The National Gambling Helpline: 0808 8020 133

Start here, because this is the number that answers at any hour. The National Gambling Helpline is run by GamCare, answers free on 0808 8020 133 and does so around the clock. Around the clock is not a slogan. The moment someone decides to talk about their gambling is rarely a convenient one, and this line does not ask it to be: a Tuesday lunchtime and three in the morning get the same number.

Free matters too. Nobody has to check a balance or wonder whether help is a paid service, because this one is not. If you are reading this page for yourself, put 0808 8020 133 in your phone now, while it still feels like an ordinary thing to do. If you are here because someone close to you is struggling, the same line is where you can start.

GamStop: the national self-exclusion scheme for GB-licensed online operators

GamStop is the free national online self-exclusion scheme, and it covers every GB-licensed online gambling operator: one registration, and the whole licensed field is included. Behind it sits The National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, and the scheme’s name is written GamStop, one word with two capitals. That spelling matters: it is how you find the scheme itself rather than something imitating it.

Registration asks you to pick a period: six months, one year, five years. Pick deliberately, because of the rule that defines the whole scheme: an exclusion cannot be lifted early, and the period you choose has to run its course. There is no shortening it later, and no form that cancels it. That rigidity is the point of the design. It holds on the evenings when resolve dips, precisely because it cannot be talked down.

On the choice itself, the practical reading is simple: take the longest period you can commit to with a clear head. Six months is the shortest option and it passes quickly. Five years outlasts most moods, most promotions and most bad weeks. If you are torn between two, the longer one is the sounder place to land, because the scheme has no early exit.

BeGambleAware: free tools and a self-assessment test

Not everyone wants to begin with a phone call. If you would rather take stock privately, the charity GambleAware runs BeGambleAware, and BeGambleAware publishes free tools, including a self-assessment test. Everything there costs nothing, and it is built for the person who would rather look at their own play quietly first.

What a self-assessment is good at is turning a vague feeling into specific questions. Something has been off for a while, deposits have crept upwards, sessions have stretched: the test puts shape on that. You answer for yourself, in your own time, and what you do next is up to you. A sensible pairing: the test tells you where you stand, and the helpline in the first section above is where a conversation happens when you want one. Both are free.

Bank blocks and blocking software

A third layer sits on top of self-exclusion: blocking. It comes in two everyday forms. The first is a gambling block offered by UK banks, a card or account setting that stops gambling payments on that card. The second is blocking software offered by UK banks and specialist providers, which aims at your devices rather than at one card.

Two honest notes. First, a block is friction, not a force field: its value is the gap it puts between an urge and a payment, and gaps are where better decisions happen. Second, coverage differs from tool to tool, so ask your own bank what it offers and read a provider’s own description before you rely on it. The point of this section is not to sell anything. It is that a self-exclusion you have registered, plus a block you have switched on, is a firmer position than either one alone.

Offshore accounts sit outside GamStop

Here is the fact this page will not soften. An offshore account is not covered by GamStop. The scheme’s coverage follows UK licensing, not where the player lives: it binds operators who hold a GB licence, and an offshore account sits outside that perimeter. In plain terms, a self-exclusion you have registered will not stop an offshore account being opened.

If you are in self-exclusion now, read that as a boundary to defend rather than a loophole to explore. The tools on this page (the helpline, the free tools, the bank blocks) all assume the licensed field, and the licensed field is exactly where your exclusion holds. Staying inside it is what keeps the arrangement intact.

And if an offshore account already exists, one you opened and then regretted, the move is not to wrestle with it alone. Close what you can, come back to the licensed field where your exclusion and the tools above apply, and ring 0808 8020 133. The line is free, it answers around the clock, and calling early beats calling late.