Gambling addiction help in Cyprus

Verified helplines

Helplines and online chat

1454 is the support line published by the National Betting Authority on its Safer Gambling site. Calls are free. The line is staffed by counsellors from the Multiple Intervention Centre of the Mental Health Services and is open to the person gambling and to family, friends and anyone else worried about them.

Hours are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 08:00–17:00, and Wednesday and Friday 08:00–15:00. Outside those hours you can leave a message on the answering machine and a counsellor will call back. The Authority has said it intends to move the line to 24-hour operation at a later stage; until then, an out-of-hours crisis needs the emergency number rather than 1454.

A second free line, 1456, serves young people and young adults up to the age of 22.

Self-exclusion

There is no national self-exclusion register in Cyprus as of September 2026. Self-exclusion here means asking a betting operator to block your own access to its service for a fixed or open-ended period; during that period you cannot bet on the websites you excluded yourself from. It has to be done separately with every operator you have an account with.

Alongside self-exclusion, the Betting Law requires licensed operators to give you control tools, and the National Betting Authority tells players to use them together: a cap on the amount you can stake or lose over a set period, a limit on how many times a month you can log in, a limit on how long you can spend in your account each day, and time-of-day restrictions — for example blocking access during working hours. The Authority's own worked example is setting a maximum of €40 a month on a given site.

Land-based casino gambling is separate again. The Cyprus Gaming and Casino Supervision Commission requires the casino operator to run its own self-exclusion programme under the Social Responsibility schedule, which sets out how the scheme is notified to customers, how you apply, how long an exclusion lasts and the conditions attached. Applications go to the operator, not to the Commission.

Blocking gambling payments and sites

The National Betting Authority maintains a public blocking list of websites that are not licensed as Class B betting operators or that provide illegal betting services. The list is published as a plain text file on the Authority's site and on its homepage. This is a national measure rather than something you control, and it is worth understanding what it does not do: it does not touch licensed sites, and it is not a self-exclusion tool.

Device-level blocking software does cover both licensed and unlicensed sites and works regardless of which country the operator is in. Our comparison of gambling blocking apps for iOS and Android goes through the free and paid options.

Free treatment and counselling

Counselling through the Multiple Intervention Centre of the Mental Health Services is free to everyone and is reached on 1454. Counsellors provide information about problematic gambling, help you work out whether the behaviour you are describing is addiction, and encourage and guide you towards dealing with it — for yourself or for someone close to you. The service is confidential.

Prevention and treatment programmes in Cyprus are funded from gambling revenue by statute. Licensed Class A and Class B bookmakers pay a contribution of 3% of their net betting revenue to the National Betting Authority, and one percentage point of that is ring-fenced by the Authority for protecting young people, vulnerable groups, pathological players and the public.

Support for family and friends

1454 is explicitly for family, friends and the wider social circle as well as for the player. The Safer Gambling site publishes practical guidance for relatives that is unusually specific about money: agreeing a maximum weekly amount, planning together how to limit access to funds, having a trusted family member hold controlled access to accounts and cards, setting up separate accounts whose passwords are not shared, and not leaving cash or cards where they can be picked up. It also warns that the person may react with denial, anger or relief, and suggests simply asking them to think about their gambling and to try the self-assessment rather than pressing for an admission.

Our guide on helping someone with a gambling problem covers the same ground in more depth.

Gambling law and the regulator

The National Betting Authority was established in 2012 and operates under the Betting Law of 2019 (Law 37(I)/2019). It licenses and supervises betting only, in two classes: Class A for land-based betting in licensed premises, and Class B for online betting. Class B licences specifically exclude slot machines, online casino games of chance provided with a direct link, and electronic horse racing.

Slot machines are illegal in Cyprus outside the licensed casino, as is running Class A betting from unlicensed premises or Class B betting from an unlicensed website. Registering as a player on a Class B site can only be done online and must include a confirmation that you are eighteen or over, along with your identity details and address. Minors are not allowed into licensed betting premises at all, even accompanied by an adult.

Casino gaming is regulated separately by the Cyprus Gaming and Casino Supervision Commission under the Cyprus Casino Control Law 2015. The Commission states plainly that online casinos are illegal, prohibited in Cyprus and not regulated or licensed by any authority there, and that it has no jurisdiction over complaints about online casinos or betting companies. If you have lost money on an online casino site while in Cyprus, there is no Cypriot regulator to complain to.