'I didn't know where to turn': Why ethnic minorities with gambling addictions struggle to get help

On a dark December morning two years ago, Kiki Marriott left her flat and started walking.

Content warning: This article contains references to suicide.

It was 5am, and she was heading for the station.

"I was numb at that point," she says.

"I was just so done with trying to survive and just existing… feeling extremely lonely and isolated and didn't know where to turn."

She was trapped in a cycle of addiction, gambling all hours and taking cocaine for the maximum buzz.

"I sat at the train station thinking about my daughter, thinking about the mistakes that I've made in the past, thinking that I didn't want to live this life any more."

Kiki was waiting for the first train.

But that train was late. And she changed her mind.

Instead of taking her own life, she decided to seek help.

Yet what she would find on that journey of recovery would shock her.

"I just realised that there wasn't anybody that looked like me, sounded like me, and it got me to thinking, well I can't be the only black woman suffering with a gambling or cocaine addiction."

Racial disparities

Research has shown that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to gamble than white people, but are more likely to suffer harm from gambling.

Despite that, too often they do not seek help.

And YouGov statistics shared exclusively with Sky News shed a light on why.

The survey of 4,000 adults for GamCare, which runs the National Gambling Helpline, found that two-thirds of people from ethnic minority backgrounds who'd gambled in the past year had spent more money than they'd planned, double the amount of white respondents.

They were also more than twice as likely to hide their gambling and nearly three times as likely to feel guilt.

Kiki is not surprised.

"For me, coming from a black community, a black background, what goes on indoors stays behind closed doors," she says.

"You keep your mouth shut, and you handle your business yourself."

And when she considered what an addict looked like, it wasn't someone like her.

"I just thought it's an old white man's thing - that they go into the bookies, and they have a drink and they bet.

"I thought, well, that's not me."

But Dharmi Kapadia, a senior sociology lecturer from Manchester University, who focuses on racial inequality, thinks there's more than just cultural pressure at play.

"These explanations of stigma have become dominant," she says.

"We've found that what's more important is that people don't want to go and get help from gambling services because of previous racist treatment that they've suffered at the hands of other statutory services, for example, when they went to the GP."

'I needed to change'

The stigma felt very real for Kiki, so she hid what she was doing.

"I've had trauma in my life. I've been sexually abused as a child.

"As the years have gone on, a traumatic event happened in my family that really changed the dynamics of my life and that's when I moved on from scratch cards to online slots."

She became hooked - betting around the clock, spending her benefits on 10p and 20p spins on online slots and borrowing money from those around her.

Eventually her daughter moved out when she was 15.

"That's when everything escalated. I didn't have that responsibility of keeping up appearances.

"Before that, gas, electric, food shopping, all those things had to be in place.

"I just lived and breathed in my bedroom at that point and yeah, it was very lonely."

When Kiki left the station that day, she called the National Gambling Helpline.

"For the first time in my life, I was completely honest about everything that I was doing - the lies, the manipulation when I was in active addiction, the secrecy.

"I was completely transparent because I wanted to change. I needed to change."

'Where's all the women?'

Since then, she has undergone constant therapy, including a six-week stint in rehab.

And as she headed home in the taxi, her phone rang.

It was Lisa Walker, a woman who understood gambling addiction. She had won £127,000 playing poker at 29 before losing everything and ending up homeless with her young children.

When she finally asked for help, she too felt she was different, walking into a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to find she was one of only two women in a room with 35 men.

"I was thinking, where's all the women?" says Lisa.

"I can't be the only woman in the world with a gambling addiction, so that got me thinking, what services are out there for women?"

It was the catalyst to set up support for female gamblers in April 2022.

Since then, Lisa has helped close to 250 women, but all but four have been white.

One of those four was Kiki.

'There's no getting away from it'

"It just baffles me… Why aren't they reaching out for support? Is it the shame? Is it stigma?" says Lisa.

But another concern is that it's simply too easy to hide the gambling.

"Getting on the train this morning, 90% of people are on their phones, and we don't know whether they're playing slots," she says.

"I could probably sit here now and sign up for 50 online casinos and probably get over a thousand free spins.

"I just think there's no getting away from it because it's 24 hours a day."

Kiki's flat in Woolwich, where once she couldn't even go to the bathroom without gambling, has become the place where she runs her own online peer mentoring groups.

"Feeling understood and validated for your experiences, for how you was raised… the core beliefs that you're taught from a young age, to have somebody that looks like you, talks like you, has the same cultural background… it's extremely important to make you feel understood, to make you feel validated," she says.

'You can learn from it'

Kiki will need to attend support groups for life to keep her addictions at bay.

But she has a clear goal, just as Lisa did.

"My focus is to help other people, help empower other people to choose themselves, to show them that there is light after so much darkness… that you don't have to be a victim of your circumstances, that you can choose to grow from it and learn from it and heal from it," she says.

For Kiki, there was so much at stake.

"It was either I was going to die or I was going to become a woman and a mother that my daughter could come back to and respect again."

And that has happened. Kiki's daughter is 19 now.

"We've got an amazing relationship today. I've took full accountability for the mistakes that I've made.

"She's extremely proud of where I am today."

It's more than Kiki could have dreamt of two years ago.

Now all she wants is to help others escape the endless cycle of addiction.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK

To speak to an adviser on the National Gambling Helpline, call 0808 8020 133

(c) Sky News 2025: 'I didn't know where to turn': Why ethnic minorities with gambling addictions struggle to get h