I had a serious gambling problem 35 years ago. I would gamble on baseball, football and horse racing. The day before my wedding I went to the horse racing track and lost about $300. Weeks before that I lost $2500 on 3 football games. I didn't have the money and had to have my best friend get me a bank loan under his name. I eventually paid it off.
Sometimes I would be careless and leave losing horse race tickets in my car. My brother would borrow my car to take my mom and a group out in field service. They would discover the tickets and ask whose gambling tickets they belonged to. I would lie and blame it on my friend.
The most I ever won in one day was $2600 at the race track. I won a trifecta...4,3,9. I thought that after those winnings, gambling would be easy. I soon found out it wasn't. Sometimes I would lose my whole weeks paycheck in one day. On my wedding day I told myself that I had a gambling sickness and that I needed to stop. I haven't gambled since.