Husband Loses £1m playing poker - Wife never knew!

[morlspin]

My husband's obsession with online poker gambled away £1million - and our idyllic life By Kathryn Knight Last updated at 11:39 AM on 12th April 2011 Sally D’Silva’s husband Tony liked to refer to himself as her ‘knight in shining armour’. The description used to make her laugh, although she conceded he had a point. The couple had built a life together that was the envy of many. Still only in their 40s, they had retired to a palatial house in France — complete with swimming pool — where they were raising their teenage children in a laidback style. As Sally puts it: ‘We had plenty of money in the bank, never had to work again and could do as we pleased. I thought I had one of the nicest lives on the planet.’ Struggle: Sally D'Silva used to live the life that many dream of, but thanks to her husband playing online poker she is now living a 'hand-to-mouth' existence Note the past tense, for today 49-year-old Sally’s life is rather different. That shining armour is tarnished beyond repair. The designer home has been replaced by a dilapidated farmhouse in desperate need of renovation and the bank accounts are empty, meaning those idle days have been replaced by a hand-to-mouth life running market stalls and car boot sales. It’s a dramatic change in fortune, and the reason for it can be traced to a rehab facility in the North of England, where Tony D’Silva is attempting to conquer the addiction that has destroyed not only his life but his family’s, too. More...

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In the space of a few short years Tony’s obsession with online poker led him to squander every penny he had — £1 million, to be exact. Sally was largely oblivious until she stumbled across a briefcase of unpaid credit card bills and demanded some answers. What she heard turned her life upside down. ‘He told me we had lost everything,’ she says. ‘In the space of a few hours, I went from thinking I lived the dream life to not knowing if we could afford to do a supermarket shop. It was beyond comprehension.’ For one thing, it seems a phenomenal waste, given that Tony had always worked hard to build a good lifestyle for him and the family. Happier times: On her wedding day before Tony's addiction began Both he and Sally had been married once before when they met in the late Nineties — Sally to the father of her two elder children, Robert, 26, and Michelle, 25, and Tony to Ann Summers chief executive Jacqueline Gold. Tony and Jacqueline had separated amicably after eight years of marriage and Tony had continued his work supplying underwear for her stores from a factory he owned. By the time he met Sally, then 31, Tony was 34 and already a wealthy man. The couple met at an upmarket winebar in London. Their connection was instant. Sally says: ‘I’d never met anyone like Tony before — he was very charismatic, full of ideas, a real daredevil.’ ‘Taking him back would feel like putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger’ They went on to marry in June 1993 and daughter Tamara, now 17, was born shortly after. They bought a large four-bedroom detached house in Biggin Hill, Kent, and Sally gave up her work as a nurse to be a stay-at-home mum to Tamara and their son Daniel, who was born three years later. ‘That was the way Tony wanted it and I didn’t mind,’ she says. ‘He liked to provide.’ Certainly, Tony’s appetite for risk did not seem to extend to his finances. ‘He was always coming out with sayings such as: “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.” 'If anything, he was cautious with money, which seems incredibly ironic now.’ What they did enjoy was the challenge of buying and renovating houses. Over the first ten years of their marriage they moved several times — initially to Cornwall, where they bought a series of holiday cottages, before finally purchasing a farm and its outbuildings from the Duchy of Cornwall estate. By 2006, however, the couple had decided to venture farther afield, to France. ‘We decided we wanted a big adventure, and we fell in love with the South-West of France after going to stay with a friend there,’ says Sally. ‘We came across a beautiful piece of land and decided to go for it. We had plenty of money, so we could build the place of our dreams. The kids were excited, too.’ Stuck: While some basic work was done to their new home, Tony was busy gambling away every last penny of their renovation budget By January 2007, the family had moved to their new house — a whitewashed villa with swimming pool on the outskirts of a picturesque village in the Lot et Garonne region. ‘I remember Tony saying: “This is perfect, this is where we should be.” And he was right. We didn’t need to work. We could just enjoy ourselves.’ But Tony’s appreciation for la vie en rose did not last long. By winter that year, he was already complaining of feeling isolated. ‘I threw myself into French life, learned the language and made lots of friends, but Tony seemed to retreat into himself,’ says Sally. Or, more pertinently, into his laptop computer, from which he quickly became inseparable. ‘He would go on it all evening, and then first thing in the morning he’d be up tapping away,’ says Sally. ‘I used to tell him that I felt like a single mother, as I was doing everything. It caused the odd row, but nothing too serious.’ Tony didn’t keep his affection for online poker a secret, but Sally would never have imagined it should be a cause for concern. She says: ‘He’d started it when we lived back in Cornwall, but he told me he just played small money and he used to quote what he said was the golden rule of poker — that if you couldn’t see the idiot at the table then it was you, and you needed to get off. ‘I certainly didn’t feel I had particular reason to worry — or not about money at least. That was Tony’s department, always had been. If I ever dared raise it he would shout and say that I was insulting him, that he had always provided for us. ‘I was more concerned about the online gambling being an unhealthy and unsociable habit — I’d go on at him about it and he’d stop doing it for a couple of days. With hindsight, I realise this is addict behaviour.’ 'The money they’d banked from the sale of their renovated properties over the years, a gift of £100,000 from Tony’s mother, and £85,000 from Sally’s father, even a £300,000 mortgage that he’d raised on the remaining property in Cornwall — it was gone. Tony had spent the lot in the past three years' In truth, Tony was the idiot at the table — and had been for a long time, sinking farther and farther in debt. At the beginning of 2009, he dropped a bombshell, telling his wife he wanted to move back to England as he couldn’t settle and his elderly mother was on her own. ‘It blindsided me a bit as the children were so settled and happy, but he wouldn’t let it go and in the end he was so miserable and withdrawn I felt that I didn’t have a choice,’ says Sally. ‘Now, I think the real reason he wanted to move was to shore up some of his debts with the sale of our home.’ The D’Silvas prepared for their move back to Cornwall, close to Tony’s mother, and initially took out a six-month contract on a rental property. Two weeks before they were due to move, however — and with Tamara and Dan already enrolled at English schools — Sally received a call from an estate agent telling her that the property was no longer available. ‘She said something about Tony not fulfilling his contractual obligations, but I was so angry she had left us high and dry I didn’t listen properly. Now, I know she had no choice, as Tony hadn’t paid the rent up front as he was supposed to.’ Panicking, and well aware they had just two weeks to vacate their French home, Sally convinced Tony that their best option was to remain in France and move to a neighbouring property on sale for €100,000 (£87,000), less than the €380,000 (£330,000) they’d received for their own house. ‘We couldn’t find anywhere suitable in Cornwall and at least in France we knew that the kids liked their schools. Tony had no choice but to agree. Our plan was to turn it into a glorious house with a pool.’ It never happened: while some basic work was done, Tony was busy gambling away every last penny of their renovation budget.Were it not for Tony accidentally leaving his briefcase open in the kitchen on a frosty January morning in 2010, who knows how long he would have managed to keep up his secret life? Were it not for Tony accidentally leaving his briefcase open in the kitchen on a frosty January morning in 2010, who knows how long he would have managed to keep up his secret life? (Posed by model) ‘I saw all the papers and could tell they were credit card bills,’ Sally says. ‘I glanced at them and my blood ran cold. They were for these huge sums — £25,000 here, £30,000 there. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We had hundreds of thousands in the bank, so I didn’t understand. ‘When Tony walked in, I held up the bills and said: “What’s going on?” He burst into tears and said: “I’ve really messed up.” ‘I asked him what he meant and he said: “We’ve got nothing left. It’s all gone, every penny.” Then he told me it had all been spent on poker.’ The money they’d banked from the sale of their renovated properties over the years, a gift of £100,000 from Tony’s mother, and £85,000 from Sally’s father, even a £300,000 mortgage that he’d raised on the remaining property in Cornwall — it was gone. Tony had spent the lot in the past three years. By creating a poker account online, he had been able to spend vast sums at the click of a button. ‘All in all, it came to around £1 million,’ Sally says. ‘We had nothing left. The betrayal was hard to compute. ‘I felt like a spectator looking on at the wreckage of my own life.’ Before confronting how she felt about her husband’s betrayal, Sally’s instinct was to retreat. Withdrawing the few remaining pounds in the joint account, she bought three flights to England and took the children to stay at her eldest daughter Michelle’s home in Cornwall. ‘We were all living in one bedroom, so it wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t think straight,’ she says She had no income, and little prospect of any for a while. Moreover, she was also keenly aware that Tamara was due to sit her GCSEs in summer at her international school in France. ‘It was difficult enough for the kids uprooting them and dealing with what their dad had done, so in the end I felt I had little choice but to return to France. ‘Tony was begging me to give him another chance, and I thought we owed it to the kids to try and get through the next few months. Beyond that, I just didn’t know.’ Back in France, the family settled down to a truce. ‘Tamara’s a daddy’s girl so she forgave him relatively easily, although it was harder for Dan. He wouldn’t speak about it. I just felt numb towards him.’ Sally also had to address the pressing matter of the family finances: with the recession tightening its grip, their house was valued by estate agents at little more than €150,000 (£130,000) — almost half what they’d paid for it — meaning selling was not an attractive option, particularly with little interest in the marketplace. Meanwhile, no money was coming in, and to make ends meet Sally did whatever work she could, enlisting Tony to help rent their land for car boot sales and running market stalls selling second-hand clothes. All the while, she remained paranoid that her husband would break his vow to stay away from the internet. ‘We had got rid of his laptop, but the kids had a computer and I felt that if I wasn’t watching him there was risk. ‘Looking back, it was an intolerable situation. I was tense and paranoid most of the time.’ And with good reason: in February, Sally woke in the small hours to find her husband was nowhere to be seen. ‘I found him hidden in an outhouse hunched over a laptop I didn’t even know he had, playing poker,’ she says. Confronted, Tony broke down once again. ‘I asked him where on earth he’d got the money from, as we didn’t have a penny, and he confessed that his mother had given him £1,000, which he’d told her he was going to use to treat me and the kids. ‘After everything he’d put us through, it was just the final straw. ‘I felt totally let down. He needed help, desperately, even though he wouldn’t admit the extent of his addiction. ‘I also knew then that our marriage was over, that I could never trust him again. I asked him to leave and he refused to leave.’ Determined to get her husband to confront his problem, Sally found a rehab facility in the UK funded by charitable donations. ‘I issued him with an ultimatum: he either sought treatment or I would take the children and go somewhere he wouldn’t be able to find them. Even then, he struggled to confront what he had done.’ It finally worked: at the start of March, Tony finally departed for England and enlisted in rehab for what Sally hopes will be a four-month stay. His wife cannot say whether it will be enough for him to conquer his demons, although she knows that their marriage is over. ‘Taking him back would feel like putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t live with the fear and the uncertainty and I don’t want to put the children through more stress.’ For now, Sally is taking things one day at a time. ‘My priority is to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table,’ she says. ‘I’ve got two beautiful children and in that sense I am blessed.’ Indeed she is, even if it is a far cry these days from the ‘nicest life on the planet’.

[bacardirum]

Re: Husband Loses £1m playing poker - Wife never knew! Nah she wont take him back now, whats his worth to her, he has not got a penny to his name, typical woman :@ Good story :ok

[ONEDUNME]

Re: Husband Loses £1m playing poker - Wife never knew! Yep, looks like she married him for the money and came unstuck. Why else would anyone marry a man who would wear a suit like that?