Internet gambler loses £158,000 in 50 minutes

WHAT???!!!

You read it correctly. A 25 year old Internet gambler from Aberdeen [Scotland] went on line in the early hours of April 3, this year. Using his dad's 13 credit cards (who the heck has 13 CC's?) he initially won £90,000. His luck ran out though, and he start to run into deficit. One credit card after another was used to its credit limit, until proceedings stopped at just over £68,000. Taking the aggregate with the initial winnings, total losses ran up to £158,000. As I said, the young man used his father's credit cards. The £68K would have to be paid, unless the transactions were reported to police as fraudulent. The gambler tried to take his own life, but fortunately failed. He stood trial earlier this week; sentence was deferred for 4 weeks for reports.

I know very little about gambling on-line, or gambling generally. I just fell off my chair when I read this story in a Scottish newspaper. As the judge at the trial said, this scourge of the 21st century, Internet gambling, needs to be addressed. It only took 50 minutes for this chap to lose £68k. People who would not normally go into a casino have no impediments in place for going into an on-line casino. There are regular adverts for an on-line casino on satellite TV in this country.