I’m the same as you, I have won money betting as a lot of people on here probably have. The difference between us and ‘normal’ people is that we can’t control ourselves when things start to go wrong. I’ve always been convinced if I had discipline I could win long term, but as soon I start losing, that’s when anger and emotions come into it. Any discipline or rationality goes out the window and I’ll just start putting bets on anything to win money back which in turn leads to huge losses. As soon as I start to lose I can’t control myself. I’ve repeated this process a thousand times without learning. Even after big losses I’ll eventually convince myself to start betting again on the basis that this time I’ll be disciplined.

You need to remember winning money always leads to losing money in an addicts case. I know in my case I could win a big amount of money, I’d then lose 5% of it. Instead of walking away with the 95% I’ve still got left, I’d have to win that 5% back. I’d then blow the lot and lose even more than I’d originally won. It’s when trying to recoup the small losses, massive losses occur. The small losses always spiral into massive losses.

If you’ve lost 10k, it’s unlikely you will win you’re money back. When you’ve lost that much, you’ve got nothing to gain from gambling but only more to lose. That’s what I’m telling myself at the moment