Quite a few years ago now I went to my nan’s house for Christmas.

My cousin, I think he was about 13, had got a £50 Steam voucher for some games. Him and my other cousin who was a couple of year older went to Steam, swapped the voucher for something, and then took that to a gambling site. I don’t know if they’re still a thing. It was something to do with Counter Strike drops I think. Heavily advertised by YouTubers who ran them, with a bunch of videos showing them winning. The sort of thing they’d be sent to prison for in any right thinking society.

They took that £50, put it in, and clicked. The younger one went “what now?” and the older one just went “oh, nothing. It’s gone.” A couple of games worth of money, gone. For nothing.

He looked like he was about to cry, and only didn’t because he was going through that acting tough phase.

He’s an accountant now, and plays crown green bowling. I like to think that was a relatively cheap lesson in why not to fuck around with gambling.