When Kate Seselja sat down with her husband to tell him what happened, she remembers vividly the flash of panic and fear on his face.

Looking back, she understands.

Seeing herself through his eyes, he must have thought she was leaving him, that she had found someone else and was asking for a divorce.

When she told him the truth, relief washed over him.

While it may not have been her husband's worst-case scenario, the reality is Kate's life was rapidly spiralling.

Kate's family was about discover a devastating secret she'd kept hidden for years - one that was going to turn their financial lives upside down.

Grasping for the words to explain the depth of her deceit, she could only say 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry', over and over again.

In the silence of her husband's embrace, she asked herself: How had it come to this?

Kate, 45, was in the grips of a gambling addiction for 14 years, between the ages of 18 and 32. Long associated with men and sports fans, gambling addiction is becoming more recognised as a problem among married, middle-class women

It started with a flicker of excitement and the push of a button.

It was 2002. Kate, then an expectant mother, sat trance-like in front of a poker machine, her eyes glued to the flashing screen for hours.

Her mind ruminated on the near-misses - she needed four matching symbols, missing just one would mean a jackpot. So close. Just one more spin. Just one more.

The dopamine hit was too strong to walk away from. The next one could be it.

The machine gave the illusion of losses disguised as wins - $5 here, $20 there - but she quickly lost track of how many $50 notes she'd inserted.

'It's like electronic heroin from the moment you sit down. It's so hypnotic, you don't quite understand it's happening,' Kate, now 45, tells me. 

'It hijacks your body and mind in a way that you're not prepared for.

'A lot of people say the pokies is the "crack cocaine of gambling" - and it really is. It's a machine that's been designed to hijack your mind.' 

'It's like electronic heroin from the moment you sit down. It's so hypnotic you don't understand it's happening,' Kate, now 45, tells me (she is pictured with her husband) 

She had only planned on spending $100 - that went in minutes. By the end of the night, she was $1,000 out of pocket. 

At the time, Kate and her husband were expecting their second child. 

Unbeknownst to him, she had been secretly gambling with money from the savings account they'd set up to build their dream home.

The shame of knowing she was messing with her family's future wasn't enough to stop her from slinking into pokie areas whenever she had a few hours' spare.

She would return again and again. She knew all the best spots in her neighbourhood and had them memorised.

By the end of the month, she had lost their $30,000 in savings. 

Keeping the secret from her husband was eating her alive. Contemplating suicide and in fear she was going to put them on the path of bankruptcy, Kate decided the only way to stop herself was to go home and tell her husband what she had done.

Kate was hooked on the pokies after winning a few hundred dollars when she was 18 in the '90s

The mother of six, who hails from Sydney but now lives in Canberra, was addicted to gambling for 14 years, between the ages of 18 and 32.

It almost cost her her life and marriage.

Long associated with men and sports fans, gambling addiction is becoming more recognised as a problem among married, middle-class women - but it doesn't discriminate. 

While men tend to start gambling young and their addiction progresses slowly, women often begin later and progress to addiction more quickly, known as 'telescoping'. And while men are more likely to chase excitement or money, women often gamble to escape stress, loneliness or trauma.

Kate is an exception to the rule in that she first gambled in her teens and doesn't have a history of trauma. Instead she started gambling out of naivety.  

At the age of 18, an impressionable Kate went to a local club with her boyfriend to catch up with friends. As the night continued, they took their drinks into the 'VIP room' to test their luck. 

The 'jackpot' on the top of the machine had $20,000 in gold lights to draw punters in, and the group of teens only imagined what they could do with that money. 

She pressed the button in the centre of the dashboard and saw the wheel spin. 

'Within a few presses, the screen ticked over and the numbers were only getting higher and higher. I kept thinking, "When is it going to stop?"' Kate said. 

In a matter of minutes she had turned her $20 into several hundred dollars, which was the equivalent of one weeks' pay in her job as a receptionist. 

From that moment, she was hooked. 

The mother of six, who hails from Sydney but now lives in Canberra, wishes she'd never played the pokies with her boyfriend at the age of 18

'All of a sudden, I'd be driving my normal routes and noticed different [gambling] venues on every corner,' she explains.

'I gambled pretty solidly for that year and went in alone, spending all of my weekly paycheque, sometimes within an hour,' adds Kate, who was earning a modest wage at the time. 

She didn't feel any financial strain because she was still living at home and didn't have bills or a mortgage to pay. She could simply spend money on gambling machines in the same way other girls spent money on clothes or makeup.

Kate would borrow money from her parents to gamble; they assumed she used the cash on nights out.

'I would go out on weekends and come home at 3am stone-cold sober because I'd been using the pokie machines not drinking,' she admits. 

About 18 months after her first spin, she broke up with her boyfriend and was soon introduced to her now-husband through friends.

Before they started dating, the two shared their personal struggles. Kate spoke about her gambling in the past tense, believing it was behind her. 

In 1999, the couple moved to Canberra, which Kate thought of as the 'fresh start' she needed.

They married that same year and, for a period of time afterwards, she did not gamble. She also entered a new era of her life: motherhood.

The happy couple's baby boy filled Kate with hope and optimism for the future. 

But in 2002, while pregnant with her second child, she attended a mother's group at a community centre which later moved to a club.

There she heard the familiar sounds of the pokie machines.

'My mind was activated and I felt that pull. I didn't go that day, but later that week I was driving past a venue and stopped by,' Kate says. 

That month, she lost the $30,000. Distraught and ashamed, she considered suicide.

When she arrived home, Kate broke down in tears and confessed to her husband what she had done.

'He thought I was going to leave him. So when I said I had lost all this money, he was kind of relieved,' Kate recalls.

By 2012, she estimates she had lost $500,000 to the pokies by using a combination of cash, savings and credit cards (Kate is pictured with her husband and children) 

For years, the gambling continued 'on and off'. In 2003, she reached out for help for the first time when she called the suicide hotline Lifeline.

But she received some bizarre advice from the female volunteer, who coincidentally was also struggling with gambling.

She didn't recommend a course nor a 12-step group, saying there 'were none' for women. Instead she suggested: 'Just don't wear shoes. If you don't wear shoes, you won't be able to get into a venue, so you won't be able to gamble.'

This was a reference to the rule 'no shirt, no shoes, no service' often enforced in licensed venues across Australia. 

Shocked and confused, Kate responded: 'What? What other help is available to me?'

The woman said there was a Gamblers Anonymous meeting located about an hour away, though this wasn't ideal because Kate was still breastfeeding.

She asked if there was a rehab facility she could go to, but the woman on the line said: 'Oh, no, there's no rehabs. And if there was, they'd be for men.'

Feeling helpless, Kate hung up the phone. She had never felt more alone.

A year later, Kate found a counsellor, who was ironically located directly opposite a pokies venue. She suggested her marriage was somehow the problem and encouraged her to leave her husband.

She didn't book another session. 

Flash forward to 2006 and Kate found herself at a function with friends. Seeing an adjacent pokies lounge, she discreetly slipped away to gamble.

'The pull was that strong that even though I knew somebody there might notice, it didn't stop me,' Kate says.

A friend saw her sitting at the machine, hopelessly chasing her losses. A week later when they were at lunch together, the same friend confronted her.

'I'm worried about you. I saw you in go there when we were out,' she said. Hearing those words made Kate break down in tears.

Kate describes the physical feeling of despair every time she borrowed money or gambled funds set aside for something else as 'waves of regret' crashing from head to foot 

By this time, she knew she had a problem that was only going to get worse until she lost her marriage, her children and her financial security.

Kate describes the physical feeling of despair every time she borrowed money or gambled funds set aside for something else as 'waves of regret' crashing from head to foot.

'That was the only mantra in my brain: "What is wrong with me? Why can't I stop?"

By 2012, she estimates she wasted $500,000 on pokies using a combination of cash, savings and credit cards. 

She felt as if there was no hope left and had exhausted all options to stop.

Kate was suicidal. The only thing stopping her from ending her life was the fact she was pregnant with her sixth child. 

'My children are everything to me. They have been the absolute joys of my life and the light in amongst the hell that I existed in for 15 years,' she tells me through tears. 

'I loved being part of a big family and of all the things that gambling took from me, I'm so glad that wasn't one of them.'

Now Kate works as a recovery coach and is sharing her story to help others

Over time, Kate realised she wasn't gambling due a history of trauma or to escape an unhappy life. She was a victim of machines designed to get you hooked. 

'I realised there was no pre-existing trauma that led to this. The trauma was these pokies. I was exposed to a product that has the capacity to destroy lives, and I came to that conclusion after years of introspection and exhausting all options,' she says. 

Kate decided to try another counsellor who recommended seeing a financial therapist which was a 'game changer'.

Thirteen years on and she hasn't gambled since. 

Now Kate works as a recovery coach and is using her story to help other Australians impacted by gambling harm.

She launched The Hope Project in 2016 offering group education and one-on-one coaching. She also speaks in schools to educate children. 

'Statistically I should have been dead in 2002 when gambling first made me contemplate suicide,' she says.

'But I somehow managed to make it to 2012. I've met so many families who've lost loved ones who died thinking they were the problem. 

'Now I know these machines were designed to get you addicted and ruin your life. It's theft disguised as entertainment and the government allows it. 

'I spent the last decade in reform helping to create change and dismantling shame and want things to change. 

'They built pokie machines to override human instincts. They know from years of refining the product that people play to extinction - meaning until they've exhausted all of their funds. It's no wonder so many commit suicide.' 

For those struggling with gambling harm Kate recommends watching the 'Ka-Ching!' documentary and seeking help through support services, friends, family or a therapist.  

Support services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across Australia: 

Gambling Help: 1800 858 858 

Lifeline: 13 11 14

For more information, visit GHLEE - Gambling Harm Lived Experience Experts