Mancunian Matters – Stockport barber Alex Wooliscroft is fighting back against his severe gambling habit by campaigning to get himself banned from every bookmakers in Britain. Father of one Alex, 26 is begging every bookie to stop him coming into their betting shops after blowing £25,000 in eight years on computerised roulette machines.
Already Alex has handed photographs of himself to bookmakers near his home in Stockport urging them to refuse him admittance after he became addicted to playing the ‘fixed odds’ terminals.
Today he began a round of TV and radio interviews in a further bid to make his self-imposed and very public anti-gambling crackdown work.
Alex, from Offerton, who has an eight-week-old baby said: ”These high-stakes games are evil and are more addictive than drugs. They are ruining my life and I will do anything to kick the habit.
”I’ve been to counselling groups and meetings and tried to get help. It’s even given me a stutter. I just need the help of bookmakers themselves to stop people like me throwing good money away when it is clear they have a gambling problem.”
Alex developed his gambling habit when he was 18 but only began to realise he had a problem four years ago and began distributing his photograph to bookmakers as part of his ‘self-exclusion.’
Yet in September 2012, Alex succumbed to temptation went into a Stockport casino and lost £700 in three minutes.
It led him to have that day’s date ’26/9/12′ tattooed on his hand to remind him of the loss. But after six months without placing a bet, he started gambling again last March.
The following July he redistributed his photograph to bookmakers but earlier this month Alex lost £240 at a William Hill in three minutes on a high-stakes roulette machine.
He said: ”I have been a compulsive gambler since I was 18. It’s slowly got worse and I have tried everything in my power to try and stop. I have even had hypnotherapy and I have got a tattoo of a date of a big loss.
”On the date of my tattoo I lost £700 in two spins of a wheel. It took me 3 minutes.”
