When we were still children, those of us who were blessed to grow up with our fathers would probably agree with me on one thing: we believed our fathers were the mightiest, wisest and cleverest men in the entire world. They could fix almost anything, answer almost every question and make us feel safe even when the world seemed frightening.
But what happened when we grew up?
We began to realise that our fathers were human beings, just like the billions of other people around the world. They had their weaknesses, made mistakes and had lessons of their own to learn. Perhaps the only thing that made them extraordinary in our eyes was the place they held in our lives, especially to those of us who had siblings.
That is one of the many things growing up teaches us. Life has a humble but sometimes rough way of educating us. The older we become, the more life throws its lesson tambourines at us, and the more we begin to understand things we could not possibly have understood as children.
Lessons are not learned only through mistakes, punishment, regret and heartbreak. Sometimes, they can be learned through warnings. And if you ask me, learning from a warning is one of the best ways to learn because you do not have to experience the pain yourself to understand its consequences. Some warnings come from people who have already been hurt but lived long enough to tell their stories. Others come from people who witnessed those stories unfold.
Today, I might be one of those people.
There are many things I would like to put into words, hoping that someone, somewhere, might read this and say, “At least I am not too late to understand this.”
The first habit I have never encouraged anyone to develop is gambling.
Open the internet today, and you will find gambling advertisements almost everywhere. They tell you beautiful stories about easy money, instant riches and dreams that can supposedly come true with just a small stake. They sell you hope, wrap it in attractive promises and make you feel that your financial problems might disappear if only you could predict the next winning result.
Well, they might show you the winners, but they rarely show you the full story of the people who lost everything trying to become those winners. Take it or leave it, gambling is not the shortcut to a better life that these advertisements would have you believe.
I will start with myself because I would rather tell you a story I have lived than pretend to be a teacher who has never made mistakes.
Thankfully, I was never a regular gambler. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I am still here to tell this story. These days, I would rather go hungry than gamble away the little I have.
In January 2022, I needed just $4. Instead of looking for a sensible way to get that money, I made one of the worst decisions of my life. I gambled away the rent money, which amounted to hundreds of dollars at the time. That was a substantial amount of money to me, especially considering where I was in life then.
The worst part? The money was not even mine.
Someone had trusted me with it so that I could use it in case of an emergency. But I took that trust, put the money into gambling, and lost everything.
In a single day, I turned a situation that could have been handled in a hundred different ways into a disaster that affected almost everything I had. I had to sell my laptop, the most expensive possession I owned at the time. I also had to let go of my beloved phone, the second most expensive thing I had and the most expensive smartphone I had ever owned.
Those two items were practically all I had of value. Apart from them, I had my school certificates, birth certificate and old clothes that nobody would have wanted to buy.
Everything I had worked to own seemed to have turned into ashes because of one terrible decision.
I reached a point where I needed help, and none of my friends came to my rescue. I will always remember one friend in particular, someone I had once considered as close as a relative. What happened between us taught me something I have carried with me ever since, although not in the way I initially understood it.
We had attended the same secondary school and remained good friends throughout the three years we studied together. We fought only once, over a foul I committed against him while playing football, and even that disagreement was over almost as soon as it began.
When he was selected to attend a school far from his home region, he faced a difficult situation. The journey to that school would take roughly twelve hours. Fortunately, I lived in the same region, district and ward as the school he had been selected to attend, just about five minutes away.
He consulted me, and I spoke to my parents. They agreed to let him stay with us. To cut a long story short, he lived in our home as though he were one of our own siblings.
Years later, he was fortunate enough to join the army, a job many people would consider a blessing. Meanwhile, I went to college and continued trying to build my own future.
So, when gambling brought me to my knees, I thought of him as someone I could turn to. I had helped him before, and this time I was not asking for a gift. I was asking to borrow money. I was even willing to let him hold some of my belongings as security.
He refused.
It was the 22nd of the month, the day he received his salary, and I remember how angry I felt. I could not understand how someone I had once welcomed into my own home could turn me away when I was struggling.
But as I grew older, I began to see the situation differently. I was wrong to hold on to that anger as though he had betrayed me. He had no obligation to rescue me from a disaster I had created myself. If I were in his position, I might have made the same decision.
I was 23 years old, and I had to learn a difficult lesson about friendship, responsibility and the consequences of my own actions.
But do you know what started the whole thing?
Gambling.
Had I not gambled that money away, I would not have found myself begging for help, selling my possessions and feeling disappointed in the people who could not or would not save me. I had created the problem myself, and no amount of anger towards other people could change that.
The second story is about a friend I once lived with. He had experienced what it felt like to have money, and for a time, life seemed to be going his way. Unfortunately, he was also a gambling addict.
Today, he is 34 years old, with a wife and a daughter. A few years ago, he was a manager overseeing more than 400 workers. He drove a car and was in the process of completing his own house. From the outside, he appeared to be a man who was making progress and building a future for his family.
But gambling took him down a different road.
Today, he works two jobs just to afford rent for an old house. He does not even live with his wife, and the responsibility of providing for his family remains a painful reality.
Sometimes, I think about the distance between where he was and where he is now. How does a man go from managing hundreds of workers and building his own home to struggling to maintain a roof over his head? How does someone who once seemed to have so much end up fighting to meet the most basic needs of his family?
Life is unpredictable, of course. People lose jobs, businesses collapse, and circumstances can change even for those who make sensible decisions. But in his case, gambling played a major role in the losses he suffered.
It was not simply a matter of bad luck. It was a habit that kept taking from him until there was little left to lose.
The third story concerns one of my very best friends, a man with whom I once shared a dream of becoming a doctor.
We were both medical students, and we imagined a future in which we would finally wear our white coats and practise medicine. As time passed, my own interests changed. I became drawn to engineering, literature and media, and my journey took another direction. He remained committed to his medical studies.
Unfortunately, he never achieved the qualification he had worked towards.
He spent six years at college pursuing a diploma in clinical medicine, but gambling consumed the school fees he needed to complete his studies. For the last four years, the money meant for his education was repeatedly lost to betting.
Imagine spending six years of your life chasing a dream, only to watch it slip away because of a habit you could not control.
His parents were devastated when they learned what had happened. They had invested their money, hopes and trust in their son, believing that they were helping him build a future. Instead, the money meant for his education disappeared into gambling.
At one point, he even gambled away $500 that had been set aside for his younger brother’s school fees. He also conned me out of $200 the last time I saw him. His actions left his parents facing considerable debt, and eventually, he disappeared from the lives of those who knew him.
His mother still cries over him to this day.
That part breaks my heart because, behind every person struggling with gambling, there may be a family that has sacrificed almost everything to see them succeed. There may be parents who worked hard to pay school fees, siblings who looked up to them, friends who believed in their potential and a future that once seemed full of possibilities.
Gambling does not only take money from the person placing the bet. When it becomes an addiction, its consequences can spread to everyone who trusts, loves or depends on that person.
I have so many more examples I could give you. I have seen enough to understand that gambling can destroy things that money alone cannot replace: trust, education, relationships, dignity and years of hard work.
Yet, despite all these stories, gambling companies continue to advertise their services, attract new customers and make money from the people who participate. Their businesses continue operating while some gamblers struggle to recover what they have lost.
That alone should make you stop and think.
If gambling were the reliable path to financial freedom it is often made to look like, why do so many people find themselves chasing losses, borrowing money and staking funds they cannot afford to lose? Why gamble the rent money when you have a roof to protect? Why risk your school fees when you have an opportunity to earn an education? Why put your family’s future on the line for the possibility of winning money that may never come?
And why allow a company that knows nothing about your dreams, your parents or your struggles to become the reason those dreams fall apart?
I am not saying that everyone who places a bet will experience the same things as the people I have described. But I am asking you to look beyond the occasional winner and consider what can happen when gambling becomes a habit, especially when someone begins chasing losses or believes that the next bet will solve all their problems.
Once gambling becomes an addiction, the consequences can go far beyond financial losses. A person may begin hiding the truth, borrowing money they cannot repay, breaking promises or taking desperate measures to keep gambling. Some may resort to stealing or deceiving people who trust them. Not everyone follows that path, but the danger is real, and the damage can be enormous.
If you are already struggling with gambling, do not convince yourself that you must win your money back before you stop. That belief can keep you trapped for years. You do not have to recover yesterday’s losses by risking tomorrow’s income. Seek help, be honest with someone you trust, and take practical steps to protect the money you still have.
And if you have never gambled, please do not let curiosity or the promise of easy money persuade you to start. There are better ways to pursue your dreams, even if they take longer, require patience or demand more effort than you would like.
I know what it feels like to lose something because of a terrible decision. I know what it feels like to look around and realise that the people you expected to help you cannot undo what you have done to yourself. I have watched friends lose opportunities that took years to pursue, and I have seen the pain their decisions caused the people who loved them.
That is why I am writing this.
You do not have to learn every lesson through your own suffering. Sometimes, another person’s story is enough to show you where a road leads.
Do not make your parents cry over a future you could have protected. Do not destroy the trust of people who believe in you. Do not sacrifice your education, your family, your possessions or your peace of mind for the possibility of winning a little money.
And above all, do not let a habit take control of the person you are still becoming.
The world already has enough challenges waiting for you. You do not need to invite another one into your life.
My message is simple: DON’T GAMBLE.
Your dreams deserve more than a bet. Your family deserves more than promises. And you deserve the chance to build a life without constantly risking what you have for what you might get.
Sometimes, the best money you will ever make is the money you choose not to lose.
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