A sure bet gambling will ruin you

DURING these past several weeks, many football fans, and even those who are not, have been caught up with the frenzy and excitement of picking winning teams, choosing preferred scores and banking on betting possibilities.
While phone calls and messages from bookies and friendly betting circles slowly fade, notifications and warnings from money lenders and loan sharks have taken their place.
Sammy (not his real name), 29, has RM60,000 in cold, hard cash zipped up in the bag on his lap, but even that is not enough to pay back the two loan sharks.
“I got caught up with the World Cup fever like many of my friends.
“But unlike them, this is the first time I’m borrowing money to gamble.
“In fact, I’m not a gambling addict.
“I rarely go to casinos, and when I do, it’s just to have fun with family members and friends.
“I started to gamble online using my friend’s account.
“He would call me before placing his own bets and asked how much I would like to put on each team. It was small amounts at first, but as the games got more interesting, I started to bet in the thousands,” said the contractor.
When Sammy ran out of money to gamble, his friend introduced him to an “acquaintance” who had cash to lend.
“Maybe it was naïve of me, but it didn’t occur to me that he was an Ah Long. I assumed it was someone with spare cash. However, once I started taking money from him, there was no end. When I tried to tell him that I would pay him in instalments, he became aggressive. It was only then that I realised that I was one of the many entangled with loan sharks.
“Everything happened very fast after our first confrontation. I rushed home one day to find my wife and two kids crying because there was red paint on our house door. Over the next couple of days, there were threatening calls. Trying to fix things, I borrowed from someone else to help pay off this guy, but could not keep up with the interest payment.
“Out of fear, I moved my wife and kids to my relative’s house out of the state. My kids have had to miss school for weeks. I’m desperate and scared. I consider myself an educated person and can’t come to terms with the fact that I’m involved with Ah Long.”
MCA Public Service and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong deals with such cases on a daily basis, and he has seen an increase since the World Cup started.
“What can we do in such cases? All I can do is talk to the Ah Long.
“I’ve got my people to call Sammy’s Ah Long and arrange for a discussion.
“I will inform the Ah Long that he is able to pay only RM60,000 out of the RM87,000 he owes.
“If they’re agreeable, that would be great. Otherwise, we’ll arrange an instalment plan that everyone is happy with. Usually, the loan sharks will agree because this means they’re at least getting something back.
“We never see the real Ah Long, we only see their runners. Who knows, most of these loan sharks could be some tycoon or Datuk,” he said.
Since January, Chong’s department has received 250 loan shark cases, involving 1,663 loan sharks and a sum of RM28,080,538.
“It’s just half a year and the cases are already piling up. In the first week of July, we’ve seen two cases, of which one is Sammy’s. More than 80 per cent of cases each year involve gambling.
“I have no doubt that this World Cup has created a lot of gamblers, which will in turn create a lot of loan shark cases. Although the number of Chinese borrowers is still the highest (178), those that involve Malays and Indians have also risen.
“There have been 48 cases of Malays borrowing from loan sharks and 24 cases of Indians this year. Surprisingly, many of the Malay and Indian cases involve women. While some borrow for their husbands, others get involved in get-rich-quick scams,” he added.