A teenager who got addicted to gambling managed to spend the mind-blowing amount of £80,000 on betting online after stealing his father’s credit card.
The 13-year-old boy from Lancashire became interested in gambling after seeking online bookmakers’ advertisements at the time he watched a football match at Wembley Stadium. The youngster committed the credit card fraud for a year, with him spending £60,000 for a week on online gambling websites.
Reportedly, the teenage boy shared that he started betting online after he attended Wembley Stadium to watch a football match, and saw the online bookmakers’ adverts on screens and boards around the pitch. Then he used his mobile phone to take pictures of his father’s credit cards and used his identity to register a betting account. He then started placing hundreds of bets on a weekly basis on horse races and football matches, with some of the stakes placed amounting to as much as £3,000.
The amounts spent by the boy were left unnoticed at first, but six months later the credit card fraud got uncovered after a single call from the bank. The teenager made a confession right after his parents confronted him, with his spending at the time having reached more than £20,000. He had meetings with a psychotherapist to deal with the problem after the fraud got uncovered, and his parents believed that such a thing will not happen again.
However, several months later, the teenage boy started gambling again, with his betting session having gone for a week, during which his debts increased to a further £60,000.
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In an interview for the Sunday Mirror, the boy whose identity is not revealed said that he had never realised that gambling could have been so addictive. He further said that it had seemed like fun and he had believed that he could have earned some money at the same time. As far as signing up with the online betting websites was concerned, the teenager explained that making a registration had been extremely easy, as he had been required to provide only a name, address, date of birth and credit card details, as well as to check a box confirming he had been 18.
The boy, now 15, explained he was sorry for what he had done and said he realised that his life and the ones of his parents would not be the same any more. Still, the family decided to share their experience as a warning to others about the dangers of online gambling, regardless of the player’s age.
Recently, the UK Government has revealed in a report that 25,000 children between 11 and 16 years suffer from gambling addictions. As revealed by the major gambling regulatory authority in the country, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), the number of 16-year-old individuals addicted to gambling has increased by one-third over the last three years. The increasing number of problem gamblers, especially among children, made Members of Parliament to call the local authorities for stricter rules to be imposed on gambling rules and regulation in order to ensure better protection for children.
- Author
Daniel Williams
