‘Gambling can be more addictive than heroin and it killed our son’ – The Telegraph

We get accused of being prohibitionist but gambling as such isnt a single homogenous product, says Charles. Putting a pound on the National Lottery every week is light years away from playing high-speed electronic games with incredibly high addiction rates.

Its not just the speed, adds Liz. Its deliberately engineered addiction these particular kinds of games have a higher addiction rate than heroin 48 per cent of people who play them become addicted, or at risk of serious harm.

When Jack started playing, he had two very early wins: his parents learned later from one of his friends that he won 500 in two successive spins. So for a 17-year-old who goes to school with his dinner money and comes back with 1,000, thats a big deal. And research shows theres a very high correlation between people who get big early wins and the development of addiction.

That was the start of Jacks addiction he carried on visiting bookies, and eventually went to his parents, very upset, and confessed that hed lost 5,000 that his grandmother had given him. The family took action. He self-excluded from all the local bookmakers leaving a photograph and signing a form so he would not be admitted again.

It seemed to work. But when Jack turned 18 and went to university, he took up online gambling. When he gambled away his student loan, he again turned to his parents, who bought blocking software for his computer, rendering him unable to gamble online; it also blocked the adverts that plague the inbox of every frequent gambler. It worked but what they hadnt realised is that the software licence expired after 12 months. Jack started again, taking out a bank loan.

There was one month where he lost 8,000, says Charles, but that was the only time he lost a substantial amount. When we discovered the scale of Jacks gambling by looking at his bank accounts he hadnt lost that much. He wasnt one of those people who lost tens of thousands of pounds it was fairly small amounts consistently over the whole period of his life. I think he probably lost 30,000 over a period of seven years.

At various times he discussed the problem with his parents, went to his GP and attended Gamblers Anonymous, though he didnt find that much help. He managed to get back on track after each episode, and each time his parents thought he had things under control.

Jack did a lot to change his life, says Charles. He left a job he didnt like and found himself a volunteering opportunity in Kenya working with young entrepreneurs, then did a course in Spain on teaching English as a second language and got himself a job in Hanoi, doing just that. He loved it and made lots of friends. I dont know if he would have carried on teaching but hed found a direction, something he wanted to do, and he would have been a great success. He was very personable, made friends easily and was very clever.

He actually hadnt gambled for six months until the week that he died we found this out later by looking at his bank account. But in November 2017 he called his parents from Hanoi, saying he felt down, and admitted that hed been gambling again. They offered to pay for his flight home and clear his losses, but he said he was fine and had lots of friends there. None of them knew he had a gambling problem.

Charles and Liz bought him more blocking software, which was never installed, but had no idea how serious things had become. If Id known about the suicide risk we would have done so much more, says Liz. We would have gone out there or contacted the friends he was with. On 22 November Jack took his own life. In his suicide note, he said he feared hed never be free of his addiction.

His parents decided never to hide this. We knew that gambling had killed Jack. It was absolutely clear and we felt that this was something that the world needs to know.

At Jacks funeral, Liz says, they decided to take action. Charles made a speech. I talked about Jacks addiction, because all his friends knew that Jack gambled, like so many of them but they had no idea why he had suddenly taken his life, and they needed to know. Our community needed to know.

There were hundreds of people at his funeral, says Liz, and they came back here and we had a fire stack in the garden built by some of our friends. Everybody knew Jack. Were a small community in some ways, and the parents of kids that were in Jacks cohort, from primary school up to university they all came.

Afterwards Liz and Charles started doing research into gambling in general, into suicide figures and they heard tragic stories from other families who had experienced the same thing. The Ritchies were shocked by what they discovered: by the lack of regulation, by the massive lie that weve all been sold that this is a fun leisure product.

And by the numbers: a landmark study conducted on behalf of GambleAware in 2021 found that 1.4 million people in the UK are being harmed by their own gambling, with a further 1.5 million at risk. And according to research by the University of Bristol, 55,000 children aged 15 and under have a gambling addiction.

It is an addiction like any other but gambling is not only legal, it is actively encouraged by incessant marketing.

Gambling with Lives was born around the kitchen table, with several families putting in some money to start it off, and they initially had help from a benefactor, Derek Webb, a former professional poker player who funded the Campaign for Fairer Gambling and Stop the FOBTs. They appointed a board, and in November 2018 booked an event at Parliament; they instigated debates and harangued politicians. And via Jacks inquest, they held the gambling industry to account.

The inquest into Jacks death took place earlier this year, partly delayed because of Covid. We had an amazing legal team, says Liz, who advised us that it might be possible to get Article 2 status under the Human Rights Act which means asserting that the government didnt protect Jacks right to life.

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'Gambling can be more addictive than heroin and it killed our son' - The Telegraph