S Club 7 star calls out ‘lack of empathy’ for gambling addicts

Jo O'Meara recalls her issues with fruit machines and says addiction can happen to anybody at any time'

Jo O'Meara, a former member of the 90s pop group S Club 7, has shared how she became addicted to gambling on fruit machines as a form of escape" from the pressures of touring, before realising she had to quit because it made her antisocial.

O'Meara said she first went to bingo halls with family at about 18, where she began playing on fruit machines. Although she did not consider it an addiction at the time, she found herself playing regularly over five years before deciding, she said, that the gambler never wins" and she was wasting valuable time which would be better spent with friends and family".