In London, a doctor’s surgery manager stole around $106,000 because she was addicted to slot machines and internet bingo. The 36 year old did this by giving herself a raise, forged checks and scammed the office by paying off her debt. She got caught because the surgery’s bank manager raised an alarm when he found out the account has exceeded its $25,000 limit. If you look at the picture of this lady you would never guess she had this problem that she was hiding from everyone. It is so amazing to me to see the lengths that people go to, to aid their addiction. Now she is going to be in jail for this up to two years! Wow.  

There was a similar story in the news about a week ago.  I felt the same way, like how could this woman do this to everyone, especially her family.  She was such a compulsive gambler that she quit her job to gamble at home while her husband worked.  He was in an accident so he got his retirement.  She spend $700,000 of her husbands money, withdrawaling 25,000 at a time.  She borrowed from her daughter, would empty out her account, borrow from friends, any way she could get money.  Eventually, her health got really bad and she died of a massive heart attack.  Her husband,  who is paralyzed and her daughter who is in college, are finding out the full extent of her gambling problem.  She left her family $1.5 million in debt and they're left wondering everyday if its the day that the bank will take away everything.  Her daughter said she realizes that she never really knew her mom and her dad is absolutely heartbroken.  This story made me so sad.  It seems crazy how someone could do this to their family, leave them with no room to grief because they have so much debt because of her selfish addiction.

i have another story about this same thing. a woman who was working at a tile company stole around $235,000 to help with her gambling addiction. from 2001-05 she was in charge of bookkeeping and the accounts manager. she stole so much money the company had the file for bankruptcy and the 74 year old owner is completely broke, with no company. how messed up is that? small businesses like that cant afford to lose that much even if they are doing big jobs with a lot of money coming in.

Omgod these stories are crazy! I knew gambling addictions could get bad but I never ever thought they would be this bad and put themselves and families in that much debt and trouble. I thought after so much they finally realise their problem not keep going because this isn't like any other addiction, you can actually see the extent of your problem by seing how much money you have spent. But thats crazy!!

These are sad situations, but I just read another story like these. A guy was just freed from jail after 22 mo from stealing money from a bank to support his online poker addiction. He has to remain on probation until 2016 and isn't allowed in a casino until then. He stole around $3000 from the bank and for years to come will be paying for what he did. I bet this has forever changed his life.

I actually know a guy who stole money from his girlfriend, his parents, friends he has no one to turn to now because he betrayed them all. I'm sure none of them (except maybe his parents) would understand about his problem.

I wonder how this woman is going to pay back all of the money she owes?  I hear cases like this all of the time, even elderly people are caught stealing thousands of dollars.  If they have to go to jail for a number of years, and they're too old to work, then do they still have to pay the money back?  If they don't, if could mean a lot of money lost to these loan offices and banks.

If they're old and they get that much in debt I wonder what happens. Theres no way to pay it, wouldn't she just keep getting sued and keep having to spend jail time?

reef13 said:

i have another story about this same thing. a woman who was working at a tile company stole around $235,000 to help with her gambling addiction. from 2001-05 she was in charge of bookkeeping and the accounts manager. she stole so much money the company had the file for bankruptcy and the 74 year old owner is completely broke, with no company. how messed up is that? small businesses like that cant afford to lose that much even if they are doing big jobs with a lot of money coming in.

This is so sad! she didn't just ruin her life but this poor company owners life! I'm sure they probably had their hearts and souls put into this company! Thats how most owners are

So I just moved in with my new roommate and things have been great. One problem though. She always has friends over and after a while she noticed that some of her money have been stolen. It's obviously not me, but she told me some things about some of her friends and she said one of them likes to gamble and in fact they have played poker at our house. I wonder if her friend has a problem that they are unaware of, but I'm worried because I don't want any of my things stolen. What could we do about this? She doesn't want to accuse him, but we don't want our things stolen.

I think your friend should definitely ask where her money went!  I'm the type of person who is protective of my things and if something comes up missing, it makes me so mad!  I think people who steal are so low, and to steal from your friends is so messed up.  Just ask like, do  you know where my money went?  And ask everyone who was there, maybe it wasn't him but someone else saw it misplaced.

That happened to me before too, but it was one of best friends at the time. We were going out and I knew from the beginning that she had no money because she was over at her friends house and came to mine straight from there. We were 13 at the time BTW so all the money we would get was from our parents. My mother gave me $50, it was also an extra birthday present. Anyway I had it next to my TV I even folded it in a strange way. We decided to go watch a movie and when I went to get my fifty it wasn't there. I asked everyone if they saw it and everyone said no. Luckily I had an extra twenty as well. So we still went and I was really bummed out about losing that money. When we were at the Kiosk paying for our tickets I was watching my friend pay and she took out a fifty, it was the same fifty that was mine, with the same strange folds indented onto it. I asked her if that was mine and she said "no my mom gave me this" I still see her now and then and I always remember that. Its really hurtful when a friend steals from you.

I think these types of situations happen more than we think. A woman who’s a nurse stole money from the man she was taking care of who was a quadriplegic. She stole tens of thousands of dollars from her patient by cashing unauthorized checks, inflated her payroll checks and took cash advances using his bank card. The lady and her husband mortgaged their home and borrow money from relatives paying the man back $100,000 and has apologized to her family and the victim. Now she is in treatment with the state’s problem gambling program and attends Gamblers Anonymous.

I have never stole any money to gamble, but I have gambled all that I made at my business for 7 years, hundreds of thousands. My family doesn't know, boyfriends doesn't know, and I have all of my property. I am getting out of the business because it is too tiring to work for nothing, gambling it all away, what is the point? I have stopped going to the casino each week, actually signed myself out. this really works, and since I have assetts at this point but no cash on hand, I have asked my boyfriend to start watching how I spend money to keep me frugal during this "tight" time. Again, he has no clue. I have made some steps but really think unless it got this close, no cash, I could very much have lost more. I have very good credit and wouldn't not pay any bills. I just knew that I had to do something now or risk some very bad behavior!!!!  I thought this was something that is fun but IT IS absolutely very very addictive and can absolutely ruin peoples lives, in a relatively short amount of time if you let it. There ARE a lot of people out there with HUGE problems. I know I SAW them each and every week, right by my side.

There are some really sad stories posted here but the people that are addicted to gambling suffer from an illness and they don't understand what they're doing to their families. Some really take it to the top like the woman that left her family with $1.5 million debt, what a crazy sum ... Unfortunately, the addicted manage to hide the illness a long time so the relatives won't be able to help or stop them, then sooner or later they're borrowing money and that's the point when you should be alarmed.