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Warning: This story contains details about violence that may cause distress
Like many young women of the 1970s who dreamed of getting married and having children, Kelly Delaney hastily wed the first eligible bachelor who came along.
Escaping a traumatic home life with an alcoholic mother, Kelly, whose real name has been changed to protect her family's privacy, moved out of home at 16.
She rented a small flat while working at a pharmacy.
At 18, shy and wanting to find someone to share her life with, Kelly was excited when a co-worker set her up on a blind date with a lonely 24-year-old bank teller who she refers to as "Luke".
After a congenial first date, the fledgling relationship developed into an engagement.
With the promise of a married future together, Kelly turned a blind eye to Luke's seemingly harmless hobby of betting on horses and greyhounds.
She even tolerated the co-dependent relationship he had with his mother, who accompanied him to the race track every Saturday to gamble on the horses.
Kelly was 16 when she left home. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
"I think on reflection, I was very naive, and very young and immature at that stage and I was desperate to find some happiness really", she said.
"I was always so sure that once we were married, that would change."
Control and deception
Luke convinced Kelly to give up her flat and they moved back in with her mother to "save" for a wedding and a house.
The couple married in the early 1980s.
Kelly had to hire a wedding dress for her big day. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
But despite their saving efforts, there still wasn't enough money to buy a ring, stage a proper engagement party or buy a new wedding dress.
The new bride would spend much of her Queensland honeymoon road trip waiting in the car while Luke made bets at TAB outlets along the way.
Luke then insisted that he set up a joint bank account and took control of the couple's combined finances.
"Whenever I worked, money had to go into his account, or 'our account' and it all got pooled together, there was nothing left over," Kelly said.
"I didn't see statements.
"Because my husband worked in the bank he said, 'It's better if I handle the finances.'"
Loading...It was a time when people accessed their accounts via bankbooks, deposit and withdrawal slips and cheques.
Kelly was allocated a tight fortnightly housekeeping allowance of $120 for food, clothing and family expenses.
They managed to buy a block of land after two years to build a house in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
Luke's mother moved into a granny flat out the back.
"We'd have bad times, then a little bit of good time, then things would be really bad again, then I would be told that I'd have to get out and get a job, even though I was rearing the kids and so on," she said.
Kelly said she would be tasked with dealing with the "red letters" in the mail and negotiating extensions on overdue bill payments as Luke quietly drained their account to fuel his gambling addiction.
Kelly thought getting married and having children would equate to happiness. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
Saving face
Kelly would keep up appearances to the outside world that nothing was wrong to preserve Luke's dignity as a respected banker.
She said people who knew him thought he was an "awesome guy".
Playing the role of happy dinner party hostess, wife and mother to friends and Luke's bank colleagues, Kelly would never tell anyone his secret.
It wasn't until he dropped a bombshell one night, that his gambling had brought them to the the brink of bankruptcy, that she would understand the true trouble that they were in.
"The reality that I'd been lied to for so many years was just staggering, it was just staggering," she said.
Kelly cast the illusion that life was good to friends and colleagues. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
Luke worked as a banker by day and a cleaner by night after promising to stop gambling, take a second job and fix their situation.
He eventually landed a promotion as a finance manager with the bank in the 1990s which required Luke, Kelly and their three children to relocate to Gippsland.
Things were looking up for Luke in his new role.
He bought a new suit and satchel, went away on frequent business trips, paid the bills on time, bought new toys for the children and even took the family on a Gold Coast holiday.
But the family waited in the car along the way as he stopped off at the TAB to drop bets.
Their high rise apartment was conveniently located opposite the new Jupiter's casino.
It became clear that Luke was still gambling.
The entire holiday centred around taking the kids to theme parks during the day so he could go to the casino in the evenings.
"It was easier for me not to upset or poke the bear because when I poked the bear, it became very angry," she said.
"The odd times that I questioned his behaviour he could get very verbally aggressive and I was frightened by that."
Kelly fled the family home to start a new life. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
Kelly gave Luke an ultimatum that it 'had to end" after a credit card bill from another bank addressed to Luke arrived at the family home by mistake.
Insisting that he had only ever gambled with the couple's own money, Luke threatened to take custody of the children and destroy her financially if she ever left him.
He also threatened to kill himself if she uttered a word about his chronic gambling to anyone.
Elaborate fraud
Kelly fled the family home after a violent episode one night.
She slept in her car before finding refuge at a women's shelter.
With no money, she pawned her rings and took up cleaning work which allowed her to fund a small house to rent.
Luke, who had taken custody of the children with his mother, finally agreed to a divorce.
Kelly was able to make an independent life for herself, studying to become a nurse and seeing her children on a rotational basis.
Kelly enjoyed her independence after separating from Luke. (Supplied: Kelly Delaney)
Police showed up at Kelly's doorstep on March 29, 2000, to inform her a body had been found in a car in a pine plantation, near the Hyland Highway, 10 kilometres east of Traralgon.
Forestry workers had spotted Luke's car at 4pm the day before but thought nothing of it.
They raised the alarm when the car was still there at 6.45am the next day.
Luke had taken his own life.
Kelly said her husband's death set in train a criminal investigation that would ultimately uncover a sophisticated loan scheme in which he had created more than 200 fake account names to embezzle more than $7 million from his employer.
Kelly said Sale police officers investigating the case found that during his "business trips", Luke frequented casino gaming rooms for high rollers, slept with other women, and was involved in an Asian gambling syndicate.
It was only after his death Kelly learnt her husband had been having an affair with a bank employee in another town.
The ABC contacted the Coroner's Court of Victoria which released the hard copy file of the police report into Luke's death.
It confirmed that Luke had resigned from his long-term job six weeks prior to his death and had started a finance broking business with two friends.
The report states that friends and family did not consider Luke to be depressed but that he had visited his doctor in the week of his death and was suffering "a degree of concern over the welfare of his daughter, and his new financial arrangement relating to his business".
He was prescribed medication to help him sleep and died five days later.
Memoir of a gambler's wife
Kelly protected her children from the truth of Luke's past in the aftermath of his death.
She worked in healthcare and eventually remarried, managing to find happiness with a supportive husband who she said had been a tremendous role model for her children.
Kelly managed to put the drama of her first marriage behind her. (Supplied)
Now a grandmother, Kelly has written a memoir as the wife of a compulsive gambler for her debut book, A Game of Chance.
Writing under the pseudonym Kelly Delaney, she hoped her story would open up conversations on gambling harm and educate young people of the dangers of gambling, particularly in the age of instantly accessible smart phone betting applications.
"If one person gets something positive out of this, then I'm happy, because less women will hopefully go through these sorts of experiences or have more faith to stand up and say something," she said.
Kelly Delaney has referred to her husband by the pseudonym Luke to protect his privacy and that of their children.