Responsible Gaming

1. Our position

UK Gambling Therapy is a therapy practice. We do not operate, promote, advertise, review favourably or link to any gambling operator, betting service or gaming product. We hold no commercial relationship with the gambling industry in any form. Nothing on this website is designed to encourage anyone to bet, and nothing here should be read as making gambling look manageable, glamorous or clever.

2. Strictly 18 and over

All gambling in Great Britain is restricted to adults aged 18 or over, and this website is intended for adults only. If you are under 18 and worried about your own betting or someone else’s, please contact Big Deal, the free GamCare service for young people, or speak to a trusted adult. Adults sharing a household with a young person can restrict access using parental controls and blocking software.

3. Shut off access — three layers, in this order

1. Register with GamStop

   Free, takes about ten minutes, and blocks your access to every gambling operator licensed in Great Britain for six months, one year or five years. Once started it cannot be shortened. gamstop.co.uk ↗ — read our full review of GamStop.

2. Switch on your bank’s gambling block

   Most UK banks and building societies now let you block gambling transactions from inside the app, several with a cooling-off delay of 24 to 48 hours before the block can be lifted. Ask for the longest delay your bank offers.

3. Install blocking software on every device

   Blocking software covers what GamStop cannot reach, including operators licensed outside Great Britain. Install it on every device in the household, then give the admin password to somebody else. GamCare lists the options ↗.

4. Then close the dormant accounts

   Search your email for registration confirmations and close every account you find, not only the ones you currently use. Forgotten accounts are the most common route back in.

For venues rather than websites, ask staff about the multi-operator self-exclusion schemes: SENSE for casinos, and the betting-shop and arcade schemes run by their respective trade bodies.

4. Warning signs worth taking seriously

• Betting more than you can afford to lose, or more than you intended to.
• Going back another day to win back losses.
• Borrowing, selling possessions, or using credit to fund betting.
• Hiding the amount, frequency or existence of it from people close to you.
• Needing larger stakes for the same feeling.
• Sleep, mood, work or relationships suffering because of it.
• Thinking about betting when you are trying to do something else.

Our free nine-question self-check puts these into a recognised framework. It runs entirely in your browser and records nothing.

5. If it is someone else’s gambling

You are entitled to help in your own right, whether or not the person gambling wants any. Protect joint accounts and any credit in your name first — that is not disloyalty, it is the precondition for an honest conversation. Avoid clearing debts in secret, because it removes the consequence without removing the behaviour. Gam-Anon runs free meetings for family members, and our family and partner programme takes clients whose relative has not engaged with anything at all.

6. Money problems: get free advice, never paid advice

Free, regulated debt advice is available from StepChange, National Debtline and Citizens Advice. Never pay an upfront fee for debt help, and treat with great suspicion anyone offering to recover gambling losses on your behalf for a fee — those approaches frequently target people at exactly this point.

7. Protections that exist in the UK

Gambling in Great Britain is regulated by the Gambling Commission. Licensed operators must verify age and identity, participate in GamStop, offer deposit limits and time-outs, act on signs of harm, and follow rules on how they advertise. If you believe a licensed operator has failed in those duties, you can complain to the operator, escalate free of charge to its alternative dispute resolution provider, and report the conduct to the Gambling Commission. Operators without a Great Britain licence are outside all of these protections, including GamStop.

8. Our own safeguarding practice

• We assess risk at intake and at every session, and we act on it.
• We decline clients for whom paying our fees would deepen financial harm, and signpost to free treatment instead.
• We refer into NHS specialist care where gambling sits alongside a condition outside our competence.
• Clinicians hold enhanced DBS clearance, indemnity insurance and regular clinical supervision.
• We have a written safeguarding policy for children and vulnerable adults, available on request.
• We never use client stories, words or images in marketing.

Related: Resource library · Free self-check · Support reviewed · Disclosure