I recently lost my husband, Luke, to suicide. He took his own life, which was completely out of the blue and I would never in a million years would have thought that my husband was capable of leaving this world by taking his own life. Luke and I were happily married soul mates, who met at school in 1992, with two beautiful children together.
Luke, had been furloughed at the end of October and developed a gambling disorder, which quickly got out of control. He ended up in debt and was probably very scared about how he was going to pay it back. He took his life 22nd April 2021.
I had no idea that Luke had been betting until 3 weeks after Luke's death when the police gave me his phone back. It quickly became very apparent that he was consumed, and knowing Luke, he wouldn't have not known how to tell me.
I have set up a petition asking the government to ban 'free bets', which are not free and can be extremely harmful to someone like my husband who shouldn't have had them offered to him at a time when he was furloughed and worrying about money.
Could you please sign and share the petition to help raise awareness as well as get this important issue of gambling inducements raised in parliament. It really needs to be debated with the possibility of law changing to help protect others from gambling harm and gambling related suicide.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/587806
Thank you for reading.