Your husband is sports betting. What to do tonight.

You found the app, the statement, or the lie. It is late and you want to do something. Here is what helps tonight and what does not.

What does not help tonight

• The confrontation at 11pm. He is either mid bet or just lost. Nothing you say lands.
• The ultimatum. It becomes a bet he can lose, and he is good at those.
• Paying it off quietly. It resets the clock to zero and teaches him the losses are survivable.

What helps tonight

1. Protect your own money first. Move anything in a joint account that you cannot afford to lose into an account in your name only. This is not punishment. It is a seatbelt.
2. Write down what you know. Dates, amounts, which books. You will need it, and writing it keeps you from arguing about it.
3. Send him one thing, not a speech. A link does what a lecture cannot: it gives him somewhere to go that is not the app.

The one thing to send

HoldTheBet is a free page that puts his own number and his own reason in front of him in the second before the betting app opens. No account, no download, nothing on the phone that says gambling. You can send it as "saw this, no pressure" and leave it there.

For you, not him

Gam-Anon is for the people around a gambler and it is free. The helplines below take calls from partners and parents, not only from gamblers. You are allowed to call about him.