It was Christmas Day in 2018 when things came to a head for Bev. By her own admission, it had been “a lovely day”. “Everything was hunky dory,” she says. “There was no reason why I should have gambled, but in my head - in a gambler’s head - it was Christmas Day, so you couldn’t possibly lose. I told myself that they wouldn’t do that to you on Christmas Day.”
Within 90 minutes, the 59-year-old from Newcastle had gambled away £5,000. “I emptied my husband’s bank account,” she tells The Independent. “I even borrowed money from my daughter claiming I had an urgent bill that needed paying. I lost the whole lot - and then I took an overdose.”
