Debt options

bfjf

Hello there, I am now running into debt problems and I am unsure what to do. Ill detail my story and hopefully can receive some advice.

For the last 3 years I have been playing poker professionally, mostly online. As it is classed as gambling I have not paid tax in this time or claimed benefits. Previous to this I worked full time, mostly in low paying temp jobs and paid tax etc, I was made redundant and claimed jobseekers for 6 months before signing off and officially playing poker.

I got my 1st credit card when I was working fulltime on £12k per year with a £1k limit later increased to £1.5k This was maxed out and after 2 years I balance transferred to another card and closed the account. CC2 came with a £3k limit which was maxed when I was made redundant from my job. At the time poker was going well and I had some money saved so I decided to try playing professionally. I had the money to pay off the credit card in full however, not wanting to pay out £3k at once I kept paying monthly depending on how good of a month I had, minimum payments on bad months, 1.5x-2x the minimum on good months.

In February this year I balance transferred to a new credit card after reading this site, I applied for it online and they gave me a £10k limit despite my application noting I was self employed/independant means. My plan was to close the account of CC2 and use the 0% interest period on CC3 to pay off as much as possible and then close the account and be done with credit cards forever.

A huge downturn in the poker industry and a personal losing streak (disappointing but not impossible for even the best players) meant I was left short on living expenses. A major legal case in USA meant 1 of the biggest online poker sites closed and everyone lost the money in their accounts, I had more than £10k in it personally and some people had more than £1 million in theirs. While this is not 100% gone just yet, it does not look promising for players to get their money back and for me this meant that I had lost a large part of my bankroll. I have had to play much smaller stakes and therefore have not been able to make close to the amount of money I could make in my normal games.

In that time I have maxed out both CC2 and CC3 for a total of £13k, mostly using each to pay my monthly bills (including lifting money from 1 to pay the minimum payment for the other). I now have nothing in my bank account and even if I cashed out what is left of my bankroll it wouldnt make any difference. I was reckless with money as I didnt imagine not being able to make at least enough to survive on at poker even when things got bad and nobody could have seen that pokersite closing without paying everyone back.

I live at home with a parent and I own my own car. The car is quite old and probably not even worth £2k so Id rather keep it as the money it would raise doesnt help enough to offset not being able to drive anywhere. My parent pays rent to the council for the house and charges me £250 per month which goes towards rent/bills/shopping etc. While she is willing to let me pay late when I dont have the money, she cant afford to just let me not pay it, so any missed months will have to be repayed eventually. She also cannot afford to loan me to pay bills short term.

My other expenses outwith the CC's are £250pm for rent, £30pm for car insurance and £30pm for my phone contract.

My intention is to sign on and find a job until playing poker professionally becomes an option again (and this time eliminate CC's completely and prepare properly for these kind of events) however in the short term I just cant pay the bills anymore. I need advice on dealing with the CC companys. Can I tell CC2 I no longer have a job and CC3 that my financial status has dramatically decreased and will they work something out with me? Ideally I need a month or 2 off from payments while I try to find a job, is this possible?

Also what kind of advice can i get for buying more time to either get a job or let poker get me out of it? Is a loan or another credit card a good or bad idea?

Also any other advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Brenster

My advise is harsh but true;

'Stop gambling, and get a real job'

You cannot rely on a regular income from Poker, for people to win, other people must lose, its one of lifes balances !

Get a job, work hard, rely on a GUARANTEED wage, and enjoy seeing your debt reduce slowly month on month.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE listen to this advise, if you dont I predict you will be re posting in 1 or 2 years time with 3 or 4 times as much debt.

findingmyownway

The notion of playing poker 'professionally' is alien to me I'm afraid.


I gather you have £13k debt after playing this game for 3 years? How old are you?

My advice is simple too: 1) contact a gambling addiction counselling service, 2) get a job, 3) continue reading and posting here as I think you have a lot to learn (for example, the notion that you had 'savings' when you started playing poker is simply not true... your credit cards were already building by that point).

Good luck

bfjf

Pretty short-sighted view and I half expected it.

I played professionally for 3 years and for 2.5 of that my CC debt reduced gradually. Of the £13k CC debt I ran up around £11k of it in the last 6 months with less than £2k of that being on poker. The rest was spent on holidays/trips, clothes etc and then paying monthly bills when my bank balance got low, I had been living a similar lifestyle for the 2.5 years previous but paying for it with money I had in the bank.

I am guilty of not preparing properly for losses that can occur to even the best players from time to time and I am guilty of not taking more serious action sooner when a large portion of my bankroll got locked up in the site that closed. I have a proven record in these games though and I am a long term winner and this has taught me to never take for granted having enough money saved to withstand a downswing like this again. With this in mind I think talk of a gambling addiction is wide of the mark.

Tixy

If you can't afford the repayments on your debts then you need to try to negotiate with your creditors to pay less. You can either do that yourself by writing to them, telling them your only income is from benefits (if it is) and offer them reduced payments or by contacting one of the debt charities and seeing if they will act on your behalf to do the same.

It will severely affect your credit rating, you won't get any more credit for a while and so will have to live without credit.

You are also going to need to drastically change your lifestyle if you ran up £11k of debt in 6months. I'd suggest you look through all your outgoings and see what can be cut out / got cheaper or reduced.

I'd also start looking for employed work. Even if you decide to carry on playing poker you have now felt the effect of the risks of having an uncertain income, if you can find a paid job then you should always be able to make ends meet and pay for the priority items. Obviously if you are working then your credit card companies will expect you to increase the repayments you make to the cards (if you've previously arranged reduced or token payments). If they think you are not paying all you can afford there is a greater risk they would consider court action against you.

Once your debts are repaid then you might be in a position to try playing poker again to supplement your earned income - or play it part time (although of course not with money that is owed to your credit cards).

Was any of the £11k built up on assets you can now sell to pay off some of the debts? Your outgoings appear to be very low - so even if some went to pay your bills this can't have been more than £2k from what you've posted. What did the rest of the £11k go on? was it all on holidays and clothes?

findingmyownway

bfjf wrote: »

Pretty short-sighted view and I half expected it.

I played professionally for 3 years and for 2.5 of that my CC debt reduced gradually. Of the £13k CC debt I ran up around £11k of it in the last 6 months with less than £2k of that being on poker. The rest was spent on holidays/trips, clothes etc and then paying monthly bills when my bank balance got low, I had been living a similar lifestyle for the 2.5 years previous but paying for it with money I had in the bank.

I am guilty of not preparing properly for losses that can occur to even the best players from time to time and I am guilty of not taking more serious action sooner when a large portion of my bankroll got locked up in the site that closed. I have a proven record in these games though and I am a long term winner and this has taught me to never take for granted having enough money saved to withstand a downswing like this again. With this in mind I think talk of a gambling addiction is wide of the mark.

Short sighted? Really?

You claim for 2.5 years you were 'winning' on the poker. Yet you could only afford to gradually reduce the CCs during this time? Based on your first post, your outgoings are £250pm for rent, £30pm for car insurance and £30pm phone contract. Thats £310 month outgoings... where did the rest of your poker 'profits' go?

I realise you are getting a bit of a hard time here, but I do think you need a bit of a reality check.

To answer the original questions: "Also what kind of advice can i get for buying more time to either get a job or let poker get me out of it? Is a loan or another credit card a good or bad idea?" The concept of 'buying time' until the poker can 'get you out it' is certainly one which raises the possiblity of a genuine gambling problem, I don't think this is wide of the mark at all.

So what do you think you are going to do? Has anything you have read on here made you think that a proper job would be a more sensible choice?

BTW, how old are you?

bfjf

Yes short sighted. Its obvious you dont know much about poker or the poker industry with your comments including "proper job", most people just associate it with gambling like sports betting, roulette, blackjack etc and assume that people that lose have a gambling problem.

I built my bankroll up gradually, when I won money Id take out what I needed and a little extra and leave the rest in to grow my roll and gradually move up in stakes. In the 2.5 years I was winning I was spending over £2k per day on buy ins (from my poker account, totally seperate from the money I had in my bank account or available credit card money) and over the course of time had several downswings of £10k+ over the course of a few weeks/months but also several upswings by the same amount and more. Long term variance is the bottom-line when playing poker professionally and you have to be able to understand what kind of swings can naturally occur at the stakes you play and then manage to your bankroll to withstand those swings. By your logic, do I have a gambling problem when Im losing but not when Im winning? Every poker player in the world is subject to swings in either direction at a rate which depends on the stakes they are playing, are they all addicted when they are losing too?

It all didnt just happen by accident too, I worked extremely hard. My typical day is between 10 hours of playing 5 or 6 days per week mostly and around 10 hours per week studying the game, looking over every hand I played looking for mistakes or ways to improve, joining discussions on forums to improve ideas and technical aspects, watching videos and talking to other pros and trying to share as much information as possible. Not just work put in on my actual game but also work put in on researching things like developing trends in the game, which sites have which games, at what times and with which players, how to interpret stats and how to apply them to my game and to my bankroll management technique.

As for the "proper job" comment, I made over £60k profit last year and a little less the year, I worked hours that I chose, I had no boss telling me what to do everyday. If I wanted a day/few days/weeks off I could do it, if I felt like going somewhere I could go the next day. Im 26, I now have a 3 year gap on my CV, I have a computing degree that is probably useless now and in around 3 years of working full-time 9-5 before redundancy , the job I got originally through an agency paid £12kpa and I was on £14kpa when I left. So tell me, what chance do I have of getting a "proper" job that pays close to £60kpa and lets me choose my own hours and is something I truely enjoy doing?

As for what did I spend on. It could be the main problem I do have in regards to "gambling". There are lots of help and advice for people when they are losing, but none for people that are winning. I felt invincible, I spent too much too quickly. See something I liked I would buy it, clothes, laptops etc. Id go to nice restaurants, if I felt like going somewhere, anywhere, Id go and on nights out Id spend a fortune. Its pretty common amongst younger poker players so when I travelled for live events I would go out for nights out with the other players and it would be insane. I spent money because I thought Id just win it back online sooner or later and that Id never go broke, so I rarely worried about saving money just incase.

I could have paid off the £3k CC at any time for most of that time, but having £100 leave my bank account each month sounded much better than having £3k leave my bank account.

Obv now I regret not being smarter with the money I did withdraw from poker and not preparing properly. I went on a fairly big downswing at the exact time I had a large portion of my bankroll locked up on the site that closed. It made a huge difference, I could have won enough to not hit the CCs if I still had access to that money and if I wasnt winning I couldve cashed some out to cover myself and dropped down stakes. Now Im starting again from almost the bottom rung of poker and I definitely will not be giving up on it.

TBH I didnt post here to ask for help about the poker area of my life. I have poker friends and poker forums for that where people will be brutally honest about your ability and can give good advice about the hazards of playing professionally. I posted here for advice on how to deal with the debts in the short term, I added the extra info as I thought I had a more unique situation than most people that probably post here.

Id like to thank Tixy for the advice given, just what I was looking for. I made a huge mistake by ignoring the problem earlier and using credit, so I shouldnt compound that by getting more credit in the hope I can turn things around before that runs out. I have applied for jobseekers and am currently looking for jobs. If I have to, I will contact my CC companies and tell them my situation and ask for some sort of reduced payment until I am in full time employment again and from there Ill use the guaranteed income to pay my bills while I rebuild my poker bankroll in my spare time. My energy will be focused on clearing my whole CC debt between wages and the majority of poker winnings and then actually building a proper life fund reserve before taking the plunge back into full time poker.

XXSCOTSLASSXX

bfjf wrote: »

As for the "proper job" comment, I made over £60k profit last year and a little less the year,.

apologies for being dim... but thats a loss/spend of 73k in 11 months if profit last year was over 60k (including the 13k in credit cards) even accounting for the 10k loss on American site thats 63k loss/spent with from what you say very little/nothing to show for it!!!

seriously stop now before this escalates your are already 13k in debt with no means to pay it!! please do not try to chase your losses by playing poker, dealing in such large stakes as you have said you have been it does tend to 'devalue' the cost of the £.... 13k is a lot of money tho, a yearly wage for most people.

It actually doesnt really matter what advice anyone gives re the poker, until you have the light bulb moment for yourself its pretty pointless, there will always be a defence or argument for gambling until this point is reached... the advice given in trying to secure a job with a regular monthly/weekly wage is top priority, and focus solely on clearing the debts accrued.

Downloading k9 (free) to your pc and asking a 3rd party to add password would be my main advice that way all temptation is gone and the main focus can remain clearing the debts as per your original post. If you felt this wasnt a viable option, Id have to question your statements re the response to others mentioning a possible gambling problem. Good luck x

almost_there

Funding Gambling by means of credit is sheer Lunacy!!