Odd and petty as it may sound, a woman in Cheborge, Kericho County is threatening to end her marriage, citing her husband’s fanatic addition to sports betting.
Fed up with begging her husband to tame his gambling addiction in vain, Miriam Chebet has openly expressed her intentions of abandoning him, saying betting deals their family budget a big blow.
The woman left her in-laws in shock recently when she broke the news as she expressed her frustration with her husband.
Desperate to become an overnight millionaire, Boniface Kosgei has since become a gambling zombie of sorts.
According to his disgruntled wife, all has been well until Kosgei, who has been a farmer until recently, was introduced to betting by his friends.
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What began as a weekend pastime, where he spent less than Sh200 in betting has since spiraled out of control, with the man now blowing up over Sh1000 in a day or two. Even more annoying to his wife is the fact that he hardly wins!
Dung, however, hit the fan when Kosgei invested a whopping Sh20, 000 meant for buying farm inputs in a bet, which was possibly to fetch him a handsome return. But as fate would have it, he lost the bet, leaving him and his wife a terribly devastated lot.
Matters got even worst after Kosegei scaled down his farming activities to concentrate on betting. His wife claimed that he has been losing money day in day out while claiming that his time to win big is yet to come.
Reportedly, “I almost hit the jackpot were it not these four matches.... I just missed winning this multi-bet by one game,” are some of the common excuses he always uses to console himself and his wife.
As if that was not enough, he had also reportedly made a fat budgetary allocation to his betting exploits at the expense of other meaningful activities, such as the family kiosk which was on the verge of collapsing due to lack of stock.
Aside from the financial strain his betting addiction had caused, his wife also complained of what she termed as “being starved of her wifely needs in their bedroom”.
Apparently, instead of attending to his wife as a responsible husband is wont in the bedroom, Kosgei spends the better part of the night checking out how the matches he has placed bets on are faring or just analysing next matches to bet on.
Kosgei is now obsessed with fantasies of how his wife and neigbours who like laughing at his inept betting skills will turn green with envy when they finally see him on TV holding the jackpot dummy cheque once he wins.
Citing case studies of previous winners who hacked it after several attempts, a defiant Kosgei has been defending his addition, daring his wife to leave him but never to return once he hits the jackpot.
Attempts to convince him to stop gambling since proved futile. He insists that after all he never bets with anyone’s money.
Reportedly, even efforts by his kin, including spirited pleas from his mother-in-law, have fallen on deaf ears.
He insists he can only stop betting once he wins big, to recover all the cash he has invested in the game, even as his marriage now hangs in the balance.
