Erin is not her real name. Her name and some identifying details have been changed to protect her privacy.
If you met *Erin, gambling probably wouldn’t be the first thing that came to mind.
She worked. She paid the mortgage. She remembered birthdays, turned up when she said she would and was usually the person other people relied on.
From the outside, life looked pretty normal. And for a long time, that was part of what made it so hard to tell anyone what was happening.
“I didn’t look like someone who had a gambling problem,” she says. “I didn’t think I was someone who had a gambling problem.”
There hadn’t been one dramatic moment where everything suddenly fell apart.
Instead, the harm crept into ordinary life. A bit less money in the account than there should have been. Moving money around before bills were due.
Checking her phone constantly.
Thinking about how she could win back what she had lost. Telling herself that next time would be different. Then came the hiding.
Not necessarily big lies at first. More like omissions. Not mentioning exactly how much she had spent. Avoiding conversations about money.
Finding explanations for why something would have to wait until next pay.
“I was still functioning. That’s why I thought it couldn’t be that bad.”
The weight of keeping those things separate from the rest of her life became almost as exhausting as the gambling itself.
When we talk about gambling harm, we can easily picture the most extreme version.
Someone who has lost their home. Someone gambling every day. Someone whose life has visibly unravelled. But harm doesn’t begin at rock bottom.
For *Erin, one of the biggest barriers to recognising what was happening was that she could still function.
She still went to work. She still laughed with friends. She still bought groceries and answered emails and did the things that made her look, from the outside, completely fine.
Inside, things felt very different.
“There was this constant calculation happening in my head,” she says.
“What’s coming out of the account? What can I move? What have I spent? Can I fix it before anyone notices?”
Eventually, gambling wasn’t just taking money. It was taking her attention. Her sleep. Her sense of control. And increasingly, her ability to be present with the people around her.
Shame made it harder to ask for help
*Erin had heard plenty of conversations about gambling before.
People joking about someone having “no self-control”. People talking about “problem gamblers”. Messages telling people to “gamble responsibly”.
When she started wondering whether she needed help herself, those words came back.
If the message is that responsible people control their gambling, then what does that make you when you can’t?” she says.
For *Erin, shame became another reason to keep quiet.
She worried people would think she was irresponsible. That they would ask why she hadn’t simply stopped. That they would look at every decision she had ever made differently. It is one of the reasons language around gambling harm matters. A person experiencing gambling harm is still a whole person. They might be a parent, colleague, neighbour, business owner, student, volunteer or friend. They might be the person everyone else assumes has everything together.
And they may already be judging themselves far more harshly than anyone around them knows.
The conversation that helped wasn’t dramatic
The turning point for *Erin didn’t come from someone confronting her.
It came from someone noticing.
A person close to her could see she wasn’t herself.
They didn’t ask, “Have you got a gambling problem?”
They asked whether she was okay.
Then they stayed long enough to hear the real answer.
“They didn’t tell me I was stupid,” *Erin says. “They didn’t immediately start telling me what I had to do. They just listened.”
That mattered. Because asking for help didn’t mean everything was suddenly fixed. There were still difficult conversations. There were finances to untangle. There were behaviours and triggers she needed to understand. There were moments when shame still told her she should have been able to deal with it herself.
But she wasn’t dealing with it alone anymore. And that changed what was possible.
You don’t have to wait until everything falls apart
One of the things *Erin wishes she had known earlier is that gambling support isn’t only for people in crisis.
You don’t need to have lost your house. You don’t need to be gambling every day. You don’t need to have reached some imaginary threshold where your situation is finally “bad enough”. You can ask for help because gambling is worrying you.
Because you are hiding it. Because money is becoming harder to manage. Because you are worried about someone else. Or simply because something doesn’t feel right anymore.
Support can include talking through what is happening, understanding gambling behaviours, looking at practical ways to reduce access to gambling, working through financial impacts and supporting family members or others affected.
For *Erin, recovery hasn’t been one heroic decision. It has been lots of smaller ones.
Talking instead of hiding. Looking at the bank account instead of avoiding it. Asking for support when things feel difficult. Learning to recognise the thoughts that once sent her back towards gambling. And slowly rebuilding trust, including trust in herself.
If someone you know doesn’t seem quite themselves
You don’t need to diagnose gambling harm.
You don’t need proof.
And you don’t need the perfect words.
You can start much more simply.
- “I’ve noticed you seem really stressed lately. Are you okay?”
- “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable sharing, but I’m here.”
- “Would you like me to help you find someone you can talk to?”
If gambling is part of what is happening, responding without judgement can make it much easier for someone to keep talking.
That conversation might also be needed by a partner, parent, child, friend or colleague affected by another person’s gambling.
Gambling harm doesn’t only affect the person placing the bet.
Help is available in Canberra, before things reach crisis point
If something in *Erin’s story feels familiar, confidential support is available.
ACT Gambling Support Service provides free gambling support and counselling.
1800 858 858
actgamblingsupport.org.au
Gambling Help Online provides free national counselling and online support.
gamblinghelponline.org.au
Lifeline provides 24-hour crisis support if you or someone else is in immediate emotional distress.
13 11 14
lifeline.org.au
You can also visit Every Story Matters, the ACT’s lived experience resource, to hear and learn from people affected by gambling.
everystorymatters.act.gov.au
You can contact a gambling support service even if you are unsure whether what you are experiencing “counts”.
You can also contact them because you are worried about somebody else.
The person experiencing gambling harm may not look the way you expect
Today, *Erin doesn’t want people to hear her story and think, “I would never let that happen to me.” She hopes they think something different. Maybe this can happen quietly. Maybe people can be struggling while still turning up to work, caring for their family and looking completely in control. Maybe asking for help shouldn’t require someone to prove how badly they are hurting first.
And maybe when someone finally does tell us what is happening, the most useful response isn’t judgement or advice.
It might simply be:
Thank you for telling me. What would help right now?
Want to understand more?
The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission’s Let’s Change the Conversation: A Guide to Talking About Gambling and Related Harms was co-designed with people with lived experience and provides practical guidance for talking about gambling in ways that reduce stigma and make it safer for people to seek support.
Because sometimes the person who needs help is not the person you expected.
Sometimes, you would never have known.
