At a small roadside tea stall in Sharsha, a kettle whistles over dying coals. Between serving cups of steaming tea, Anwar Hossain sits hunched over his phone, eyes fixed, thumb flicking rapidly across the glowing screen.
“I started with just a few bets between customers,” he says, his voice low and tired. “At first, I won. I thought — maybe this is my luck. Then I started losing. I sold my shop, my utensils, my phone. Everything went. It’s like being drunk without drinking — you can’t stop even when you know it’s ruining you.”
Anwar’s story has become frighteningly familiar in the villages and towns around Benapole and Sharsha. What began as harmless curiosity — a mobile game, a digital bet — has exploded into a full-blown social epidemic. Across tea stalls, garages, and bus stands, in homes and hostels, Bangladesh’s poor and working-class are gambling their way into ruin, one click at a time.
The new lottery of despair
The modern gambler no longer sits in a smoky den rolling dice. He scrolls on a cracked screen — the new symbol of aspiration and addiction. The “entry fee” is small: 500 or 1,000 taka. But the game is ruthless. Within days, bets climb to 10,000, 20,000 — until everything disappears into digital dust.
From maids and hawkers to truck drivers and students, thousands in this border region have fallen into the same spiral. Easy apps, flashy ads, and promises of instant reward feed a hunger born of poverty and impatience.
“It’s a disease of hope,” says Khalilur Rahman, an easy-bike driver from Benapole. “A boy in my neighbourhood showed me how to play. I won one night. The next day, I bet everything I earned driving. Then I lost. I sold my fan, my wife’s jewellery. My children cried. That’s when I stopped.”
From loss to lawlessness
As the addiction deepens, so does the desperation. In the once-peaceful lanes of Navaran and Baganchra, theft and robbery have surged. Teenagers who once played cricket now roam in small gangs, knocking on doors, or worse — using anesthetic sprays to rob travellers on buses.
One such victim, Md. Anarul from Satkhira, still trembles recalling his ordeal. “They sprayed something on my face. I blacked out. When I woke up, my pockets were empty, my head spinning. I was lucky to be alive.”
Locals whisper that the young robbers aren’t hardened criminals — they’re failed gamblers, trying to repay their digital debts. What begins in a screen ends on the street.
A generation gambling its future
Parents in Benapole talk in hushed voices about sons who once studied diligently but now live with their phones glued to their palms. “My boy takes money saying he needs it for tuition,” says one father from Navaran. “Later, I found out he was betting. His grades are gone. His sleep is gone. And I can’t stop him — it’s like he’s possessed.”
At night, homes glow with the cold light of phones. A tea seller bets between customers. A maid hides in the corner after chores. A shop assistant sneaks in a game during his break. The lines between classes blur — addiction has made everyone equal.
Digital greed and moral decay
“The youth are being consumed by an illusion — the belief that you can earn without effort,” says Kamruzzaman Shanti, Principal of Benapole College. “It’s a moral crisis as much as a technological one. When labour loses meaning, society loses its soul.”
He blames not just the players but a culture that glorifies shortcuts — “money without sweat, fame without merit, life without patience.”
Authorities and helplessness
Police officials admit the scale of the problem is overwhelming. “People fear coming to the station,” says SI Manik Kumar Saha of Benapole Port Police Station. “But we’re monitoring. Whenever we get complaints, we act. The problem is — it’s all online, invisible, everywhere.”
Sharsha Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Kazi Najib Hasan says the administration has started awareness drives in schools, madrasas, and local meetings. “We tell families — this is not just a game. It’s eroding livelihoods, breaking homes, destroying futures. We want to convince, not just punish.”
But even he admits: “Stopping it completely is hard. It’s in their hands — literally.”
When small dreams turn to dust
For some, it begins with boredom. For others, with hunger. In a world where survival itself feels like a gamble, online betting promises something intoxicating — control over luck.
But the outcomes are always the same: debt, despair, and broken families. “I used to laugh, talk, dream,” says Anwar, the tea seller, staring into his half-empty kettle. “Now, even when I sleep, I see the spinning screen.”
On the other side of that glowing screen, millions of taka vanish every day — along with dignity, trust, and the quiet rhythm of ordinary life.
The phones keep ringing. The tea keeps boiling. And somewhere in between, Bangladesh’s most fragile dream — of an honest, hardworking life — is being bet away, one swipe at a time.