How to block gambling sites and apps on iPhone and Android

The most reliable setup is three layers, not one: a dedicated gambling blocker (BetBlocker is free, Gamban is paid outside Wales), your phone's own restrictions locked behind a passcode somebody else holds, and a gambling block on your bank card. No single method is airtight.

Blocking buys time rather than certainty. The useful test for each method below is who can undo it and how fast. A block you can remove in ten seconds does nothing at 2 a.m.; one that needs another person's Apple Account password, or has an end date you cannot bring forward, does.

What each blocking method actually stops

Checked on 1 September 2026 against Apple's and Google's documentation. The last column decides whether a block survives a bad night.

Block gambling apps and sites on an iPhone or iPad

These steps are for iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, using Screen Time on your own device.

1. Delete the gambling apps you already have. Touch and hold each icon, then remove it. Do this first, while you still want to.
2. Turn on Screen Time in Settings, then open Content & Privacy Restrictions and switch it on. Everything below lives in that menu.
3. Cut off new gambling apps. Tap App Store, Media, Web & Games, then Apps, and set the age limit to 16+ or lower. Apple's rating rules put real-money gambling at 18+, so a lower limit keeps licensed betting apps out of the App Store on this device.
4. Stop installs and purchases. In iTunes & App Store Purchases, set the installing and in-app purchase options to Don't Allow. This closes the obvious workaround: installing a fresh browser or another casino app an hour later.
5. Set the web filter. Under App Store, Media, Web & Games, tap Web Content and choose Limit Adult Websites, or Only Approved Websites for a strict allow-list. Apple's filter targets adult content, not gambling, so treat it as a supplement to a real blocker.
6. Hide Safari if you want the browser gone. Under Allowed Apps & Features, turn Safari off. Apple notes that a switched-off app "won't be deleted, it's just temporarily hidden from the Home Screen", so nothing is lost if you turn it back on later.
7. Lock it with a passcode you do not control. Set a Screen Time passcode and let the other person choose the digits.

That last step decides whether the setup holds. Apple lets you reset a forgotten Screen Time passcode with "the Apple Account email address and password that you used to set up the Screen Time passcode". If that account is yours, you can undo everything in a minute. The passcode works only when your keyholder enters their own Apple Account at setup and keeps that password.

Block gambling apps and sites on Android

Android gives you more places to put a lock and more ways around them, because apps can also be installed from outside the Play Store. Use several layers together.

1. Uninstall the gambling apps, then check for sideloaded ones and site shortcuts on the home screen: betting sites push "add to home screen" prompts that look like apps.
2. Set Play Store content restrictions. Tap the profile icon, then Settings, then Family, then Content restrictions, and set Apps & games below 18+. Google: "the person who sets up content restrictions will create a PIN that needs to be entered to remove or change content restrictions", so let your keyholder create it. Google also names two limits: you "will still be able to see any apps and games you downloaded before you added content restrictions", and restrictions "don't prevent restricted content as a search result or through a direct link".
3. Use Digital Wellbeing for what is already installed. In Settings, open Digital Wellbeing & parental controls. An app timer closes the app when time runs out; Focus mode pauses chosen apps entirely. Google documents an app-limits PIN: "To set app limits on a device that only you can change, you can set a PIN." Digital Wellbeing cannot block a website outright, only cap time on it.
4. Turn on Private DNS. Go to Settings, Network & internet, Private DNS, choose "Private DNS provider hostname" and enter a resolver that filters gambling. Google notes that "by default, your device uses Private DNS with all networks that can use Private DNS", so it follows you onto mobile data. One warning: Cloudflare's family resolver blocks malware and adult content, not gambling, so the category matters.
5. Add a dedicated blocker for uninstall protection. BetBlocker is charity-run and free on Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Fire OS, covering more than 384,000 gambling sites and 1,900 apps. Restrictions run from one day to five years and "cannot be lifted before the end of the selected restriction period".

Family Link fits a narrower case than most guides suggest. It supervises a child or teen account, the supervising adult must be 18 or over and in the same country, and Google states that "iPhones, iPads, and computers other than Chromebooks can't be supervised with Family Link". Between two adults, the Play PIN and the app-limits PIN do the same job without handing over an account.

Windows and Mac

A Mac carries the same Screen Time restrictions, documented for macOS Tahoe 26: System Settings, Screen Time, Content & Privacy, then Web Content and app limits, with the passcode again held by someone else. On Windows the shortest route is a blocker plus network filtering, since BetBlocker and Gamban both run there and router DNS covers the machine whichever browser is open. Microsoft Family Safety filters sites for accounts in a family group, which helps on a shared PC but is built around child accounts.

Filter the whole house with DNS

Every device asks a resolver to turn a domain name into an address, and a filtering resolver refuses to answer for the categories you blocked. Set it once in the router's admin page and it covers phones, laptops, consoles and smart TVs on that Wi-Fi, with nothing to install. It misses mobile data, and it can be overridden on a single device, so the router password belongs with your keyholder.

Two workable options. Control D documents a Gambling filter alongside its adult, dating and drugs filters; switch it on in a profile and point the router or Android Private DNS at it. If you run Pi-hole or AdGuard Home, the Blocklist Project publishes a public-domain gambling list at blocklistproject.github.io/Lists/gambling.txt, rebuilt as new domains appear.

Watch the free tiers. NextDNS caps its free plan at 300,000 queries a month, and its documentation is blunt about what follows: "once this limit is reached, it becomes a standard DNS resolver, with no filtering, no logging etc." A busy household hits that mid-month, the filter stops, and nothing on the phone says so.

Where blocks fail, and how to close the gap

Every method above has a known weak point.

• VPNs. A VPN routes traffic past DNS filtering, on the router or the device; app-level blockers are harder to sidestep this way. BetBlocker also says some versions of its app use a VPN to enforce the restriction, so a second VPN can collide with it.
• Mobile data. Router filtering ends at the front door; Private DNS and installed blockers travel with the phone.
• Private and incognito windows. They hide history from the device, nothing more. DNS filters and installed blockers still apply in a private window.
• New domains and mirror sites. Lists lag behind the market. In testing commissioned by GambleAware in 2018, gambling-specific packages blocked the major licensed operators but stumbled on crypto casinos: the three packages blocked 54.8%, 62.1% and 79.3% of a sample of cryptocurrency gambling sites. The same tests found proxy sites, Tor and a site's raw IP address did not get past them.
• Web apps and browser games. Blocking the app does not block the same operator's mobile site, which is why the browser and DNS layers both matter.
• The other devices. The old phone in a drawer, a work laptop, a console, a partner's tablet. BetBlocker allows unlimited installs, so cover them in one sitting.

Two things close most of these gaps: a restriction with a fixed end date, since a subscription you can cancel is a decision you face again every night, and removing the money, which no device setting can do.

Add the money layer: self-exclusion and bank blocks

Device blocking guards the doorway; self-exclusion closes the accounts behind it, and a bank block stops the payment even when a site loads. Most banking apps switch a card block on in under a minute, and the guide to bank gambling blocks covers how long banks make you wait before lifting one.

For accounts, use the national scheme where you live: GamStop in Great Britain, or the equivalents in the guide to self-exclusion by country. If you are still choosing software, the comparison of apps that block gambling sites sets prices and uninstall protection side by side, with a closer look at Gamban.

A setup you can finish tonight

1. Ask one person to be your keyholder, in the room or on the phone.
2. Delete every gambling app on every device you own, including the old ones.
3. Install BetBlocker on each device and set a restriction longer than a bad week: it cannot be shortened once it starts.
4. On iPhone, set the Screen Time restrictions above and let your keyholder enter the passcode and their Apple Account.
5. On Android, set the Play Store PIN and the app-limits PIN, again typed by your keyholder, then turn on Private DNS.
6. Set filtering DNS on the router and hand over the router password.
7. Turn on the gambling block in your banking app.
8. Register for your country's self-exclusion scheme: slower than everything above, and it matters more.

The gambling self-test takes about three minutes if you want a read on where you stand first.