Original Post
Update:
I’ve tried most of what people with similar experiences suggested, ofc except leaving or running away, and none of it has worked.
I tried letting her continue gambling while keeping tabs on it. She would tell me how much she won, but not how much she deposited. She’d win and then immediately lose everything, either due to impulsivity or how these sites are designed.
I tried being empathetic and staying, focusing on understanding rather than threatening to leave. I ended up enabling her. When she was extremely stressed, I gave her cash to clear urgent payments. She lost that money betting. That was my mistake for trusting her with money again.
I tried taking control of her finances. I changed passwords and asked her to route every transaction through me or hand over the money so I could make payments myself. She retrieved the passwords and deposited more money anyway. She has four different cards, and I can’t realistically track all of them. I eventually had to threaten to check her bank statements and contact people she borrowed from if I saw gambling transactions.
I also tried involving others. Yesterday she lost ₹15k ($545), which was borrowed money, within a few hours. I contacted her brother and explained the situation in detail. He wasn’t openly dismissive, but he also wasn’t strongly against the gambling or alarmed by it. He mentioned that he uses the same site “strategically,” asked whether there was proof of how much she’d won or lost, and said he needed her to pay back money they both owed his girlfriend.
I also told him how this has been affecting her health. She barely sleeps, doesn’t eat properly, has lost noticeable weight, and has blacked out once. Overall, the interaction felt transactional and self-interested rather than focused on her wellbeing. She later told me he and his friends were the ones who originally introduced her to betting, which made involving him feel like a mistake.
I’ve kept a few friends informed. I don’t want to involve her parents because they are more likely to shame and blame than genuinely help. I suggested holding an intervention so she could explain her thinking and understand the seriousness of this. She said she would run away or lock herself in a room if I did that.
At this point, I’m emotionally exhausted. I’m drained from monitoring, negotiating, rescuing, and worrying. I don’t know what else to do, and I just want this situation to stop. People suggesting I leave the relationship, it is not realistically possible considering how I have not yet graduated + not financially stable, and I live in a city where I know nobody else (except for a few friends). I also don’t want to throw away a 5-year relationship because I know this not her and have hope that she will find a way back.
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Well, i will be honest about myself, i am also from india, been in the similar situation as your girlfriend , gamble away money so that i can recover my losses and the pile just grow larger and a point where i was completely broke and relationships was getting weaker and my gf left me cause I didn’t pay attention to her, you need to have serious conversations with her, feels like same situation as me she is also chasing loses and i can clearly say at this point no type of reasoning make sense and ability to take rational decision is no there in that state of mind, block her banks account so she cannot deposit online cash in gambling websites and only give physical cash when needed to her, use betblocker and restrict her from gambling websites and make her inform that she cannot possibly recover that amount from gambling which leads to gambling addiction
You need to go to problem gambling counselling like gamblers anonymous for your own good, even if you go alone. You only have to go and be there you don’t need to say anything, just listen, and you will see what gambling does to people and it is written all over their face.they are there to help you too.
You need to understand this monster, understand what you are dealing with. You are not throwing away a 5 year commitment to each other. SHE IS.
I was like that too. Explained to my bf how I feel. We talked about it and we watch no more bets in Netflix. Explained that every slot games is rigged like you wiiin on at first. And so we talked about how we can cheat the house.
Like if it gives at the beginning once or twice then go out move on to another game.
And then my bf and I went to casino. I was betting 5-10$ a spin. He was betting less than a dollar per spin he wooon the major and wooon 1.4M . That’s in pesos so that’s like almost 26k USD.
We were so happy.
My bf is in great control but me now 🙁 I took some of the money. Played the legit online casino where we wooonn then woooon 2.4M php and then lost it all in just 3 weeks.
This is my biggest regret.
Talk to your gf and tell her once she wiiin big. Then she should stop and secure the moneeey.