What was intended to be an innocent visit to check out the new casino on the beachfront and play a few coins on the slot machines turned into a harrowing 18-month gambling addiction for a Durban businesswoman who now wants to use her experience to help other problem gamblers.
Kim Reynolds*, 60, who had never set foot inside a casino before and had openly criticised her brother for wasting money on horseracing bets, would not in her wildest dreams have imagined she would be sucked into the despair of a gambling addiction.
But on the Easter weekend of 2003 that is exactly what happened.
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"I began a journey to hell, in the windowless, timeless den of iniquity - the casino. I was lonely and decided to go and see the new casino that had opened a few months previously.
"A perfectly harmless exercise, I thought. At the age of 54, I would never have thought that I could develop a gambling addiction," Reynolds said.
Not until she was hooked by a stroke of beginner's luck, a phenomenon many gamblers recall with remorse. The first machine she played started paying out.
"After a few hours I cashed out my winnings and moved on to another machine that also started raining money. Time stood still as I sat pushing the button and hitting combinations, envelopes of notes were delivered to me by the attendants and the dishes of coins were over-flowing," Reynolds said.
"When I looked at my watch it was 8am the next day. I had arrived at 5pm the day before. I took my winnings home and slept. When I woke up late that afternoon all I wanted to do was to go back," Reynolds said.
She spent the entire Easter weekend at the casino, losing her winnings, then drawing cash from the ATM and losing that too.
The cycle continued for the next 18 months. "I needed to recoup my losses and 'get even'.
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