A convenience store owner says he wants his life to serve as a cautionary tale about the addictive lure of lottery tickets.

Adam Osmond, a 49-year-old accountant from Connecticut, used to own a convenience store. Osmond told the Daily Mail he started buying lottery tickets from his own shop due in part to the mind-numbing tedium of manning the cash register from dawn till dusk.

For years, Osmond’s lottery jones was satisfied by playing a few dollars’ worth per day. But gradually, his habit escalated to the point where he was spending “thousands” each week and reinvesting any winnings – along with his regular income – into more lottery tickets.

Osmond says his worst lottery-playing years were between 2002 and 2008, during which he played the lottery constantly, seven days a week. Osmond estimates that he lost over $1m playing the lottery and characterized his job as “like having your own casino, it was me and the machine all the time.”