CLACKS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gambling surrounds me.
Each one of my jackets has got a deck of cards in it.
Every time I'm thinking or I'm talking,
if I'm talking on the phone, every now
and then I'll get people going, "Are you shuffling cards?"
[CARD SHUFFLES]
And I found, when we worked on conning people
in The Real Hustle, that I was a natural at that too.
You know, I'm the general manager here.
So has anyone to talk to you about cons?
This is what they're here for--
a winning ticket now worth over $300.
OK.
I'll be right back.
Little did they know, they'll never
see that pan, the helpful manager, or their winnings
ever again.
So maybe that's something I inherited from my dad.
You see, he became a conman to feed a huge gambling habit.
Ultimately, it drove him away from me, leaving me
and my mom when I was only seven.
He's now in jail in Greece, and I've not had any contact
with him for 20 years.
I hardly know my dad, but because of the chaos
he brought to our lives, I've always blamed him.
I never wanted him in my life or even in the life of my family.
By not wanting to contact his dad, he's protecting himself.
He's protecting his mom or the other family members who were
affected by it, and us I think.
But I've always wondered, what was
so strong about that compulsion that made him give up
on his wife, his family, on me?
And what exactly have I inherited from him?
I've clearly got his ability to con people,
so could I also be at risk of becoming a problem gambler too?
It's an important issue for him--
something that he has to work through somehow.
I think there's so many questions that he
needs to answer for himself.
He's just trying to find an explanation.
And I guess talking to other people
will have a very restorative and positive effect on him.
[BIRD CAWS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BEACH WAVES]
So where to start?
How does the occasional flutter turn into a daily fix?
Just like other addictions, the answer
can be frighteningly early, and for many, it
starts in places like this--
a seaside arcade with machines like these.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I probably appeals to our very basic sort of emotions,
you know, flashing lights--
Come on.
--these buttons, these things happening.
We want to keep you more entertained,
to keep you more involved in the game.
And you've got different options different ways of making money.
It's no longer just waiting for that spin.
It gives you the perception that you're actually
more in control.
Some of these machines here, you can win up to 500 pounds.
If you go across the road to the bookies,
to the fixed odds betting terminals.
You can pay a 100 pounds a spin, and those
or the crack cocaine of fruit machines for gambling addicts.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SLOT MACHINE BEEPS]
These machines do nothing for me.
I prefer poker, but they can be very
addictive for some young people.
They got Andres hooked as a teenager.
Now he works on a stall in one of Blackpool's piers,
but he started gambling age 12, and he now
spends in excess of 25 grand a year on it.
Would you say you gamble every day?
Every day.
Every day of your life?
Yeah.
In a week, how much do you reckon
you spend it on gambling?
At least 500.
500 pound a week?
At least.
Playing the roulette 21 cards--
I was 15.
And I lied about my age.
I said I was 18.
I got away with it and they found the age out
by 18, but then by that time, they
couldn't do anything about it.
What's the most you've ever lost in a day?
In a day?
4 grand.
4 grand in a day?
Or in 20 minutes.
In 20 minutes.
Where?
How?
Roulette.
Again, those machines?
Machines.
And what is it about those machines
that you like gambling on like fixed odd betting machines?
What is it about them that you prefer?
What?
The roulettes?
Yeah.
It's a quick money, isn't it?
Quick.
Once I won 10 grand within the space of what, three minutes.
It's a very, very lot of money, ain't it?
To win in a three minutes?
Just literally watching, I won.
And with my mom, she's gone to fetch her winnings
for the Irish Lotteries.
And then I've had 2 pound in change,
and end up just walking out with 10 grand.
How quickly did you lose that 10 grand after you won it?
Within a week.
Within a week?
Week
And a half.
Do you think about it all the time?
Always.
Always?
Every night, you go home, and you spend
how much money you spend on.
You can actually win from gambling.
Well, I win every day.
It's just about walking away.
All right.
It's about saying no to the addiction.
All right.
You're not going to gambling anymore.
I've made enough money now.
I want you to stop gambling.
That's right.
I want--
[INAUDIBLE]
I want to stop me.
It's killing me slowly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[REELING]
[BELL RINGS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can play a machine with a jackpot of up to five pounds
as a child in the UK.
It makes us one of the few countries
in the developed world that allows kids to gamble.
Five pounds, it's quite a lot to 12-year-olds.
If you grow up with a sort of, oh, gambling's fun.
It's tolerated.
I could do it with my mom and dad.
When people talk about drugs, they
talk about a ladder of addiction.
Softer drugs leading to more hardcore class A drugs.
Maybe we should take the same view about gambling.
Penny falls, one armed bandits, larger jackpot machines,
and finally the ones in the bookmakers
where you can bet 100 pounds a spin.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
While I was in Blackpool, I met Darren.
He says those gambling machines in the bookies
have wrecked his life.
He spent six months in a homeless hostel,
and he's now trying to get his life back on track.
I was chasing the numbers on the machine, basically.
And I put in every single penny of my money.
I have a partner for five years, but she left me
because of gambling, basically.
She was getting tired of those.
And I'll put full time and not thinking about shopping
or anything like that.
I didn't see nothing else but gambling was my life.
That was it.
I would wake up in the morning, any money
that I have in my pocket, I'll go straight to the pot makers.
And I could be in there from 9 o'clock in the morning
until 8 o'clock at night.
It's not about the money no more.
No, it's not about the money.
It's not about winning.
What is it about now?
Just about playing the machine.
The machine to me is my best friend in a way.
I thought I feel like the machines right there.
The machine had been there in my life
more than anyone else has been in my life.
That machine had been there more than anyone.
[INAUDIBLE]
So you think you've spent--
you've become best friends with a machine that
takes your money?
Yeah.
I can go in without 40 quid, 50 quid sometimes,
and I can lose it straightaway.
I could go with over 2 pound, [INAUDIBLE]
I can get over 200 pounds right away.
What do you do with that money once you get it?
Do you walk away?
Half of the time, I don't.
I use it to go back in with.
I've always got it in the mind to go back in with.
I've got myself into about 15 to 18 grand worth of debt
because of it as well.
So you currently have 18 grand's worth of debt.
About 18 grand worth of debt.
And what's your general attitude towards gambling?
It'll get you nowhere in life.
get you life.
Me, I'm only younger.
Well, I'm sweating free.
I had it all.
I have no one else.
I had a lovely partner at that time.
I have two dogs.
I did pretty all right but now, I got nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
That is for you, gambling.
The good thing about Darren is he wants to quit.
He knows it's dragging him down and ruining his life.
He's intelligent enough to know that but stopping is
really hard.
They're all aware of the problem.
They all think that they can beat those machines.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I've never thought that, but maybe that's
how my dad feels about it.
But when he got hooked, gambling was far less widely available
than today.
Now it's not just fruit machines and roulette and bookies,
it's football betting, scratch cards, the national lottery.
If you're a potential problem gambler,
a simple trick down the high street
can be like running the gold load of temptation.
So here we are.
We're on the Main Street.
We're in Hackney.
And Hackney is got quite high unemployment level.
It's quite a poor burrow, and yet
on this high street that we're standing on,
there are eight betting shops with plans to build more.
In the back there, you see the church, the building next to it
is the Hackney old town hall which is no longer a town hall.
It's a bookies.
The old cornerstone of the community
here, the town hall, the center where everybody used to come
and things used to happen, is now a bookies.
I don't want to put cynical ideas out,
but I'm kind of thinking it's a very, very poor high street.
Very, very high unemployment and you've got eight cookies here.
I would wager that if you went to Kensington, Chelsea,
or to more affluent areas, you'd maybe find one, maybe two.
Now why is that?
There's pawnbrokers over there, betting shop
just 100 yards away, but you can't tell me
that that is not somehow catering to people
who have this addiction.
And why are we doing that?
Why are we letting people pawn their stuff and go in there
and bet it?
Why are we leaving the door open to people
we've got that problem?
And it matters because we know if you're susceptible
and just like other addictions, stopping is no simple matter.
You been to Las Vegas?
No.
Never.
I've come to Peterborough to meet Gareth,
28-year-old, working in sales, and his mother Isabelle.
Together, they're trying to help Gareth do
what my dad couldn't and quit.
I would literally go into work, fill my diary
with fake appointments, and then walk to the bookies.
I wouldn't eat.
I wouldn't drink.
I would just be there and all that would be
would be me and this machine, if you like.
You feed in notes.
And I'm not even considering like each 20 pound
note what I could buy, a tank of petrol, your bills, whatever.
It doesn't cross my mind.
And it's just a figure on a screen.
And probably in the last week and a half, two weeks maximum,
I've probably lost about 1,400 pounds.
Right.
Now I don't get paid 1400 pounds a month.
When you've put 2,000 grand in a machine
and you lose and it goes in half an hour,
why does that not leave you with a sense of right,
I'm never going to do that again?
I mean, I walk out of there in tears,
sick to the pit of my stomach, contemplating
all sorts of things to get it back
or to make myself feel better, hurting myself
and just have these rages.
And then the guilt sinks in and then
you realize what you've done, and you
realize how much money you've just lost
and what you could have done with it.
Probably, if it wasn't for my parents,
I'd be in prison or not around at all.
I have all his money.
It goes transferred into my bank when he gets paid,
and I withdraw all of it.
And when he wants it, he can have it.
It's different for him if he's got a debit card.
That's not real money to him.
it's just a bit of plastic.
He doesn't see where it's going.
So a debit card or a credit card,
absolutely lethal to a gambler I think.
You've borrowed money to help him out.
Yes.
So financially, that must be a bit of a strain.
We've taken loans here.
Yeah.
Because the thing is if we don't, all you think is what
will happen to him if we don't.
he gets so despaired.
you're worried he might do something stupid,
because he doesn't know how to get out of this hole he's in.
If I walked into a bookies with 100 pound,
let's say, and I walked straight in and won 200 or 300 pound,
I wouldn't be happy, because I haven't got that fixed.
I would rather go in there, being there all day
and more count maybe 50 or 60 pound down.
To me that would've been a really good day.
I'd be really happy with that.
Every time he gambles and loses money,
I will get a text from him.
Sometimes I've had a text when he's
actually in the bookmakers, and said, help me.
And I've to go and got him.
I dread every text message I get without even
knowing who it's from, because I think, not again.
I dread every text message.
It did come to a point 18 months ago
when it really, really did hit the bottom.
Where it did need nearly pull us apart.
All of us.
It was horrible.
It was a horrible, horrible time.
And I never, ever want to get through again.
Ever.
(SADLY) It was so awful.
I'm sorry.
It's all right.
It's OK.
When he starts again, he starts to get secretive.
He lies.
You know he's lying.
But if you say to him, are you lying?
It's saying, I'm not trusting you anymore.
And he just wants to be trusted.
And now if I could be gambling free,
and put my concentration into something good
then I could be a real big success to anything I do,
because I'm like Rainman with numbers
because of the gambling.
And so when I went to college, I gambled
and I've done it ever since.
So I've never had a period of time
where I could sit back and see what I'm actually
capable of doing as a person.
You need something, an instant fix.
And there isn't any instant fix.
It's just going to go on and on and on until they
decide enough's enough.
And it either ends in the awful way,
or it ends by him stopping.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So what happens if you can't stop?
In London, I went to meet Mandy.
She's not your typical idea of a problem gambler.
It wasn't until her mid 30s that she
succumbed to the lure of the high street bookmaker.
When she couldn't stop, it ended, as with my dad,
with this mother of two going to jail.
Now I haven't committed a crime till I was 35.
I was a law-abiding citizen until the day I
started gambling.
And that all my everything went out the window.
I was shoplifting to feed my habit.
I was probably stealing about 3,000 or 4,000 pounds
worth of goods a day.
I was going into a supermarket, filling up
a trolley with booze, meat, everything,
walking out with it.
I was committing crime 5, 6, 7 a times a day--
To fund your habit.
To fund my habit.
In the end my luck run out.
And-- well, I didn't run out, because I've never
had any luck.
But I got sent to prison for four months.
My children went into care.
Did you gamble again after you came out of prison?
The day I came out.
The day you came out.
[SLOT MACHINE ROLLING]
I despise it.
What?
I despise gambling.
I hate it, but can't stop.
You still?
I've been in the bookies this morning.
This morning, you have--
I've been in the bookies this morning.
And you place the bet this morning?
I won 70 pounds on the fog machine.
My opinion of it is it's an illness.
I've got an illness, and I wish there was a cure.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The experts tell us that 60% of problem gamblers who
are attending Gamblers Anonymous in the UK
admit to having committed a crime to fund their habit.
And so it was with Mandy.
But Mandy's trying hard to help herself and to quit.
She's in therapy, and she's filled in self exclusion forms
at all her local bookies.
There it is.
And that's the one that you're a student from right now.
It is.
Good.
I'm excited for more bookies around here [INAUDIBLE]
any of them.
Does it-- do you feel strange being outside of it
or does it--?
Yeah.
A little bit.
OK.
Let's go.
There is that Brooks.
I spend some grim days in there.
Did you-- was this your sort of regular haunt?
Yeah.
It was.
Every day, I used to stand and wait for it to open.
Did you ever get approached by anybody in there--
Never.
-- to say-- No?
Never.
Aren't you here too often?
Not once has one person ever approached me and said,
hey, that's enough.
Not once.
Not once in 11 years.
they have pictures of armed robbers out.
They have pictures of problem gamblers.
Having met Mandy now, several times, she said I'm ill.
I am not well.
And it must be appalling to have to be to be saying that
and people not to be listening.
People are going to go, no, not really.
You just have to stop playing free machines.
And it's not as simple as that.
It can't be.
People wouldn't be doing that to their lives
if it was as simple as walking away.
I don't think I've ever realized until talking
to gamblers like Mandy just how hard it can be to quit.
And it makes me think of my dad and his decision
to leave with a bit more sympathy.
My mom's kept most of the details
of what my dad's gambling led to a secret for me, to protect me.
But I've come to Greece where she lives, because I now want
to understand what happened.
I don't really remember much about my dad.
It was always sort of smiling or telling a joke,
quite larger than life.
My parents divorced when I was seven.
After the age of seven, he's very-- an absent figure.
So I want to find out what was it
that drove very intelligent, very charming man into jail.
Did you ever play backgammon with Dimitri?
Yeah, I did.
He's very good.
I say.
I mean everybody remembers jokes.
He was fun.
I wouldn't have married him and had a child with him
if he was just the absolute go to gamble.
When did you realize that he was gambling?
It first started when I was pregnant,
and I got this letter from this woman saying,
I hope Lana has survived the operation.
And I'm reading this letter like, what operation?
What is she talking about?
What is this one was talking about?
But I really need this 3,000 if you could return them.
And then the landlady called me and she said,
I realize you were giving birth, but we haven't received
the rent for six months.
[SIGHS] I could see it was gambling.
I could see that it was compulsive.
I did not know at the time that that was an illness.
And I did not know that this can be helped by specialists,
but I knew that this was something
that would not finish.
My dad's gambling got worse and worse.
And then one day, when we were living in Paris,
my mom came home to the apartment to find a letter.
Dimitri, my dad had fled.
And I opened it, and I read this, My dear, Lana.
As you very well understood, I've messed up.
So unfortunately, the only solution I have
is to leave France.
I owe madame Fresco--
Madame Fresco is this poor woman whom
we were renting the apartment, four rents
plus the electric bill et cetera, et cetera.
I owe the bank 2,000 francs.
I also owe Nicola, a friend, 1,000 francs.
Augustus Bletus, 450, I think.
All this money, of course, I did not spend it with other women
as you very well know, but on horse races.
Please kiss our child for me.
I also owe 800 to Bernard.
[LAUGHS]
So at the end, there's a little reminder.
Yeah.
I have a backgammon.
My mom told me how to fund his habit.
Dimitri would continually steal not just from strangers,
but his employer, his friends, even his family.
It's no wonder she was so terrified
that I would turn out like him.
I remember once, Alexis, he was about seven or eight.
He lied about something, and I beat him up.
I'm ashamed to say that so much that my finger got swollen.
And I realized I was not beating Alexis, I was beating Dimitri.
The Real Hassle, I was very, very worried at the beginning.
I was more worried with the card playing,
the actual card in the hand.
Feeling flush more from the alcohol than the cards,
Alex ups the ante.
And what was a friendly game with a limit 100 pounds,
now has no limits.
I want to get small money on the table.
I think my mom was petrified.
Petrified when she saw me with a pack of cards in my hands
doing magic tricks, because she associated pack of cards,
love of gambling, love of cards which is what my dad was into.
Is her son going to go down the same slippery road
as his father did?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Well there have been times where I've wondered that myself,
and one of them was here.
Welcome to Las Vegas, a town built entirely on gambling.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 2007, I spent three months in Vegas filming
for The Real Hustle.
[SLOT MACHINE BEEPS]
Oh, that's nasty.
Oh, but that's good.
Yes!
And I found as the rest of the crew would go off to bed--
Yes!
[CARD SHUFFLES]
I stood at the table a little bit longer,
and I gambled most nights.
And I know that my family were a little bit
anxious about me being around casinos, because of my father.
I have to admit the first time I walked into a casino,
my heart was pumping.
And I can understand that they're
worried that I maybe would be around casinos
and would turn out to be like my dad.
17.
[CASINO CHIPS CLINKS]
Blackjack.
Yes!
[LAUGHS]
Oh, come on.
Oh.
How quick.
We've blown $200?
Do I think that I might have something in me that might
say that I'm a gambling addict?
I don't think so.
Oh.
[LAUGHS]
[CASINO CHIPS CLINKS] This is just not your day.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But I do enjoy it.
There.
I said it.
I like gambling.
And if you like a flutter then this is the place to be.
But whilst on the surface, this is a pleasure town,
fantastically over the top, a temple to entertainment
and fun, when you look for it, this city has a dark side.
These jets you can see here, they're the high roller jets.
They're the Jets of the people-- the billionaires
who come to gamble in Vegas.
Or the Jets the hotels used to ferry the rich people in,
the whales as they call them.
So that's here.
Over here, you have the most iconic sign of Las Vegas.
This is the beginning of the strip here.
And way over there over that advertising billboard
is, underneath there in a sewer, is where you have--
people live in there.
Here in the flood tunnels running
under this city, literally hundreds of homeless people.
Many who have hit rock bottom because of gambling.
And I've come to find them.
And is this base here so here you go very little church here
yes and you've got a suitcase.
Compulsive gamblers Cyril and his 27-year-old girlfriend
Becky have been living in these tunnels
off and on for more than six months.
So this is where you put your stuff to protect it
from the rain, right?
Now our enclosure over there they're all clean
During your gambling stuff, how much money
do you think you've first passed through your hands?
Since I've started gambling--
He made a million dollars one night.
You made a million dollars?
He finally went through--
won and lost a million dollars.
- I had--
I know I had over a million dollars
that goes through my hand in about a year and a half.
Did you think you were gambling as part of the reason
that maybe you sort of where you are now?
No, I blame him.
I really do.
But that's said that's messed up saying--
Yeah.
How could you believe--
Gambling is a big part of where I am right now,
but I didn't start it.
Would you consider yourself as a problem gambler?
Would you consider that?
No.
Not really, because if we just keep going for it,
an you're going to win.
Especially if you start with zero.
You can't lose.
The gambling pays for everything.
That you positive and we pay for everything.
That we do because of gambling.
That's negative
When you see what's above us right now,
the amazing hotels, the size of a city which
is just phenomenal, and it's all being
built for money that people have come and lost here, right?
Right.
I know I'm going to go and beat them.
I know I'm going to take their money.
but after my word's over, it's playtime,
I know they're probably going to take my money.
It's quite shocking to me back in zero-- in the situation
that they find themselves in.
I mean, how do you wake up in there,
look around, realize you're living in a flood tunnel,
and think, I'm going to gamble my way out of here?
I'm going to make enough money through gambling
to get out of here.
And by his own admission, every time he'll make some money,
he'll just gamble it.
I defy anybody to come down and look at this.
And sort of say, well you know, he just
has an issue with money.
The guy's an addict.
The guys cannot stop gambling.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
No matter how bad things get, Cyril's
still denying he's an addict.
Is that what my dad is like?
And as with all addictions, the first step
is recognizing that you've got a problem.
The following day I went looking for Cyril and Becky
and found them searching the strip and the casinos.
They were looking for money for Cyril to gamble.
I wanted to ask them more, don't they
realize that Cyril is an addict?
The gambling is the cause of their problems
rather than the solution.
You went to a casino?
What happened?
When?
Oh, just now?
Yeah.
Nothing.
And there wasn't really anything in there.
What were you looking for?
Money.
To see if there was anything left on the machines,
or dropped by the tables.
People dropped chips.
If I find 5 bucks, I'll go try it in this
and if it doesn't hit, I will walk around, find 5 more bucks
and play it.
And usually I can like keep at the same machine
until I get a hit for a day.
You know what I'm saying?
And that'll give me my little jump,
and that'll turn my 20 into 40 or 50
and then take it from there.
I have to get him to break away from this whole thing,
and he doesn't want to do it.
Like, he does but he does-- i don't know.
he's a gambling addict.
this is his element right here.
I'm taking him away from that if I make it [INAUDIBLE]..
So in your eyes, you do think that Cyril is a gambling
addict?
Yes, I know he is.
Do you think he knows he is?
Yeah, but he doesn't want to admit it.
What would you say problem gambler is?
I don't know.
Someone who's got a family, and after they worked all week,
instead of coming home, went to a casino
and blew their whole check and then came home.
I mean, also, probably someone who lives in a tunnel.
[LAUGHS] But--
All right.
[LAUGHS]
I don't see myself in five years being here and being happy.
I see myself either dead, still homeless, or struggling.
And basically in a--
I don't like that.
But you're looking at what's destroying
you to help you, right?
It's a double edged sword, I guess.
But I know what you're saying, but I mean,
I will do that within the next couple of weeks.
I will make like my luck.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's as if they sort of both know what's killing them,
but they're not doing anything about it.
Well, they can't do anything about it.
He just seemed to have that what I
think is typical about problem gamblers.
That, you know what?
I'm going to get myself out of it, with gambling.
All I need is that one big win.
And it never stop.
Or I'm going to play poker.
Not the booker slots. as if there's any difference.
It's for an alcoholic say, I'm not going to drink spirits.
I'm just going to stick to beer.
That's how I think kind of where he is
and the seriousness of his problem.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And if you've got a problem, you don't
need to take a trip to Vegas or to the casino.
You see these days you can get your fix in perfect isolation.
I'm on the latest in home comforts
is the chance to have a casino under your own roof.
I could close my door here, family are downstairs.
They don't know what I'm doing.
And I can just have that isolation between me
and the computer screen, and get sucked
into that emotional roller coaster that
is playing roulette or blackjack or poker for a lot of money.
I've just put bet online in Google.
I've got 228 million results.
But we've got Ladbrokes, William Hill, Bet 365, Paddy Power,
hundreds and hundreds, [INAUDIBLE] Sports,
Blue Square.
I don't have to go anywhere.
And I can spend a lot of money on playing whatever I want.
I can play roulette.
I can play craps.
I can play blackjack.
I can play poker.
I can bet on horses, every single horse race
around the world, mind you.
It's not as if I can go-- well, it's nighttime now.
It's past 8 o'clock.
There's no more races, but I can bet on races in China.
I can bet on races in America.
It is 24 hours a day, and it's in your home.
A lot of people who I have talked to about gambling,
it's the isolation, it's what gamblers called The Bubble.
It's me and the machine.
Nothing else matters.
The building can be burning behind you,
but it's me and that machine.
And I think you get the same sense at home.
It's quite frankly.
[WHEELS CHURNING]
So why would I go if I really do feel like I want help?
[INAUDIBLE] in GamCare.
When my dad gambled, nobody talked about it
in terms of a disease.
Now that's starting to change.
This is GamCare.
they run a help line which supports problem gamblers
and the people around them.
All these people here will be handling calls coming in?
Yes.
There'll be live calls.
They'll be handling calls that come in,
and about 35,000 calls a year.
So can we have a look at maybe what's happening over here?
Absolutely. yes.
This is Mike.
Hi, there.
Hello, Mike.
Nice to meet you.
When a call comes through, it'll be
a one-on-one sort of chat box.
More often than not, people are coming in and saying,
how can I change what my son's doing?
How can I make him stop?
Sometimes people just want someone to talk.
So really, you don't have to say that much.
Sometimes, they want more directions.
So sometimes they might say, where
can I go to get help with my local GA meeting?
That kind of thing.
While I was at GamCare, they let me
speak to one caller whose experience of discovering
her husband's secret gambling took me
right back to my own childhood.
He started gambling many years ago on football and hockey.
And I found out about it, and he said he'd never do it again.
The biggest horse that he pound is about 100 pounds.
I lost my mother, and she lost some money.
I thought her to pay the mortgage
so she told me to take it off the mortgage
and I said no that's not right can't be it had been doubled.
How much was it if you don't mind me asking?
The mortgage has gone up from 50 to 100, almost 100,000 pounds.
100,000 pounds?
Pounds.
The mortgage should--
It was doubled from 50--
It doubled from 50,000 to 100,000.
Wow.
Yeah.
I had to cut the insurance policy.
He thought you couldn't have gotten the money
for that relief as well.
So in total, how much money had your husband--
It was over 100,000.
Over 100,000 pounds.
100,000 pounds in total.
Got to a point where I just contemplated suicide.
You got so low when--
so how I felt, I felt that he couldn't wanted me.
He couldn't have loved me, you would have put the children
and myself through this.
I mean I know it's a very difficult question
but how do you feel towards your husband now?
I can't trust him.
I still to this day don't think I'll ever trust them fully.
And I just hope that the love of his children
will stop him from doing it again.
I've witnessed firsthand a family imploding
like that and all the heartbreak it brings.
I'd never want my own family to go through anything like that.
So perhaps it's time I got tested
to answer once and for all if there's any risk I
could turn out like my dad.
These days the NHS has a clinic for problem gamblers.
It's the first one.
I've got to be checked out by a psychiatrist Dr. Henrietta
Bowden Jones.
Welcome to the National Problem Gambling clinic.
Obviously my father was a gambling addict
who turned into a con man and a fraudster and ended up in jail.
And I guess I have always wondered whether or not--
it was something that was hereditary.
Well it's interesting you say this,
because we know that young people with parents
who gamble regularly, and young people with parents who
are problem gamblers do have a higher
likelihood of developing this illness
than the general population.
So someone like me might be at risk for--
Might be at risk, exactly.
I like gambling.
I won't deny it.
I think it's a good fun pastime, but I always
treat it with a sense that I'm dealing with something that
can be extremely dangerous.
Yeah.
So Alex, I'm going to ask you a few things now that
would allow me to go through my mental checklist
to know whether you do have a problem or not.
How often over the past month you have actually gambled?
I would say, five days in the last month.
But the month before, it was zero days.
How often have you bet more than you can afford to lose?
Never.
How often have you needed to gamble
with larger amounts of money to get
the same feeling of excitement?
Never.
How often have you gone back another day
to try to win back the money you lost?
Never.
OK.
That's called chasing losses.
Yes.
And I would say the 99.5% of people in this clinic--
Will go back to--
-- are lost chasers.
How often have your father you might
have a problem with gambling?
What's the next one up from never?
Sometimes.
How often have you felt guilty by the way you gamble?
Often.
So you've scored two.
And essentially, you need to score at least nine
to have any significant problems obviously.
[LAUGHTER]
Do you find it a little odd that given my father's history,
being a card player, fraudster I've
ended up with a pack of cards in my hand on a daily basis?
I'm fascinated by scams and cons.
Although I've had very, very little contact with my father.
You could say that what you are doing
is trying to keep in touch with him at some level
without harming yourself.
Yeah.
I think maybe it is a way of keeping a link to my dad,
but it's definitely not something that I'm
doing consciously.
you got to remember that I'm petrified of a relationship
with my dad, because having a problem gambler in your life
is dangerous.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And it can be dangerous because like other addictions,
the urge to gamble can be with you all your life.
In Cambridge, I met Lewis constable.
He got hooked on slot machines and online poker.
OK.
Very nice to meet you.
Lewis has managed to quit, but he still
admits to getting urges.
I mean you haven't gambled now for six months.
Do you miss the thrill?
Yeah.
Definitely.
I find it harder for when I pass the bookies.
You do?
I find it hard, especially on match day
because I'm a big football fan.
If I want to bet, I can't bet on all the teams.
I find it quite hard not to do that.
I was probably on the internet poker for about a year
and a half to two years.
I lost a lot of money on that.
How much money did you actually lose?
Well I lost probably on online poker, probably over 7 grand,
I'd say.
I remember that probably be the loneliest or the hardest time.
The thing I would say about gambling
is that it's such a lonely addiction.
With drugs, I think you can do it with other people.
You can drink if you do it with other people.
Smoking, you can share a cigarette when you're addictive
and all that.
With gambling, I found when I was gambling
that I was so lonely.
And you'd lose a bet, you wouldn't
want to tell anyone about it because you just
lost a lot of money.
You're ashamed when you tell them.
What?
Why did you do that?
So you keep it within yourself.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But even though Lewis has quit, he still
got the potential to have a problem with gambling.
And there's now groundbreaking scientific research
which shows that problem gamblers' brains really
are wired differently.
Lewis has agreed to take part in a demonstration
of this research with me here in Cambridge.
Dr. Luke Clark a leading expert in problem gambling
has made an extraordinary discovery.
He's proved that for gambling addicts,
it's not so much the winning they're
hooked on but the experience of a near miss.
[CLICKING]
Let's see the spin coming through here.
[CLICKING]
And--
[BEEPS]
Yeah!
And this is Alex's first win.
And this is his win conductance going up here.
Alex is interested in the wins.
But we're also interested in the near misses.
And we see in problem gamblers that these near misses
are very significant events.
And they make them want to carry on playing more.
And we can see in our brain imaging data,
we can see a stronger brain response
in particular to the near miss outcomes
as someone becomes more of a problem gambler.
Are these brain responses?
Are they in parts of the brain that
are innervated by dopamine, very important brain chemicals
in reward behavior and also in drug addiction.
[CLICKING]
Come on.
No.
[BEEPS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My results were perfectly normal,
but Dr. Clark expects a problem gambler
to have a very significant reaction to a near miss.
You're getting near misses in all gambling games.
And indeed, you get near misses out there.
In the real world, a lot of those real world situations
are skill situations where the near misses really
do tell you something.
If you're shot, the goal bounces out of the post.
You haven't got a goal, but it tells you
that you should carry on.
But in gambling games, chance that reasoning doesn't apply
and that seems to be the main mistake that people make when
they read too much into them.
Then it was Lewis' turn, and it quickly became clear
that in his case, it wasn't the winning that thrilled him
but the near misses.
And in that first win that he received,
he had had very little impact.
What was it?
When I had my first win, do you remember?
Was it--
Yes.
I have.
A big empire?
Yeah.
That was a clear.
It was a clear impact.
A yes.
Yeah.
This is going to be a near miss.
Yeah.
[BEEPING]
That is definitely--
Yeah.
A much longer response to a near miss than it
was to the previous week.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So then if you never met either of us
and you caught us together, would that
be sort of a suggestion that Lewis might have a problem?
With these near misses that seem to be more significant and more
salient to Lewis.
And within a game of chance, I'd say that's a dangerous mindset.
[CLICKING]
[BEEP]
And you're saying that somebody who's not a problem gambler
would have a much bigger response, hey,
I've won something!
Yeah.
These are pleasant rewarding outcomes.
We should see very strongly--
But to a problem gambler, just doesn't
have that much [INAUDIBLE].
Yeah.
That's fascinating.
When you remember back to when you
were sort of playing the slot machines,
would a near miss for you to chase your money?
I would never want anyone else to win the money
that I've put in that machine, because I
know that the machine would pay out soon.
And you felt that somebody else would come along, and put
a pound there and get your money, and will win.
That's the last thing I'd want.
I think these tests showed me that my mind really wasn't--
it wasn't about getting the money.
It was about getting the thrill.
Right.
Well that's done enough to convince me
that my brain is wired completely differently to that
of a problem gambler.
I don't react that way when I gamble.
But it has made me wonder what was
my father like when he gambled?
How was he reacting?
What was going on inside his brain?
Unfortunately, when my dad was gambling,
we didn't have any of these techniques.
we don't know, but it makes me wonder.
I have a feeling that he was the same as Lewis.
he got the thrills of near misses.
And the winning wasn't enough for him.
Otherwise, he would've stopped.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So like drugs and alcohol, once you've been an addict,
you're always either be an addict or an addict
in recovery.
Hi, everybody.
Hi.
Hello.
Hi.
Hello.
This is the problem gambling center
in Las Vegas run by Dr. Robert Hunter.
Normally these meetings are anonymous affairs,
but I've been allowed to sit-in on one.
many of these addicts are around my dad's age,
so are these the sort of struggles he's been
having throughout his life?
I was fully aware that I was destroying my life.
I didn't do it to forget.
I did drugs to forget.
I am aware of that.
I know I did.
But gambling?
I made myself sick.
I urinated my pants while I was gambling and kept gambling.
Running down to my last 300 bucks at Warner station,
and all of a sudden, I vomit all over the machine.
I'm talking about creating panic.
After yesterday's fight here as I
walked in the door of my house fighting urges.
I'm fighting urges right now, and I just
don't understand why I can't get this.
I believe you're in the right place at the right time.
And I'm sorry about the pain in your eyes.
You look like somebody just got pulled out of a burning car.
It really looks like you're in agony.
But I've seen that look, and I've
seen it turn into those looks.
So please just go where they point you.
Please just go where they got you.
Problem gambling's as old as man,
but it's only been in the last few decades
that they've had lab research that suggests they really
are different.
Their brains really are different.
Something different happens when they gamble.
What's the end of the line?
What's the bottom of the bottom for a gambling addict?
What's the worst case scenario?
The major danger is to say, I am the architect
of this destruction and despair.
I'm a bad person who has chosen to harm the people I love,
therefore I should kill myself as a gift to them.
That's what the end of the trail looks
like for a problem gambler
there are people here who literally
are going to live or die based on how they're dong.
The people in that group the day that are going to live or die
on what they do over the next four to five days.
You've been through the process.
You've recovered.
You've relapsed.
Where do you see yourself now?
How do you feel--
What do you feel the future holds for you right now?
[SIGHS]
[SIGHS] To be perfectly honest with you where I'm at today,
if I don't stop, I'm going to die.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I don't think people realize that gambling could come in
to have somebody in who says, I've done heroin.
And I've been able to give that up.
But gambling is an issue.
I don't think a lot of people are even aware that gambling
is a problem.
There's no doubt in my mind that gambling addiction
is a disease.
It's not a habit.
It's not bad habit.
It's not-- you're a little bit bad with money,
you don't know where to stop.
It's a disease.
[SOFT MUSIC PLAYING]
So if it's an illness, if problem gamblers really
are in the grip of such a powerful addiction,
then is it time now to make peace with my dad?
I no longer feel the resentment I once did towards him.
And so I've come back to visit his best friend,
Femmis to ask about making contact with Dimitri.
Alexis.
Thank you, mister.
Femmis has stayed in touch with Dimitri
even although I know he Stole a huge amount of money
from the company they were both directors of.
He took 4 mill.
4 million.
4 million and 7000 pounds and disappeared.
And he disappeared.
Do you think he took it because he wanted to go and gamble
or do you think he took it because he was owing money?
To pay.
Yeah.
Everybody knew he was ill.
Ill-- had the problem with gambling,
and yet everybody was always lending him money,
trying to help him.
If you knew that Dimitri was stealing money or borrowing
money to buy drugs, because he was a drug addict,
that would have been different, wouldn't it?
We never gave him money in order to play.
Just giving him something in order just to live.
Nobody was helping Demetrius or even be angry with him
that he took from me money.
They never would be normal fathers
or normal husbands and so these people, I believed it.
But then as we spoke, Femmis told me some shocking news
about my father.
Unfortunately, the latest news about him are very bad.
He's ill, seriously ill.
What's wrong with him now?
Yeah.
I'm afraid it is about the cancer at his throat.
throat.
OK.
Throat.
Do you think I should go and see Dimitri?
Write to him some words.
I have heard that you are ill.
I'm thinking about you.
Don't go to see him.
I don't think so.
Too upsetting.
I think he was a victim of a very nasty addiction.
people kept lending money to help him.
But by helping him they were killing him.
Money was going straight back on to card tables, casinos,
you name it.
I suppose you live with the consequences of what you've
done, but I just find it very difficult to sort of accept
that right now.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm being dramatic, but an image
of someone in a hospital bed, someone who was so social,
just alone in prison.
No one visiting him.
No one caring for him.
Nobody bringing him anything.
Nobody really caring whether he's going to recover
or if he's feeling comfortable or if he's--
[SNIFFS]
[PIANO PLAYING]
Dear, Dimitri.
I've been hearing your news from Femmis and mom.
I'm sorry to hear that you're not well.
When I was growing up, I never understood why you left.
I always thought you'd just prefer to be on your own
away from us.
I missed having a father.
However, during the making of this documentary,
I've learned a lot about people like you--
gambling addicts.
People can't stop themselves from gambling.
I've learned you never stood a chance.
Your addiction to gambling is what
drove you to steal and borrow and is ultimately
what landed you in jail.
Many people call this a hedon addiction.
At first I didn't really understand why, but I do now.
It often goes undetected by others,
and it's easy to deny it yourself if you haven't.
For all it's worth I think you're a gambling addict,
and I forgive you.
I wish things had been different.
Alexis.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But before I even got to send a letter,
I received news of my dad.
I'd returned to the UK to complete
filming for this documentary.
I got a phone call telling me that my dad passed away
in hospital still in prison.
He never got the letter.
I found myself on the phone organizing
a funeral for my father which I couldn't even attend.
So he was buried with no one there.
And that is a sad end for anybody.
But unfortunately, I think it's quite a common end
for gamblers.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
More from Alex in new The Real Hustle
slips your chances with Connie Hook, Friday at 8:30.
Next is EastEnders.
[MUSIC - THIRTEEN SENSES, "INTO THE FIRE"]
(SINGING) Come on.
Put your hands in to the fire.
Come on.