GAMSTOP: What It Blocks, and What It Does Not

What it is

GAMSTOP is a free self-exclusion scheme. You register once, and every gambling operator licensed for Great Britain has to block you from opening or using an account for the period you choose. There is no cost, and you do not have to contact operators individually.

Participation is not voluntary for the operator. Under the Gambling Commission's social responsibility code provision 3.5.5, every online licence holder has had to take part since 31 March 2020, and the Commission has suspended licences over failures to do so. If a site accepts a GB player without checking GAMSTOP, that is the site breaking its licence, not a gap in the scheme.

Registering asks for personal details, because the whole scheme depends on matching you accurately against accounts you already hold and any you try to open later.

The part most people get wrong

You choose a minimum period, from six months up to five years. What almost every summary of GAMSTOP gets wrong is what happens at the end of it.

The exclusion does not switch off by itself. It stays in place after your chosen period has passed unless you actively contact GAMSTOP and ask for it to be removed. Doing nothing means staying excluded, which is deliberate: the design puts the effort on the side of resuming, not on the side of staying stopped.

You also cannot cancel during the period. Once it is set, it runs. That is the point of it, and it is worth choosing the length with that in mind rather than picking six months because it sounds reversible.

It now covers betting shops too

This is the detail most pages on this subject are out of date about. Self-exclusion from betting shops used to be a separate scheme called MOSES, registered by telephone. It has been brought under GAMSTOP as Gamstop Betting Shops, and registration is no longer phone-only.

They remain two distinct things: the online scheme blocks gambling websites and apps, and the betting shop scheme blocks physical shops in an area you specify. Registering for one does not register you for the other. If both matter to you, do both.

What it does not cover

Knowing the gaps matters more than knowing the coverage, because the gaps are where people are caught out.

• The National Lottery and its games are not covered.
• Land-based casinos and bingo halls are outside both schemes.
• Sites not licensed in Great Britain are not covered, because the Gambling Commission has no power over them.
• Advertising is not blocked. You can still be shown gambling ads while excluded.

Sites advertising themselves as not on GAMSTOP

Search for GAMSTOP and much of what comes back is pages promoting casinos that are not part of it. It is worth being plain about what that means.

A site can only be outside GAMSTOP by not holding a Great Britain licence. That single fact carries everything else with it: no Gambling Commission oversight, no requirement to hold your money separately, no free adjudication route if it refuses to pay you, no deposit limits, no obligation to verify your age, and no one you can escalate a complaint to. The protections and the scheme are the same package.

These sites are also marketed hardest to exactly the people GAMSTOP exists to protect. That is the reason to be careful about them, rather than any argument about whether they are technically reachable.

Blocks worth stacking on top

GAMSTOP is one layer, and it is stronger with others alongside it, particularly because it cannot reach unlicensed sites.

• A bank gambling block. Most UK banks offer one free in the app, it refuses gambling transactions at the card level, and it usually carries a cooling-off period before it can be lifted.
• Blocking software on your phone and computer, which works at the device rather than the account.
• Removing saved card details from browsers and wallets, which sounds trivial and removes a real amount of momentum.

If gambling has stopped being fun

Self-exclusion is a practical tool, not a substitute for support, and the two work better together. GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline free and around the clock, and GambleAware lists the support available across the country. Both are independent of any operator and neither charges anything.