Self-exclusion and account limits

GAMSTOP is the free national self-exclusion scheme for Great Britain. One registration covers every online gambling business licensed by the Gambling Commission, and it closes a person’s accounts at those operators for a chosen period of six months, one year or five years. An exclusion cannot be cancelled before the period ends.

Separately from the scheme, deposit limits, reality checks and time-outs are licence conditions. Every operator the Gambling Commission licenses must offer them, which means a British-licensed account carries tools a player can set themselves: a cap on deposits, a prompt that reports how long a session has run, and a short break on request.

An offshore account sits outside all of it. A GAMSTOP registration does not reach those operators, and the licence conditions behind the account tools do not apply where there is no British licence. A person who has self-excluded should keep to UKGC-licensed sites for the length of the exclusion. Nothing on this page, or anywhere on this site, offers a way around any of these protections.

Free confidential support

The National Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The number is 0808 8020 133, and it is run by GamCare. Advisers can talk through the current situation, the protection tools described on this page and what happens next, and the service also supports people who would rather write than call.

Two other routes are worth naming plainly. Gordon Moody provides residential support for people experiencing serious gambling harm, a place to stay while the work of recovery happens. The NHS runs gambling-related clinics within its specialist services; a GP can make a referral, and the NHS service pages explain how to refer yourself.

None of this depends on where a person plays. The help attaches to the person rather than to the licence an operator holds, so a player whose accounts are offshore can use the same helpline as anyone else.

Blocking software and bank controls

Blocking software adds a barrier at the device. Tools such as Gamban, GamBlock and BetBlocker install on a phone, tablet or computer and stop gambling sites and apps from loading. Because the block sits on the device rather than on an account, it covers sites a person has never opened as well as the ones they know, and it works whether the site holds a British licence or not.

Banks offer a second lever. Many UK banks and building societies let a customer switch off gambling transactions on their card, usually with a single setting in the banking app. Once it is on, payments to gambling merchants are refused before they leave the account, and turning the block off again takes a deliberate decision rather than an accidental tap.

A declined transaction is a protection working. The honest response is to leave the setting alone. No page on this site exists to help anyone route a payment around a block they chose, and a refusal should be read as the tool doing exactly what it was asked to do.

How this site treats the subject

This site treats gambling as arithmetic rather than encouragement. Its pages cost bonus terms, wagering requirements and payout friction so a reader can see what an offer of a given shape is worth in real money before deciding anything. We model, we calculate and we cite published terms; we do not play, and nothing here invites anyone to start. Every figure on the site traces to a published source or to an assumption stated next to the sum.

Because the offers this site covers are offshore, one sentence carries the labelling on every page, including this one. Offers shown on this site operate without a UK Gambling Commission licence. Nothing here is an inducement to gamble. If play has stopped feeling like a choice, the practical material sits earlier on this page: the helpline is free and answered at any hour, the blocking tools install in minutes, and GAMSTOP remains the scheme that covers British-licensed operators.