Story of a Gambler in 5 D’s

Gabriel Lee was a senior officer in a local bank. He was happily married with 4 children.
He believed he had money luck. Lately his luck was not as good as expected.


1. Debt: Gambling is a big business and it is a winning business or else Singapore would not have opened two casinos recently. The odds are very much against the gamblers. How do you continue to gamble without money? You borrow from your friends and relatives. You make advances from your credit cards and you get personal loans from the banks and even loan sharks. At this early stage your credit worthiness is still good. This was the situation of Gabriel now. He was in debt, but it was still manageable.

2. Delinquency: As he continued to follow his bad habit of gambling, he needed more money to bet one last time to cover all his losses. That was what he had been thinking about. But he couldn’t quite make it. By this time his finance was getting from bad to worse. He couldn’t meet the minimum payment for his credit cards and he missed repayments for his bank loans and not to mention the harassment from loan sharks. His friends and relatives are also after him for money he had borrowed.

3. Desperation: By now he was desperate because he received frequent calls and personal visits to his house and at the office about his long outstanding debts. He decided to take one drastic action but a very wrong move by misappropriating fund from the bank where he was working. He was thinking that just one lucky strike he would be rich and out of all debts. How wrong he could be. Luck was never with Gabriel.

4. Destruction: Now he was really in deep troubles. . The bank had discovered the fraud and he was sacked and his career was ruined.

5. Death: He had no job and he had no money and he was in debt. His family had deserted him because he was stubborn not to listen to stop gambling. No one was willing to help now because he had turned a deaf ear previously to their kind words not to carrying on gambling. He had destroyed his reputation and his future. Life was hopeless and there was no one to turn to. He had no choice but to take his own life away.


Take-home messages:

• Do not take up gambling as luck is not always on your side.

• Avoid greed as it is one of the human weaknesses.

• Be grateful and appreciate what you have got out of life.

• Live within your means and be happy.