Gambling husband has withdrawn £600+ from credit card for bets.

[DisneyBaby]

My husband and I been together 11 years, married with a nearly 2 year old and baby no 2 on the way in April.
He's had problems with betting in the past, always gets too carried away spending, then I pull him up on it and it's stops for a couple of months before slowly starting again and we're in this vicious cycle of him spending too much, me having a go at him and then him stopping for a while and it goes round and round and round.
Outside of the betting he's a pretty good husband and I'm happy enough, he could definitely do more to help around the house and he's on his phone a lot but other than that, he makes me laugh and is a good Dad.
He's taken it to the next level now and I've just realised he has been withdrawing money from his credit card in cash to spend on betting, I haven't looked too much because I know he's bought me some Xmas presents on there and don't want to ruin the surprise but it's at least £600 that I can see, wouldn't surprise me if it's more. He's already £200 in his overdraft. It's right before Christmas and I am livid about this. He's done this once before but it was years ago before we were married and had children. I was made redundant last month so really need to be able to rely on him to look after me and our children financially and I just feel like I can't trust him at all with money. What should I do? If it wasn't Christmas in a few days, I would throw him out for a few days or would that be overreacting? I don't know what to do, I feel like he's ruined Christmas for me because I don't want any presents coz it feels like dirty money where it's from a credit card and not his own and I don't want to play happy families with him when he's let me down... Help!?!

@Dozer

You can’t rely on him financially and need a new job asap.

It's not all that easy to find a new job when you are pregnant.

My advice would be you need to sit down and have an open and HONEST conversation about his gambling. He must tell you everything, and he has to want to stop. This has to happen before implementing GamStop etc, or taking total control of the family finances (all wages to go straight into a joint account; open a separate account for bills and savings and trickle money into the joint account as needed. All his spending must be done on his bank card so you can see the transactions. No cash. He will need to surrender and close his credit cards)

GA are a good source of support and advice you gamblers and their partners.

I wish you all the very best if luck, OP.

*for gamblers, not you

Not sure sitting Down and having an open and honest conversation about his gambling is going to work. He knows how you feel, he knows this is not an acceptable way to behave, yet he carries on regardless.
He can’t stop and he won’t stop.
A good friend has a DH with a similar problem. They were in debt, things were pretty shit. Her DH had some very good luck and actually won. He won £12,000. That was on a Friday, by the following weekend he had gambled that money away in the belief he was on a roll and would win more. He didn’t, he lost that 12,000 and then some.
You can take all his credit cards, block PayPal etc , it won’t stop him.
He’s going to be a Dad for the second time, he should be stepping up, but he’s not.
You can stay and hope that he stops spending the family money, but I can’t see it myself.
I’d cut my losses now . Take whatever steps you need to take to ensure that you are not financially liable for any of his future debts, you’d prob be well advised to get legal advice on that asap. You need to free yourself from this, before he sinks and drags you down with him , you have your DC to be considering now,

SIL lost her family home in the end to gambling.

This is not going to go away.

Addicts crave the excitement, the hit, the high.

Alcohol, drugs, gambling etc - it's an all encompassing compulsion and they will risk financial, physical, mental and relationship ruin for it.

Families, partners, marriages, futures - all will be put on the throw of a dice.

You and your children will be the fallout, the collateral damage.

Addicts need help.

First they need to acknowledge they are addicts.

Then they need to seek and accept help.

My EXH had a gambling problem, we were at risk at losing our house and everything, I had to cover all the bills as he would literally spend every penny of his wage on gambling, even worse he worked in a casino so knew it was always in the houses favour!

My advice? Leave, I waited 7 years and many ultimatums and it never changed nothing. He just got more sneaky with it. It started small...I’d be surprised if there wasn’t more you didn’t know about.

Jesus. You need to divorce or cut ties with him, and quick before he ruins your life as well as his own.

He is not financially reliable and that's a very important part of marriage as you are legally tied to him (correct me if I'm wrong).

My dad was a gambler, he even bet his coat and lost one winter. It's an abusive relationship. We had no money, though he had a good job.
My mum eventually put her foot down.
It was us or his addiction.
He went cold turkey never bet again.
You need to think what the long term effects on your children and family will be.
It's not about him alone.

You need to be very careful with a gambler. It's It's dangerous addiction.

My friend is currently trying to figure out whether to divorce her dh or try to save their marriage due to gambling. 2 years ago she found he had taken a 2k overdraft from gambling. About a month ago he was sacked and then arrested with the charge of stealing 30k from his employer.

He says he hasn't done it. She's been through their financial records and has seen no evidence of big deposits etc and believes he's been taking cash and gambling it.

Establishing whether he wants to stop or not can wait for a day or two. Your absolute priority is to stop any further damage which means full financial control and full access to every credit report out there. If he's taking cash advances there's a very good chance it's because he's maxed out other lines of credit. You also need to know if there are any secret bank accounts.

Don't trust he'll tell you everything. He won't. You need independent proof. Check Credit Karma, Clearscore and Experian through MSE's credit club. Not all lenders report to every agency so they all have to be checked. Check your own reports too. It's not unknown for gamblers to take out fraudulent loans.

He's going to have to hand over every card he has and go without cash. He needs to account for every penny he spends showing receipts.

Once you've established the true picture and minimised any further damage he can do in the short term you can start to think about what you want the future to look like bearing in mind any change has to be his own choice. He has to want not to gamble more than he wants the next bet then keep on wanting it for life. If he doesn't he will take you and the children down with him.

I can sympathise op because I have lived what you are living.

The key here is does your partner think he has a problem. If he does, there can be light at the end of the tunnel. If he doesn’t, you’ll be in some dark tunnels for a while.

He has to want to stop this. The whole you manage his finances thing etc works great on paper. But in reality, you end up being his mum and he resents you for it. And potentially finds ways around it. My husband used to make up car problems and say to his mother he didn’t have the money to fix car and couldn’t get to work. She would loan him the money or gift it. He used it to gamble. There was no car trouble. She believed I was a controlling wife for not letting him have access to his money. Funny because he didn’t have any money.

Gambling is a strange one because it starts out fun and then some people think they are smarter than the bookie/online games app/algorithm. And if they get lucky a few times it feeds this thought and this is the road to the worst times. The betting to cover the losses.

Just before I found out, I asked how come it’s day 2 after you’ve been paid and no money left. He looked on his banking app and I took the phone from him and saw all these transactions. I said oh my god you’re a victim of fraud! Someone is using your card! Ha ha. I still remember that.

My advice is don’t tip him off. Have a good look at the credit card transactions - so what if there are presents on there - and tot it up. Print it off if you can. Highlight all the gambling and present to him in a calm way. Let him do the talking. Don’t prompt him at all. You need to really hear his true mind set on this to know what your next step is, and if he realises he has a problem or not.

I'm so sorry OP.
Will he seek counselling? Go to GA?

What @mysticpizza said.

You need completely separate finances and you need to start on that right now. Don't wait until tomorrow. Move your redundancy pay, final wages, etc into a bank account that's solely yours. If it hasn't been paid yet, make sure it doesn't get paid into a joint account. Remove any access he has to credit in your name.

Only he can seek treatment for his illness, but what you can do is minimise the risk to yourself and your children.

Thank you ladies.

I have got him to sign up to GamStop and put a gambling freeze on his debit card too. I've always taken away and cut up his credit card.

Of course he is apologetic and says he'll stop but I've been in this boat before.

Really interested reading about all your partners and relatives who have been through the same thing.

I will wait for Christmas and see what happens after. I totally agree with people saying I've normalised it, I have definitely just got used to being in a relationship like this and know I deserve better. It's just hard when you've been together for so long and have children together and I'm pregnant with no job for the moment too!

Get ready to leave get your name of any joint finances get your own bank accounts. If you can manage without the credit card cut it up get your name off it if it’s a joint one. He’s then responsible for any future gambling debts. I’d be telling him any present you’ve brought me will be refunded to pay of some of the card. Pity you can’t leave for Christmas

Open your own bank account asap - any chance of doing it tomorrow, as it's Christmas Eve? Transfer your own money into it to keep that safe. Cut up his bank card so he can't withdraw cash.

He's not a good dad, he's an absolutely crap one who's risking having his children's childhoods ripped apart by his addiction.

Can’t really offer any advice but something similar happened to me a few years ago. We were remortgaging the house and he had to send me all his bank statements to send over so I, as you do, had a little nosey. I very quickly started to notice a pattern of frequent payments to skybet. A lot of them were maybe only £5/£10 and on their own would be fine but it was like everyday some weeks. I actually before even pulling him up on it, went through the three months worth and added them all up, it was well over £1000. He didn’t hide the fact he’d put a coupon on the football to make it more interesting etc and when I asked him about it he seemed genuinely shocked that it was as much as that because it was just such a habit. I think now it had been flagged up to me I wanted to keep tabs on it so I went on his app on the ipad a couple of months later and he’d deposited £700 from his bank into it 😑 it was at a time when we really didn’t have that money to be wasting either! He claimed he’d won a lot of bets though with it but I tried explaining to him how he was actually still losing money overall and he should really stop doing it when he didn’t seem to be able to control it 🤦🏼‍♀️

He did learn his lesson and I don’t go through his bank statements with a fine tooth comb or check his apps anymore but I should maybe do a little spot check now I’ve read this 🙈

Hey I'm so sorry for what you are going through, it must be so scary to be so worried about money and also so disappointing that you can't trust your husband.

Just to add another perspective... I am a reformed gambler. At my peak I was spending around $1000 a day. I had some big wins but ultimately all gamblers lose, the addiction means you don't a op till you are forced to. Well, in most cases.

I blew about $100k of shared money.

Then I got myself to a gambling support group and also got individual therapy. I was shown how to get myself banned from casinos and I was also taught strategies such as changing my dentist because it was near the casino. I even quit my job so I was away from betting places.

At that time I was 33, I had a 2yo, a beautiful home and a great job.

I managed to break free of the addiction before it broke me - and is. Amazingly my husband was very understanding and supportive.

I have not gambled since (14years) and I budget with the finest.

Looking back I can see it was nothing to do with money and everything to do with escaping the nightmare I was enduring in my head. (I had been the victim of a serious crime and had undiagnosed PTSD) staring at the machines distracted me from the hell in my mind. I didn't really understand that at the time though.

So I think it is possible for your husband to recover but the motivation needs to come from him. And he needs to address whatever it is that's triggering the urge to gamble.

For you I wish very support and strength. Do what you have to do. X

Having worked as a bookie, Ive seen it destroy lives. I would urge you to leave, personally. Make sure your assets are protected too (no joint accounts or credit cards, sell your house and get your share out ASAP ect...).

If you want to have a last ditch attempt at staying then he has to get help. And he has to WANT to get help.

You can go to the bookies and they can give you a voluntary form for him to fill in that will essentially ban him from betting their stores.

But be aware that if you sense he isn't doing this because he wants to, but just because you give him an ultimatum, then he won't stop. He will just find other ways.

However,

*ps, if he bets primarily on the puggies (the machines) as opposed to sports ect...go, go now, he is a lost cause. Once you're hooked on those things, you're fucked.

Good luck op and I really mean that.

The credit card may not be the full extent, just remember that.

A few things you can check that are used to hide gambling

• mobile phone bill. A few companies allow you to join your mobile phone account with your gambling account. You can actually deposit and instead of coming out of the bank account as WHO or whatever, the amount is added to the phone bill, so it shows as EE or whatever. Easy to miss that one.
• cash deposits. This could be cash loans from friends who your partner has lied to in order to get cash
• check the direct debit list to come out. There could be some in there from the past that prove there has been extra loans or payday loans that have since been settled.

My husband had all of these going on. Luckily my exposure credit wise we limited as we didn’t have a joint account - and won’t be for a very long time lol.

My husband has a particular thing for the national lottery so that counts as gambling too (and those competitions online to win a house etc)

is a good Dad

No he isn't. Not so long as he is in thrall to an addiction. An addict in recovery may be a good parent but an active addict putting his children at financial risk is not. Do not tell yourself he is or let him tell you he is.

Only you can decide how many last, last chances to give him. Only he can decide if he wants to get help to stop gambling and learn to recognise his weak points. However priority needs to be securing as much as you can for the children, with or without him.

Just reading back on this thread because my husband has relapsed massively yet again.
Following some of the posts on here I set up
GamStop and he is banned from using any gambling sites for 5 years now, however he is still able to walk into a bet shop and gamble if he goes in with cash. So why has happened over the last year is that he has been withdrawing money every so often, anything between £40 and £100 and as we don't ever need cash for anything really, I can tell that this is when he is gambling again and he withdraws the money then goes into a bookies.
He has probably done this 2/3 times this year for a few hundred quid before I've spotted it, called him up on it and then he's stopped again until the next time.

Well this time it's escalated a bit more...
This week alone he has withdrawn and bet £560, he has also withdrawn another £1k or so over the last month.. But worst bit, after a bit of investigating, I have discovered that he's withdrawn £1500 from our joint credit card since the end of September, money we can't afford to pay back straight away so now we'll be paying interest on it!
This week our dog was spayed and the following day I had to work, my husband said he'd wfh that day so that the dog wasn't left alone just incase she managed to get her cone off or had a funny turn or anything. Turns out he left her for a couple of hour sneaking out the to bet shop and withdrew £360 in 1 day! He's been tampering with our ring doorbell as well so I can't see when he's gone out or not..,

I'm just sick of all the sneaking and lying. Before I realised he left our dog I said 'you didn't leave Daisy to go to the bookies did you' and he said 'no I'd never do that don't worry' but he did. All lies. I just hate it. I'm so livid and disappointed that he is ruining our marriage and family. I want to be with him, I love him and want to keep our family together (we have 2 young girls, 2.5 and 7 months) but I know he's never going to stop and I'm going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life...

What should I do?!??