A Gambler Born and Bred 5

1976, Colwyn Bay/New Brighton

The first year was tough. The prep school was high up in the hills, miles from town and the prom, and we were only allowed out on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Every month or so, Mum came to visit. She would take me to the Majestic Grill on the seafront for steak with all the trimmings. I loved these outings, especially as there was a fruit-machine tucked away in the bar area.

Instead of having a proper chat with Mum about school and my progress, I found myself watching the machine from the corner of my eye, losing track of conversation, trying to be Jekyll and Hyde at the same time. I devised a system whereby, between starter and main course, I would ask Mum if she would let me have a few quid to ‘see if I can win’.
I’d scurry through to the bar area and play. Once back, I’d make out to be chirpy from the experience. I’d always be down on the deal but still utterly absorbed. After the main course, I’d go back and play until dessert came, by which time I’d become morose, longing to gain revenge on the machine.

In between dessert and the bill, I’d be allowed to sneak an extra quid from Mum, ‘because the big one’s coming!’
It never did.

It was at this time that new, more sophisticated machines flooded the market. They were technically much more advanced than their predecessor; an entirely new interactive breed.
Called ‘nudgematic’, one could experience the heart-stopping moment when the machine gave out an alarm-like sound to let the person know that it was time to nudge. When this happened, one would be given about five or six seconds to bring down a winning combination by ‘nudging’ the button.

It was so completely different. The old machine only gave the opportunity to hold reels between plays.
I knew I had arrived when I played the nudgematic machines. They made me feel like an adult.

Nobody seemed to care that an eleven year old might plug a machine for hours in those days, and I have to admit that I feel angry that everyone in a position of authority turned a blind eye while I proceeded to lose every penny I could get my greedy hands on.

If a pre-pubescent adolescent tried to play a machine these days, firstly, he wouldn’t be able to reach the coin-slot unless he was abnormally tall for his age and, secondly, any number of people would have waded in with their ten pennyworth, warning him away from its evil clutches.

In those days, literally anything went. That’s why I got away with everything, I suppose.

I felt guilty leaving Mum on her own at the table, but the gravitational pull towards the machine was far more powerful an emotion; it was, after all, an overwhelming obsession.

At that time, I think Mum must have been too wrapped up in her own intricate problems to even contemplate dealing with mine or anyone else’s.

Maybe it was her guilt that afforded me the ‘luxury’ of her ignorance, because she always gave me more money.
I remember hearing that John Lennon had died while I was skate-boarding during that year.

In the winter break back from boarding school, I raced down to The Bright Spot only to find that it was closed till spring due to modernisation. In reality, Britain was in a bad financial state and no one had money to burn.

I found a small arcade next to a pub but it had ropey machines with sticky buttons and the Penny Falls were set up to lose. The owner of this hovel looked like a tramp.

Without too much ceremony, I entered the smelly pub instead. I’d noticed the lights of the new nudgematic fruit-machine through its smoke-glassed windows in passing by on the street.
The urge to try and play was too great, so I ambled over to the machine smelling the stench of stale tobacco, and waited a second or two for someone to shout me out.

When no noise came, I carefully placed a fifty-pence piece into the slot. This allowed me ten goes.
On the fifth go, nudges came up and I could see three melons. I brought them down to the win-line and punched the air. I’d won five pounds.
I had no intention of leaving the machine, though. Oh no, as far as I was concerned, I’d plough all my funds in. The fiver? The fiver was just a taste.
That wasn’t how it worked out, though.

The barman, openly fuming for the ease of my win, came over.
‘Take your money and get your arse out of here,’ he said. ‘Now!’
I raced out of the pub, half laughing and half petrified.

It wasn’t because he cared about my well-being that he threw me out. He had no hard lessons for me. There was no tough love on offer. It was much more likely that he’d just spent his day’s wages on it and detested me for winning them away from him. Maybe he was about to play it one last time, only to see me swipe the jackpot in a matter of seconds.

Gambling’s like that. There are so many losers that a winner is always eyed with envy and suspicion. It’s a personal thing; one gambler ‘takes’ the money from another, like a sibling taking a toy from a brother.

The arcade next door really didn’t interest me, so I waltzed up the road towards home.
I was absolutely desperate to find a machine to carry on playing but all the places along the prom were closed for winter.

I passed by a hotel where my sisters met with friends for drinks and wondered if they had a fruit-machine.
Ambling inside to reception, I made out as if I was looking for someone in the bar. One peek through the double-doors confirmed it; they had a brand new nudgematic machine.

Without delay, I calmly made my way over to the machine and placed a fifty-pence piece into the slot.
I heard a voice but cancelled it out. The obsession had gripped me and nothing could get in my way.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ the barman called out. ‘You have to be sixteen to play that.’
‘I am sixteen,’ I replied, turning sideways briefly to catch his eye, lowering my voice by an octave.
A customer approached the bar and held out his hand for service. For a second, I thought I’d had it, but, to my surprise, the barman let it go.

I couldn’t quite believe my luck. I wasn’t even twelve and this barman believed that I was sixteen. I had seriously arrived!

That was the first time I’d had to lie about my age from age seven till eleven. I’d never really needed to lie until then because the arcades never minded.
The fact of the matter was that I’d lied to a barman and the lie had worked.

Granted, I was tall for my age and my wavy hair gave me even more height, but my rosey cheeks and spindly legs were stonewall pre-pubescent.

After about an hour, I’d spent fifteen pounds. This was the first time I’d spent over a fiver in one session.
A strange wave of desperation coupled with loss came over me as I wondered out. It was an odd combination of feelings; I was sleepwalking but there was also an eerie feeling that everyone knew how much I’d messed up and were watching my pathetic exit.

I raced back home and snatched my post office book, cursing myself for not taking it in the first place.
But by the time I got to the post office, it had closed. It felt like I’d missed the last train to civilisation, lost in the cold.
That was when I began to learn about desperation. I had courted it and it had finally come to me.
I’d won my first nudgematic jackpot and then lost three times more than I’d ever lost, all in one day.
The powerful combination of winning and losing blew my mind.
I’d snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in spectacular fashion; a hit that I would strive to repeat as regularly as possible for the next thirty years.

Every gambler has that seminal moment; when it becomes very clear that gambling could easily kill them.
This, then, was the moment that I started to ‘chase my losses’. I didn’t care.
The obsession was too great a force to deny. Walking away from a machine when I still had money was an endurance test from hell. I just couldn’t.
I always felt that, by leaving the machine, I was betraying not only myself, but also the machine. The machine because it was like a friend, and myself because I could kid myself that it actually was a friend.

By the end of the school year, I had spent all the money in my post office account.
No one ever asked how I’d managed to spend the money with absolutely nothing to show for it.

That summer, I went on a school cruise to Italy, Greece and Turkey. I drank too much on an island. I later found out that I had been alcoholically psychotic after drinking a half-bottle of ouzo and a bottle of red wine. The nurse on board locked me in a room for two days without food or drinking water. I should have been given a stomach-pump, but if I failed to apologise to this awful woman, I’d be expelled from school, and that wasn’t an option.