‘Danger’: Yass mum Kate Seselja warns Aussies about product that lost her $500k

The NSW mum-of-six is sounding the alarm over the “danger” of a product that causes “harm” to millions of Aussies. Warning: distressing content

Kate Seselja wishes she could have stopped the “horrific cycle” that saw her lose $500,000 to an industry that she says “preys on the vulnerable” and causes extreme “harm”.

The mum-of-six started playing the pokies at the age of 18 and quickly became addicted. She wishes she could turn back time and never enter that pokie room.

But it started an experience that spanned 15 years on and off and even saw her gamble away a $30,000 loan in one month that she and her husband were going to use to build a house.

At every opportunity she would put money in the pokies – if the children could be babysat, she would play the pokies, Ms Seselja reveals on SBS’ Insight program this Tuesday.

The now 43-year-old said the most money she lost in one sitting was $12,000 and the longest session she ever spent on the pokies was eight hours straight.

“I had no awareness of the fact that pokies were addictive and enticing initially. I had no awareness or education of gambling harm and unfortunately the case for most Australians these days is they don’t understand the danger of the product as they are so readily available,” she told news.com.au.

“Once I started playing them I was so quickly mentally hijacked, spending way more money and time than I planned to, and not really understanding why it was happening.”

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Kate Seselja and her husband. She started playing the pokies at the age of 18 and quickly became addicted. Picture: Supplied

The Yass mum said she became addicted quickly at 18 – feeding whatever money she had available into the pokies – but justified it because at the time she was young and it was just “disposable income”.

If she would run out of money, she would borrow from her parents and siblings promising to pay them back the next payday as the machines lights and sounds pulled her in continually.

“Your brain is trying to make sense of that machine. We humans are meaning making beings, we want to predict patterns but there is nothing predictable about the machines,” she said.

The battle to quit

But then Ms Seselja quit gambling, moved to Canberra and got married and she thought she had put the addiction behind her.

Instead it came roaring back in a sinister way.

“When gambling came back into my life in my early twenties, I was at a mother’s group in a club and I heard the lights and sounds and we were having a stressful financial time at that point,” she explained.

“I thought remember that time you won, you could do that again and that was the beginning of the next 10 years of just cycling in and out of being all consumed by either chasing losses or trying to run away from the shame I was feeling.”

The pokies were “hypnotic” and her addiction was fed every time they would refinance their mortgage, because banks would give them a credit card and she would spend the money on the pokies – usually $4000 at a time.

Ms Seselja thought getting married would mean putting gambling behind her but then her world came crashing down again. Picture: Supplied

She said the banks kept on supplying credit cards to them, knowing that she was taking money out at a club to gamble, with one steadily increased to a whopping $50,000 limit – after it went up by $5000 every six months.

“The final home loan we obtained was an $850,000 line of credit, which was like having an $850,000 credit card,” she added.

While her husband knew they were in a “certain level of financial” distress, he didn’t know the full extent until she confessed she had lost their $30,000 loan.

She said he was “overwhelmed” as they were running a business, building a house and had one child with another on the way.

“We were 23 or 24 and it was a lot and he didn’t know how to do things differently,” she said.

“He tried to take my card and restrict me having access to the finances but that wasn’t a long-term solution. He worked and needed me to manage the household and the finances of the household so it was a lot for us to navigate.”

She lost $12,000 in one sitting on the pokie machines. Picture: Supplied

‘Big predators’

Ms Seselja said she tried to stop gambling several times but the financial strain they were under created a vicious circle where playing the pokies was a motivator to try to lift them out of their money distress.

“I didn’t understand the global landscape and that Australian communities are vulnerable by default as we have a massive access to gambling products and we are so heavily and aggressively marketed to on a number of fronts,” she said.

“Debt is a very real outcome for the whole ecosystem of gambling harm in our Australian culture. There are a number of big predators that are playing in the landscape including banks, credit card companies and loan sharks and they prey on the vulnerability of financial strain that results from gambling harm.

“Then this ecosystem is able to exist as so we are let down and not protected properly by a poor regularity landscape.

“We as a country experience the highest level of gambling losses in the whole world, so its fair to say we are abandoned by our regulatory environment that makes it clear to protect interests and profits of institutions over protections of consumers.”

Kate with her six children and husband. Picture: Supplied

‘Profoundly misunderstood’

Ms Seselja said she was made to feel like she was the problem when the pokies are designed to entice people in and set them up for failure.

Its why she has gone public with her story as she knows people are so “desperate” to find out what is wrong with them when they aren’t the problem.

“I would go to the club and I just wanted to put $100 in and would end up spending all my money I had access to,” she said.

“But I was doing everything the machine is designed to do, it’s designed for the user to play to extinction.”

At one stage in 2012, Ms Seselja reached breaking point and came close to taking her own life while she was pregnant, after a day of losses on the pokies.

“I just couldn’t take the feeling of the stress and the weight of the losses and I felt like everyone would be better off without me but I didn’t want to leave my babies,” she said.

“I was pregnant with our sixth child and I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I had tried to get help and it hadn’t worked. I felt alone, I felt profoundly misunderstood and I just wanted to go back to never ever gambling.”

The pokies mentally hijacked her and caused her extreme distress.

Aussies need protection from ‘toxic’ environment

But her husband saw how much pain she was in and begged her to try a new counsellor, who focused on her and not how much money she had lost, she said.

A financial counsellor from Mission Australia also helped turn Ms Seselja’s life around and deal with the $80,000 in credit card debt she had accrued.

The card with a $50,000 limit had the debt completely wiped, while the others had a reduced settlement negotiated.

“When I went to see the financial counsellor he helped me to understand that it had been an irresponsible lending practice taking advantage of me,” she said.

“That the bank knew I was somebody experiencing gambling harm, they would be able to see me take money out of clubs on my bank statements and there is apparently a code that indicates gambling to financial institutions and they knowingly increased our card without checking we could repay it.”

Kate now works as a recovery coach and advocate against gambling harm. Picture: Supplied

‘Power to destroy lives’

The family’s debts were fully paid off six years ago but knowing she put half a million dollars in total through the pokies makes her feel “sick to her stomach”, she added.

Now Ms Seslja hasn’t played the pokies in 10 years but she wants to see other Australians protected from the “toxic” environment of gambling.

“People are wanting to go to social spaces but then there are pokies and playing a machine then seems benign but it has the power to absolutely destroy lives. Over 400 people a year take their life because of gambling harm in Australia and we don’t hear enough about it as people feel like its their shame or the family feels like they have to keep it quiet,” she said.

“But the shame is on the industry, the government and banking environment that has totally facilitated the financial destruction of millions of Australians for the sake of profits.”

Ms Seslja works as a recovery coach to help gamblers as well as an advocate and has helped thousands of Australians deal with the fallout, connecting them to local services.

“There is invisible harm that is happening on a day-to-day basis but we don’t see it until its too late,” she said.

“I really consider myself lucky to have survived it. There are plenty of families I have met who have lost loved ones and it just breaks my heart.”

The Insight episode on Dealing with Debt: How do people get into debt, and how are they getting out of it? will air on Tuesday at 8:30pm on SBS.