Sian Mclear-Dyer’s addiction started after a trip to the bingo with work colleagues
Sian Mclear-Dyer(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A mum said she was ‘living two lives’ before she ended up in prison due to her gambling addiction.
Sian Mclear-Dyer had only ever gambled before at the races, she said. But during a trip to the bingo with work colleagues in 2015 she downloaded an app on her phone.
The 36-year-old said she then started receiving promotions from the app and started to get hooked. Within just months, she would stay awake all night gambling while her husband was asleep, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Sian said her addiction ‘spiralled’ as she would spend all her wages from her job as a a finance manager for a property law firm at the time. It then became so bad she started stealing money from work.
She ended up in prison for stealing the money and was separated from her newborn son for the first four months of his life. Overall, Sian believes she lost around £400,000 over the space of four years when loans, credit cards and the money she took from work are taken into account.
Sian, from Wallasey, has now overcome her addiction and wants to help others experiencing similar problems to her. She said: “I’d been to the races and things like that, but it had never been an issue and I didn’t have any like gambling apps.
“We were going to bingo and somebody had said, if you download the app, you’ll get a free game when we go in. From that, you then get kind of bombarded with the emails and notifications, like you have a free spin on us and things like that.
“I played this spin game. I span 50p and won £50. I thought, that was easy. Then it just spiraled from there. It got to the point where I was spending all my wages.”
Sian then started using payday loans and taking out new credit credit cards to cover what she was spending. However, soon she was struggling to pay what she’d been lending out.
When Sian reached this stage, she began stealing the money from work. Sian said: “That’s when I was full-on addicted. I was thinking, what am I going to do?
“Nobody can know I’ve got no money because of gambling. That’s when I started stealing from work.
“I 100% know it’s stealing, but in my head at the time I was thinking, it’s okay, because when I win, I’ll pay it back. In my head I just thought, everything will be okay.”
In total, Sian estimated that she lost around £400,000 from gambling over a four year period, when loans, credit cards and the money she took from work are taken into account. Sian was ‘living two lives’ during this time, keeping her spending secret from her husband as she gambled away at night.
Sian said: “I had this normal life in the daytime, and then at nighttime I’d start gambling. I’d literally lie there all night and sometimes not have any sleep.”
Sian said it was the shame she felt about her addiction that stopped her from opening up and getting help. She said: ”I was so embarrassed and ashamed of what I was doing but I physically couldn’t stop. I was going for interviews with other firms because I wanted to stop what I was doing, but I couldn’t.”
Two events in quick succession in 2018 gave Sian the push she needed to get help. The first was getting let go from work and the second was finding out she was pregnant.
She said: “Obviously work knew that something was going on. An hour before I was let go from work, I took the pregnancy test. It’s just crazy how everything came out at once. As soon as that happened, my whole world fell apart, but I was relieved everything had come out. I could speak about it.”
A Google search sent her in the direction of Beacon Counselling Trust (BCT), who helped her mend her ways. She said the trust “saved her life”. The charity, based in Liverpool, delivers free treatment and support across the north west.
However, Sian still had to face the consequences of the law for stealing more than £320,000 from work. She served just under a year in prison for her actions from 2019 to 2020, and for the first four months she was separated from her newborn son before he was allowed to stay with her in a mother and baby unit.
In prison, Sian did a counselling course so she could help people in the future with similar problems to her. While in there, Sian says prison officers were so inexperienced with dealing with gambling addiction that they would send those struggling to her for advice.
When Sian left prison, she got a BA in criminology and psychology from Liverpool John Moores University. Sian now works an education and brief Intervention lead in Beacon, the organisation which helped her at her lowest ebb.
Sian is now raising the alarm about Merseyside’s growing issue with gambling addiction. BCT has reported an 810% rise in third-party referrals from partners over the past year. While their outreach teams have engaged with more than 20,000 individuals through their support programmes.
BCT’s frontline teams say the figures are being reflected in the demand for services, particularly in areas like Walton in Liverpool, where mental health-related disability claims are significantly above the national average.
Sian said: “I now go around training professionals going into prisons, speaking to staff and prisoners about gambling harm. We’re doing lots of work at the minute on the links between gambling and domestic violence.”
Asked if gambling addiction is becoming a bigger problem in Liverpool and Merseyside, Sian said: “It’s getting worse because there’s just so much of it now and there’s this illegal market that’s coming through as well where younger people become addicted before they’ve even reached the age of 18.
“I don’t say to people now, oh, don’t gamble, because not everybody is going to get addicted to it. That’s not the issue. It’s about seeing the signs of the dangerous games, the more addictive games.”
Sian’s intervention comes after a new public-health campaign was launched this month to expose the manipulative design and marketing tactics of modern-day gambling through the lens of people with lived experience of gambling harm.
The campaign, titled “If I only knew”, features insights from people who have been impacted by gambling to help young people recognise how gambling companies design products, marketing strategies and their business model, as well as showing the benefits of stopping and getting help.
The campaign has been developed by national gambling harm prevention organisation Chapter One, in partnership with Liverpool City Council.
James Grimes, Director of Chapter One said: “When I was struggling with gambling, I wish I knew that it’s almost impossible to win in the long run, and that gambling harms aren’t about luck or self-control — modern-day gambling is designed to keep us hooked. We hope once people see this campaign, they will see those affected in a different way.”
Professor Matthew Ashton, Director of Public Health at Liverpool City Council said: “Gambling harm is a public-health issue that affects people, families and communities across Liverpool. This new campaign is tackling the root causes of gambling harm by focusing on the commercial determinants of health, as well as showing hope by involving people with lived experience.
“Our goal is for this campaign to reduce stigma and empower young people in the city to live healthier and happier lives.” The campaign will run across social media over the coming weeks and is backed by local partners including the NHS North West Gambling Service, which has a clinic in Liverpool City Centre.