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GUIDEUpdated By Andy (MKAndy)

How Chess Helped Me Quit Gambling

Andy (MKAndy) in his video Chess Saved My Life, with the words $100k in debt

I quit gambling by replacing it with chess. After about a decade of addiction and roughly $100,000 of gambling debt, nothing I tried could turn off the urge to go back to the casino. Then I started playing chess every day. Eight or nine months later, I realized I'd stopped thinking about gambling.

This is my story: how I got hooked, what rock bottom looked like, and why I think chess worked when nothing else did. It isn't medical advice. It's what happened to me, and I hope it helps someone who can't see a way out right now.

How it started: gambling was normal

Gambling was part of how I grew up. I got scratch tickets in birthday cards. We brought bags of change to family events to play cards against each other. Nobody ever told me it could be dangerous. It was just something fun we did together.

When I turned 18, I went to the casino with friends. The first game I played was blackjack, and my first winning bet paid $80. I was on top of the world. I paid for my friends' night out and still had extra.

I didn't fall off a cliff after that. It was a slow bleed, death by a thousand cuts. I went a little more often. I started recognizing the dealers and the regulars. The casino became a familiar place to have a few drinks, and if I lost money, so what? I had a job.

What my addiction actually looked like

About two and a half or three years in, I knew I had a problem. I didn't tell anyone. I self-excluded from the casinos near me, and I kept going anyway. I found ways in, I found time to go, and worst of all, I found money to gamble with.

For four years I worked in a building with a casino attached. I gambled on my lunch break and for an hour or two after work, three or four hours a day. I'd do the math in my head: I made $200 today, so I'll bet $200. Lose it and the day's a wash. Win and I could double my income and finally relax for a week. I've heard the same thinking from a lot of gamblers since: I just need one big win so I can stop worrying about money for a while.

Leaving that job didn't help. It made my sessions worse, because I had to make the most of the time I had. For about two years, I'd leave the house at 11 p.m., stay until the casino closed at 3 a.m., then get up at 6:30 for work. When I couldn't get to a casino, I played online.

I'm a systems guy. I love figuring out how things work and teaching myself new skills. So I put all of that into gambling. I tried arbitrage sports betting and table game strategies. I learned to count cards and got pretty decent at it. Gambling felt like the only thing I was good at and the only thing I could focus on for more than five minutes.

At the peak, I had about $100,000 in gambling debt. I wasn't a single guy with nothing to lose. I had a wife, two kids, a house and car payments. When I had a big win, I didn't pay down debt. I bought things, fixed things, took my wife to dinner, and kept living like nothing was wrong.

It was lonely. I stopped seeing friends. I joked about being a gambling addict, but I couldn't actually talk to my wife or anyone else about it. I checked my banking app five or six times a day just to confirm I had no money.

I'll be honest: I thought about ending my life many times during that decade, usually driving home after maxing out a credit card with eight days until payday. I never made a plan, and I'm so thankful I'm still here. If you're in that place right now, please reach out to someone today. There are numbers at the bottom of this page. People with a gambling disorder die by suicide at far higher rates than the general population; a Swedish national register study found a 15-fold increase in suicide mortality. You are not alone in feeling this way, and it can get better.

Rock bottom

One night I played online casino games until morning without sleeping. Then I called in sick, drove to the casino in time for the tables to open, and spent six or seven hours there. I lost several thousand dollars that day, every dollar I could get my hands on.

Walking out, I felt like I had two options: tell my family, or hope they'd get by without me. I picked up my phone and called my dad. I told him he was going to be disappointed and laid it all out. He left work and drove home. I called my wife and my mom and told them I was broken and needed help.

That night, my wife drove with me to a casino so I could self-exclude again, this time for three years. We consolidated the debt so I could start paying it down.

Quitting wasn't the end of it

Telling my family was the right move, but very little changed right away. For the first year and a half, I still thought about the casino every single day. I still worked out strategies to beat it. I still had a card counting app on my phone, and I'd count cards watching gambling Shorts on YouTube. I closed every account I could. Nothing turned the urge off.

For anyone who hasn't been there, it's hard to understand how much gambling rewires you. I'd sob on the drive home about losing money I couldn't afford, and three days later, sometimes less than 24 hours later, I'd be back at a blackjack table. Relapse is common with gambling. If you've relapsed, it doesn't mean you can't stop.

Why I started playing chess

I can't tell you exactly why, but one day I decided I wanted to get better at chess. My dad had taught me the basics as a kid. I knew how the pieces moved and that was about it.

Mostly I knew I had to fill my time with something. If I spent my whole self-exclusion thinking about gambling, I'd end up right back in the same cycle.

So I started watching GothamChess and other tutorials. I learned openings and the actual systems behind the game, not just moving pieces and hoping. I'd always wanted to make YouTube videos, so I gave myself a challenge: upload a chess video every day for a year. I did it, 365 days without missing one, and there are now more than 600 chess videos on my channel.

About eight or nine months in, it hit me like a brick wall. I wasn't thinking about the tables. I wasn't checking my bank account for money that wasn't there. I was just enjoying chess. My prayer for years had been for God to fix my brain, because I couldn't turn the urge off. That year, it finally felt answered.

Why I think chess worked when nothing else did

Looking back, I think chess worked for a few reasons:

  • It gave my systems brain somewhere healthy to go. The same part of me that wanted to beat the casino could study openings, learn to counter a gambit, and see real improvement.
  • The reward is earned. In chess, when your plan works, it's because you thought it through. Nothing in the game is designed to take your money.
  • It taught me to think a step ahead. Chess trains you to ask what happens next and what your opponent will do. That's the exact habit gambling erased.
  • It filled the hours. The time I'd spent at the casino needed to go somewhere, and a daily habit took its place.
  • It's always available. A free account or a cheap board is all it takes, so there's something to reach for when the urge hits.

What didn't work for me

Before chess, I tried a lot. Telling my family mattered, but it didn't stop the urges on its own. Self-exclusion kept me out of the building, but not out of my head. I went to Gamblers Anonymous a few times and found it hard; the people I met there talked as if there was no hope. Therapy didn't do it for me either.

I want to be careful here. Those things help a lot of people, and they might help you. My point is that if the first thing you try doesn't fit, don't give up. Keep looking until something does.

How to try it yourself

  1. Make a free account on Chess.com or Lichess, or buy a cheap board.
  2. Schedule it where gambling used to be. If you gambled at night or on your lunch break, play chess then.
  3. Learn, don't just play. YouTube tutorials on openings and tactics give you the feeling of figuring out a system, which is what hooked me on gambling in the first place.
  4. Try longer games. Fast games played one after another can start to feel like pulling a lever. Slower time controls keep it about thinking.
  5. Give yourself a challenge. Mine was a video a day for a year. Yours might be a puzzle a day or one game every evening.
  6. Find people. I started Chess vs. Gambling because I wish I'd had a chess club full of people who understood. You can join the Discord there.
  7. Keep the guardrails. Chess works best alongside self-exclusion, blocking gambling sites, and telling someone you trust.

Maybe for you it's not chess. Maybe it's a sport, an instrument or a craft. What matters is finding something that gives your brain a healthy challenge and fills the time gambling used to take.

It's not just me

In Marottichal, a village of nearly 6,000 people in Kerala, India, a local teashop owner started teaching neighbours chess in the late 1980s as an alternative to drinking and gambling. Today about 75 percent of residents play, and cases of addiction and gambling declined, according to Al Jazeera. He's careful not to credit chess alone, but believes it had a big impact. The village's story is told in a film called The Pawn of Marottichal.

Where I am today

To pay off my debt, I took a part-time job: 32 hours a week on top of my 40-hour full-time job, sometimes 20-hour days, for eight or nine months. In three years, I paid off all $100,000. I have zero gambling debt today. I worked hard, but I believe that was only possible by the grace of God.

I don't feel like a gambling addict anymore. I'm a husband, a father, an email marketing manager and a YouTuber. I'm Andy. I have people and things I care about.

I know I'm an anomaly. Most people's stories don't turn around like mine, and I don't want you to think yours has to look the same. But when I was gambling, I couldn't imagine any of this. If you can't see a light at the end of the tunnel right now, I couldn't either. Quitting gambling was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and it can be yours too.

That's also why Pawn of God exists. The gambling industry spends a fortune making betting look fun and harmless, and not enough people are pushing back. If this story helped, watch the full video on my YouTube channel, or become a founding member to help fund the investigations.

If you're struggling right now

Pawn of God never uses affiliate links or casino promo codes. Nobody pays us to send you anywhere.

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