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ADDICTED TO GAMBLING STUDENTS APPEAL FOR HELP

By NOKUPHILA HAJI | 2025-01-24

SOME university students are appealing for public assistance in getting out of gambling and dealing with their addiction.

Some of these students took it to social media platforms asking for public assistance in dealing with their gambling addiction. According to the students, their addiction started small and they were able to get returns, which influenced them to continue betting.

One of the students said his addiction started three years ago after bring drawn to it by a Facebook post while scrolling.

“I decided to give it a try and it worked for me because I was doing it for fun. I used to win E150 to E200 at first and there was this time when I won E700. In 2023, I played aviator and deposited E300. I won E10 000 and that is when the addiction started,” he said.

He added that after winning the E10 000, he did not withdraw the money but placed a bet using it. He said he never even got a chance to withdraw E1 of that money because all of it was placed as a bet.

“From that day my mind got programmed into thinking that I can always win a lot of money. I started depositing big amounts and considered this thing as a source of income.

“Last year I borrowed around E4 000 from a friend with an intention of starting a business but I ended up taking that money and placed it under a bet,” he said.

He said he used the whole amount in betting and ended up losing it due to that he was trying to recover the money that he had lost while still betting.

selling
The student said he ended up selling everything he had in the house so that he can come up with money to bet.

“I sold a bed, laptop, and a fridge, and the money I got from selling those items was all lost to betting. I then went to another friend and borrowed E3 000 which I also lost to betting,” he said.

He said this was when he started having many challenges since he had nothing in his room and was left with no money. He said things became hard after he had to go for an internship because he had to stay in an empty house.

“I used to ask for transport money from relatives but I placed that money in a bet and lost everything. Because I could not miss work, I had to walk for a distance that was over 12km. I received money as an internship allowance but I ended up losing it to gambling.

This was over E5 000,” he said.
Adding, the student said he received his living allowance in bulk last year in October amounting to over E7 000, which he used to pay his first debt. He said he tried to multiply the remaining money through betting but lost all of it.

“The following month government gave us over E3 000 and I took the money and used it for betting and I lost all of it. I had to buy clothes because we were now back in school and attending classes but I had nothing,” he said.

He said he borrowed money from another friend and deposited it into his account but lost all of it. He said it stayed there for over a week and then took it and deposited it in his Mobile Money account.

“I had deactivated my account and I ended up using sim another card because I had deactivated the first one. I was tempted to try and use E100 but I then used all of the money.

At this moment I owe E2 500 in rent, I owe my friend E3 000 and I am without a laptop to use for school,” he said.

He appealed for the public’s assistance in stopping his addiction, highlighting that after losing the money, everything stopped. He said he even loses focus at school and gets suicidal.

“I would like an aggressive route to take to end this whole thing because when I try to stop, I have triggers. Anyone who might be willing to help me may do so through contacting this publication because I am no longer doing this willingly,” he said.

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