Patrick Foster

time that I had that wasn't sort of impacting other things, but it definitely changed over time as various things happened in life.

And I think that's what a lot of people don't understand is that actually, although it might start as something that's sort of fun and that you feel in control of,

it can change pretty quickly.

But also for me, there was some signs quite early on, like I wanted to do it more than other people.

I started doing it always with mates and then quite quickly found myself walking into bookies between lectures without anybody else knowing.

not telling people that I was doing it, telling people I had certain amounts of money on things when I actually had a lot more.

So that kind of deceit and lying started pretty soon, to be honest.

And I think that is one of the earliest sort of

signs to recognize and always sort of chasing my losses but also reinvesting my wins so there are lots of people who when they start out gambling if they put a fiver on something and they win 50 quid the next bet they'll put on will be five quid for me the next bet would always have been 50 quid

From the very beginning.

Exactly.

But you don't, weirdly, you don't think about it at the time.

You don't really realise it because you think, well, it's money that I wouldn't have had anyway, so I haven't really lost.

But of course you have.

And that's where the psyche behind it is just bizarre.

I mean, not a day went past where I didn't gamble in some form.

Yeah, from that day onwards.

Most of the time, I would have bets on, multiple bets on.

Obviously, at the beginning, the scale of them and the volume of them were less.

Towards the end, I mean, there wouldn't have been a minute of a day where I wouldn't have had some sort of bet in play by the time that it kind of all reached its peak.