Inviting you into the heart of inspirational experiences and unforgettable testimonies, Conversations will spark your curiosity and encourage you in your walk with God.

<p>Inviting you into the heart of inspirational experiences and unforgettable testimonies, Conversations will spark your curiosity and encourage you in your walk with God.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Conversations with David Slack

Well, when I was younger, John, a lot of friends of my parents used to come round and play cards on a Sunday night.

And Now that I know, my father, he was a compulsive gambler as well, and my mum, she wasn't far off either, she loved gambling as well.

And so, I was introduced through this card game.

My mum sometimes would let me play a hand while she went out to prepare the evening snacks for the players.

And I used to sit listening to the radio.

I was really taken in by the commentary, the patter of the commentator.

And so I would sit all Saturday sometimes and look at the paper and pick horses out and imagine that they were running for me.

Probably around about 9 or 10, somewhere around about there.

Yeah, my grandfather also was a horse trainer and my father used to, he was a hairdresser and at the hairdresser's shops in those days, there was always lots of talks about sport and gambling and those sorts of things, yeah.

So you were a kid, 9 or 10 years old, listening to Sid Tonks or somebody.

Yeah, commentating on the gallops from around the country.

But that's all fairly innocent and innocuous.

Well, I'd go to the races with my mum and dad and The thing to do then was to pick up all the tickets on the ground that people had thrown away and try and sort through and hopefully someone had thrown away a winner or something like that and you could cash it in and get the money.

So probably at about maybe 13 I started going to the races, 12 or 13, probably 12 actually when I look back now, I started going to the races and I'd go down and walk horses after the race at the stables, got to know trainers and they'd give you half a crown for, oh, 2 and 6, or 25 cents as it is now, and they'd give you that much money to cool their horse around after a race.

And so if you did that 4 times, you had what is now a dollar.

Back then it was 10 shillings, but it was a dollar.

And then I started to ask some of the trainers if they thought that their horse would be worth putting a dollar on and they'd say yay or nay.

And so I'd get someone, because back in those days you had to be 21 to go and put money on in the tote.

And so I'd ask someone, could they go and put a dollar on for me?

And so that's where really where it started.

And yeah, I can remember, I can remember really the first bet that I had at 1.

And it was, I can even remember the name of the horses.

And it's really amazing that at Gamblers Anonymous that I'm involved in now, probably 90% or even more of the people that have come through said that the first time they've gambled, they've won.

It's really interesting listening to you say this.

I was going to ask you the question, were you successful as a kid gambling and you were successful in your first bet?

You can remember the name of the horse and where you were.

I can remember the name of the horse I first bought a ticket on.

Where They don't even have a totaliser, they have an equaliser.

So you spend the money and they give you a ticket for whatever it is.

And the horse that I had a dollar on won.

And I don't know how, 7 years old, that was it.

You start to figure out that you can give him a dollar and get $5.60 back or more, it sets you on a new path.

So you're 13 and the horse wins, and how long before you are, okay, as a teenager, a gambler.

You know, I started to live and breathe horses.

But if the home life hadn't been enough, you know, I attended every race meeting that I could.

So once you started gambling, How quickly did you get from gambling to stealing to support your gambling habit?

It got to the stage where I probably, when I went to work, and I may have jumped a bit ahead here, but probably by the time I was 20, I'd probably had maybe 20 jobs and what happened was is that I'd work at the wool stores and you'd only have to give an hour's notice and night trots had started then and so they'd pay you straight away and you'd go to the night trots, you'd lose your money, and that would happen 9 times out of 10, and the next day I'd start a new job at another wool store.

But quite often, you know, I'd go around the back of hotels, steal bottles.

Back in those days, you used to get sixpence for a large Coke bottle and threepence for a small Coke bottle.

And I'd take my duffel bag and fill it up, and then go to a dairy and cash up.

I can often remember back in those days, they used to deliver milk and bread and cream, and I'd go along the road, it'd be dark and I'd be going into people's milk boxes and taking the money out.

And then when I started work, I really, I ended up going into the snooker rooms and I wasn't much good at snooker.

And there was always gambling card games going on down there.

There'd be a bookie down there who would take bets.

And so then I started stealing product from the company that I worked for.

And 1 day I got a knock on the door and I was in bed and my mum answered the door and it was a policeman and...

So at the age of 16 you were actually quitting jobs So you could go to the races at night.

And then at the age of 16 or 17, you were stealing from your employer to support your gambling habits.

Well, the company decided that they, probably the worst thing that happened, the company decided that they wouldn't press charges.

And they even allowed me to work on until I said that I'd stolen about 60 pounds worth of stuff it was back then.

And so then I repaid that, they took that out of my pay and then I remember the section manager, who was a really nice guy, said to me, oh look David, you probably haven't got much future here, you know, it might be best that you went and got another job.

And So I went on to another job, stole off them.

Now you said the worst thing was that they didn't press charges.

Well, maybe at that stage, if I'd been charged, maybe I would have got a fright and maybe that would have stopped me, but probably not in hindsight, because being caught didn't stop me gambling.

So what about people who were not or are not problem gamblers?

I went into the TAB 1 time when I'd stopped gambling, when God had healed me from my gambling addiction.

And I wanted to go in there and put some signs up from Gamblers Anonymous and the manager of the TAB, oh no, you can't put any of those signs up in here.

And he said, there isn't many compulsive gamblers come in here.

And he said, oh, because we only have an odd guy that comes in and puts a hundred on, all those people that are putting 2 dollars each way or 5 dollars each way or a dollar each way, the recreational, so-called recreational gamblers, they're not compulsive.

But you go in in the morning and you see them there and they might only have an X amount of dollars.

And it might only be 10, they might only have $20, but they're still compulsive gamblers because they gamble until that's gone.

But you say the recreational gamblers, I had an accountant who told me with great glee that he was a recreational gambler, and there are some people that are, but he would go with his wife, if he was on holiday, he'd be away somewhere, maybe in Australia and go to a casino over there and they'd say, right, we're going to gamble for 10 minutes, we've got $50, if we win we'll go and have a meal, if not, well, we'll go and have a meal anyhow and we'll have to pay for it.

And So I guess that's their recreational pleasure, I suppose.

I guess they're around somewhere, But there's an old story that compulsive gamblers don't win.

But I've met compulsive gamblers who do win, but all their time is spent gambling.

They're either poring over a race book or They've got some system where they think they can win in the casino.

When I was a bookie, there were people that used to bet with me that won.

And in the end, you'd want to sack them because you couldn't beat them.

What is gambling doing by now to your life?

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Conversations with David Slack

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