Gambling ruined my life

Self exclusion, or you'll never stop. You'll get a big bonus and think you can win it all back with 1 hand and instead lose it all.

Hey, while I don't have a gambling history, I've experienced something similar which I won't go into.

1) You will bounce back. This will be ok. I don't mean this in a hand-wavey BS way, but the facts are that IF you manage your gambling problem, you will be fine financially. You're young, have no dependents, and are stepping into a career which will pay someone smart and handworking very handsomely in the long term. Your debt is comparable to a lot of students (depending on the geography - certainly I had more student debt than the debt you had; I think I had £28k of student debt when I graduated, and that was 2014 GBP). I'm selling my apartment in London for what it's worth right now and looking at a £25k loss. Just for perspective. If this is the worst loss in your life (from just general life), that's a good outcome

2) Control that gambling habit now. Black Hat's post is spot on and I have nothing to add, but end it.

3) Only you know the relationship dynamics, but I'd reconsider telling your mother (and friends). Yes it might be a shock at first, and it will hurt your price, but these are people who sincerely love you and want the best for you, and will support you. Also, it'll impose some discipline on you - if you get the itch (and you will), it'll be more difficult for you to decide to scratch it.

Posting anonymously but just sharing all isn’t  lost. I once made some mistakes and was in $100k credit card debt when I was younger. I’d say tell your parents and get help. A relative helped me out and I had to pay them back and lesson learned but this isn’t the end of the world to you- luckily you have a SA. But you need help as well- therapy or gamblers anonymous it’s not normal to gamble away your future and you’ll keep doing it if you don’t get help. 

A

Finally, a post I can relate to!

First off, I am not in IB but I work in Finance. But I want you to understand I know exactly what you're going through. This was me 3 years ago. I lost ~120k when I was 23 years old by yoloing into call options, online gambling, and crypto. There were many major wings and losses. But this was MY LIFE SAVINGS... EVERY ACCOUNT POSSIBLE WAS NOW $0. This was also when I was going through a career change and was back in University and had to take loans out for school because of this. I even set aside $20k in my savings for College that I said I wouldn't touch. I had a career which paid well but was extremely physically/mentally demanding and I needed to leave. I was losing weight, I lost my extremely fit body, I had eye bags, gray hair, and developed substance abuse issues.

 Anyways, I had extreme anxiety and depression, constantly thinking about money. And before you monkeys say I come from money, I grew up sleeping in a mobile home for 10 years of my life on the floor/closet/couch. My parents wouldn't let me turn the AC on when it was 78 degrees in the house cause it costed money and yes I am a first generation american. I have worked for everything I have. My parents used to dig food out of the trash can to survive when they first came to America.

Besides that, I want to say, it gets better. I know it's cheesy but it's JUST MONEY. I attended therapy for this reason and what I gathered was

1. Be glad that you lost all this money at this age rather than everything at 50 years old nearing retirement.

2. The fact you were even able to lose this amount of money at this age is impressive  and this leads to my next point.

3. You WILL make this money back. The fact you're in IB already tells me that you're a hard worker. You are on a career path that will pay you more than what 90% of people make. Some spend years just to break 6 figures and you'll be doing that fresh out of college still.

Now, I don't know what your personality is like. But for me, I was obsessed with money. Growing up without it and then having a 6 figure career at such a young age got to my head. I can't lie, I had somewhat of an ego and I cringe thinking about how I acted sometimes. Losing this much money forced me to take a low paying job that ONLY paid me $13 a hour while I was in University. Can you imagine making $4k a week into only $520 a week? That shit will humble you real fast. But while I was working this job, I met amazing people. People who were positive and happy with life despite making only that much money. I've never met such a genuine group of people. 

This really did make me become a better person. I am a LOT more humble now. I do not use money as a status to judge people and I certainly do not think I am ever better than anyone else just cause my paycheck is larger than theirs.

Since then, I've been able to spend money more easily and enjoy myself. When I was working this extremely stressful job, everything went into my investment/retirement accounts. God damn I was being paid $3,000-$4,000 a week and never took a vacation because all I wanted was to be able to retire at 45 years old.

Where am I now? I just graduated again recently and I make $70k a year. After everything taxes, insurance, contributions, etc... My paycheck is now ~$1,800 a month. About half of what I used to make, but guess what? I am happier now. I love going to work, I'm not stressed anymore, and I have a plan on what my financial goals are. I contribute a certain amount to my retirement, investments, emergency fund, etc.. and whatever I have left over, I use it for personal stuff like vacations.

If you ever need to talk to someone, reach out to me. I understand how fucking painful it is. How this will fucking keep you up at night. How you will keep thinking "WHAT IF." How other people won't understand.

Also please for the love of god, do not gamble anymore. Seriously, just start investing like a boomer into ETFs. I personally am going down the dividend route because I like the concept of being able to receive cash without having to sell my stocks. Some will say this is stupid, but invest by doing what makes you happy and is safe.

I don't have much more to add here versus what has already been said, but I do want to share that I've been in a similar position except my loss was literally 5x your amount and I contemplated suicide for some time and then finally attempted it but by a miracle I survived (rather not get into specifics). You are a bit younger too, so you actually have nothing to fear. Haven't even started your first real job yet. Now imagine if this happened after years of slaving away in IB like it was for me. Imagine the pain. You are so blessed this happened before you even started working. 

Now you are going to be SO AHEAD of where you should be you have no idea. You will actually be able to keep the money you are about to earn granted you learned this lesson super young AND with such a small amount of money frankly. The world is your fucking oyster man. I was essentially dead at one point and now I am back alive fighting for another day. I currently have a bottom tier net worth now compared to everyone else on these bullshit networth threads on here but guess what? I don't give a fuck. I've come back from hell and YOU WILL TOO.  

If you have time, read my post about the summer I got sucked into high stakes poker and blew through 500k in a few months.

Wanted to kill myself. But I hope reading that story will make you feel less alone and give you some hope. I was 30 when I did that, and you’re much younger than me and have so much time to build it back up.

The way I did was just stopping cold turkey, not even playing penny fantasy sports. That would be my advice, completely stop any type of betting and accept the moneys gone.

Quitters never hit it big!

All seriousness man, gotta quit cold turkey. Accept that you fucked up big time and move on. It's a rough go of it, I burned probably $50-60k myself over the past year playing mid-stakes poker. Gotta just move past it. Godspeed. 

I’ve spent some time at a couple casinos playing poker these past two weeks:

Harrah’s - Cherokee, NC:

Buyins: $420

Cashes: $2,040

Hard Rock Seminole - Hollywood, FL

Buyins: $1,600

Cashes: $1,040

Poker is a skill game. Even with losses I chalk it up to it being an experience.

$60k feels like a lot now.  But it will eventually prove to be a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things.  Don't chase it.  This is still small enough to become a forgotten incident in your life if you allow it to become that.  

Or you can chase it and waste tons of time, lose more money, and make it a life-changing thing.  This choice should be easy.

Quit cold turkey for 30 days. Try to not think about it, or the loss. It'll be excruciatingly hard to do for the first 2 weeks, but by the end your brain will have rewired itself a bit to untangle the addiction.

$60k is nothing, really. You can make that much extra in salary in 10 years time if you focus on your career and life now. 

Close down all your accounts, cut up all your credit cards, only use a debit card, and move all but 2 months of living expenses into a certificate of deposit.  Be a fucking man and take responsibility.  You are to blame and only you can fix this.  If you don’t have the will power then there’s nothing anyone can do for you.  I’m serious.  You probably didn’t want to hear this but you’re an adult and no one can force you to do anything.

I like how clearly you explained the whole zonder Cruks angle, and I think adding a quick note on how players can spot sketchy operators could make it even stronger. I’ve found the BlackTie gambling site handy for comparing safety cues without getting lost in jargon, so something along those lines might fit right into your post.

That's why you let the robots play poker and only gamble on if they will win

Bringing this back up. Almost 6 months clean at this point. Would anyone be interested in a WSO GA group? I find it hard to connect to general groups that don’t have many young people that can specifically relate.

double down each bet until you breakeven

I can relate, sounds really dumb but I also lost nearly $6k gambling in my local casinos in my junior year of college and was on track to lose all the money I had to pay my tuition, mostly by playing blackjack and slots. 

I was doing it at the time mainly due to (diagnosed) depression / anxiety disorder, as well as alcohol addiction and a close family member was in the psych ward at the time. 

But, I have now been sober from gambling for 1 year and 10 months, so if I can beat it, anyone can. Hope this gives you some perspective.

If I'm on WSO, there is an 85% likelihood that I am gambling. 

It's better that you learn this now than after you've incurred billions of losses for your firm and ruined your career. Consider this a cheap lesson:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Kerviel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howie_Hubler

Losing that kind of money can mess with your head, but talking about it is a solid first step. What helped me cool off was learning how to treat gambling more like a controlled hobby, and peakycasino.net actually gave me a clearer view of how to spot safe platforms and manage limits. It didn’t fix the past, but it made me feel less out of control while I focused on getting my footing back.