Q\u2019s Tom Power in an interview<\/a>.<\/p>\nCampanelli\u2019s entry into gambling was harmless at first, born from a childhood love of winning. He remembers the thrill of entering contests, an innocent fascination with his older brothers playing poker in the basement as he watched from the stairs, and dropping pennies and nickels into a rec room slot machine at a beloved neighbour\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
But as an adult, it didn\u2019t take long for him to get hooked on sports betting \u2014 a habit that quickly turned into a desperate chase after bigger payouts, wagering money he didn\u2019t have. After joining Entertainment Tonight Canada, things escalated rapidly for Campanelli as he found himself drawn into a shadowy world of bookies, criminals and collectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you’re young, you’re foolish \u2026 so I was never really afraid,\u201d he tells Power. \u201cI was a big boy. I knew if I lost $10,000 and they were looking for it in a couple days, I was going to give it to them because if you don’t give it to them, then there’s a lot that could happen to you\u2026. But I never let it get physically scary, if you know what I’m talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
As is the case for many addicts, it was only when Campanelli hit rock bottom that he knew he needed help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had borrowed some money from four Las Vegas casinos to put a down payment on a condo that I’d just bought,\u201d he recalls. \u201cMy intention was to take it back home with me, not in the form of chips, because that would be no good up here, but going to the cash-out cages and exchanging the chips for the cash.\u201d<\/p>\n
These casinos mean business. They want every penny back when it’s time or before that.- Rick Campanelli<\/p>\n
Since casinos don\u2019t allow patrons to immediately cash out chips drawn on credit, Campanelli and a friend came up with a high-stakes workaround: fly to Vegas first thing in the morning and return home roughly 12 hours later on a red-eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those 12 hours, we were able to get the money from these casinos, gamble a little bit here and there, and then go back,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I ended up taking all this cash home and I put the down payment on the condo\u2026. I knew I owed [the casinos] money, and I would pay them off like you pay off a credit card. Installments and all that\u2026. But they’re not Visa or American Express. These casinos mean business. They want every penny back when it’s time or before that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometime later, while on a work flight to Vegas for an Entertainment Tonight Canada event, the consequences caught up with him. Campanelli was stopped and detained by U.S. Homeland Security, who placed him in handcuffs over his unpaid debts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says that was the first time he actually felt true fear and recognized the severity of his problem. Though he initially managed to stop gambling cold-turkey, he eventually relapsed, leading him to seek help through Gamblers Anonymous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I sit here today, I still have an addiction to gambling,\u201d Campanelli says. \u201cI’m ready to get this [book] out there, and I owe it to the people that tuned in to watch me all these years. They didn’t know this side of me. I was hiding it from them. I don’t like hiding anything from anybody. So I feel good about this book coming out. I feel good about this story being told. And if I can help someone out there trying to navigate the challenges that they’re having in this world of gambling, well, I wrote this book for the right reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
The full interview with Rick Campanelli is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power<\/a>. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\nInterview with Rick Campanelli produced by Diane Eros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-620849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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