Patrick Foster

Every time I got off the underground to go to work, there were these betting shops I could go to on my lunch breaks after work, bars I could go to every evening, casinos all night.

And for the first time ever in my life, really, that had been so structured, I didn't have anybody telling me what to do or what not to do.

things started to sort of escalate pretty quickly at that point.

Yeah, I mean, it was the kind of culture and environment that...

I was operating in, you're surrounded by a lot of money.

And the fact that I was gambling so much as well, there was this kind of just desire for more.

But also culturally, there was a big kind of drinking culture.

What came with that was often gambling.

And I just got sort of wrapped up in that culture.

believe that it was sort of normal and what people did.

But also when you're young and you're impressionable and you're trying to make your way, you're sort of conforming to that.

And there's certainly a, with me, there was a kind of way I wanted to be viewed.

I wanted to have this kind of

persona as somebody who lived life to the full and did all these things when actually i don't know deep down whether it's what i wanted to be doing but at the time i didn't realize that um and you just sort of get carried along in this sort of wave um which you believe is kind of the right thing to do we're still enjoying the gambling at this point

Yeah, I mean, more and more, to be honest, because I had more money, so therefore I could put bigger bets on.

And so whilst I was doing it more than I should have been, again, from an affordability point of view...

I wasn't in debt in the early days of my time in London.

I was leading a really unhealthy lifestyle, but I wasn't in debt.

But again, I wasn't making any good decisions around money because I wasn't saving a penny.

I was living paycheck to paycheck, any disposable income, well, that's money to gamble with.