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23.
March
2017.
Win Lose Repeat author available for interview-Problem Gambling Awareness Month

PROBLEM GAMBLING AWARENESS MONTH PRESS RELEASE

 

Author Chris Stringman is available for media interviews, expert commentary and editorial

commissions during


Problem Gambling Awareness Month March 1 - 31 2017

 

'Five years later, I am £130,000 down. My substantial savings have reduced to zero. I have sold the car and made a start on the capital of the house. I was that mark - just like everybody else.'


Chris Stringman, author of Win. Lose.Repeat. (Ortus Press, May 2017, £11.99)

 

The statistics make for shocking reading. The Gambling Commission* - the official regulator for gambling in Great Britain - estimates that nearly half of us will have gambled in the past month. 17% of people who gamble do so online, with 97% of online gamblers gambling at home, and use of mobile phones or tablet devices to gamble increased by 10% since 2015, to 43% in 2016.

 

This month (March) is Problem Gambling Awareness Month with this US based initiative aiming to help those everywhere who are struggling with the very real issues created by problem gambling - from relationship breakdowns, job problems, debt or even bankruptcy.

 

[image]Chris Stringman is the authorof Win.Lose.Repeat: My Life as a Gambler, From Coin Pushers to Financial Spread Betting, and knows first-hand the impact that problem gambling can have. Chris lost a total of £130,000, his car and nearly his home after becoming addicted to spread betting and other forms of gambling. His first taste of gambling was in the Cost Del Sol in 1981, aged 11, on the 5 peseta coindrop machines. A few years later he discovered the joys of fruit machines in a local arcade. As a school teacher, it also impacted on his job, such as when betting companies called the staff room chasing him for money.

 

Extract from Win. Lose. Repeat:

‘You are attracted to those flashing lights and beeps of the fruitie in your teens then poker's competitive nature and late-night hustling when you are in your twenties. You then take a more measured view and switch to spread betting in your thirties before eventually resorting to the slots in retirement when you are just too old and tired to think any more. This seems to be the general pattern for the gambler. The gambling companies know this and market to these target groups. You are not too difficult to seduce.'

 

Chris is available for interview and expert commentary on all gambling related subjects including:

  • How and why we gamble.

 

  • The signs that show gambling has gone from pastime to problem: for you or for a family member.

 

  • The tricks and cons that the big betting companies use to get you hooked.

 

  • The impact that problem gambling has on family, friends and colleagues.

 

  • What you can do to help yourself or help others.

 

  • Why gambling is this country's 'hidden addiction'.

 

  • Proposed Government legislation - what's being done and what more can they do.

 

For media enquiries and bookings, advance review copies, and more information please contact helenlewis@literallypr.com 

or bethmcdonald@literallypr.com

 

The Author

Chris Stringman is a British-born primary school teacher who currently lives in Berlin with his wife and child. He has appeared in publications, including the Financial Times, warning others about the dangers of gambling including spread betting. Win. Lose. Repeat is his first book published by Ortus Press, an imprint of Free Association Books due for release in May 2017.

 

*http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/news/2017/New-research-shows-almost-half-of-people-in-Britain-gamble.aspx