Gambling addiction help in Malta

Verified helplines

Helplines and online chat

The supportline 1777 is answered by agents who provide advice and support; the social welfare agency Appogg can be reached on 179. Both are free, confidentiality is guaranteed, and you can stay anonymous. The Responsible Gaming Foundation, which launched the line, also offers a chat service through its website. Opening hours for either line are not published.

One thing to know before you call: the Responsible Gaming Foundation, set up in 2014, is being absorbed into the Malta Gaming Authority, and the Foundation's own site warns that some of its services are unavailable during that transition. The 1777 and 179 numbers are still the ones the MGA and the Foundation both publish. If a service you were referred to has moved, the MGA can be contacted directly.

Self-exclusion

Malta has two separate systems, and the difference between them matters more here than in most countries.

Land-based: one application covers every venue

The unified self-barring system blocks access to land-based gaming facilities — casinos, gaming parlours, bingo halls and similar premises licensed by the MGA. You can apply for a barring from all land-based gaming premises at once. Periods run from six months to one year, or you can choose an indefinite period or an auto-renewing one. Under the Gaming Act a medical certificate is required for an indefinite barring, and a valid ID card must always be presented. To register, contact the MGA or the Responsible Gaming Foundation and complete the self-barring request form with a copy of your ID card. A period of exclusion from a gaming premises cannot be shortened or revoked before it expires.

Online: site by site

For remote gambling, self-exclusion is a licensee obligation rather than a national register. The MGA's Player Protection Directive requires every business-to-consumer licensee to offer definite or indefinite self-exclusion, no more than one click from the responsible gaming page, and to make the request effective immediately. In the absence of a unified self-exclusion database for remote operations — the Directive's own wording — a licensee running several brands that require separate registration may limit your exclusion to the single brand you asked about. So excluding from one MGA-licensed site does not exclude you from the rest.

Two provisions work in your favour. If an operator excludes you because it has reason to believe you have a gambling problem, that exclusion must apply across all of its brands. And you can ask an operator to exclude you before you have ever registered as a player there.

Lifting an online exclusion is deliberately slow. You have to explain the circumstances, the licensee can refuse and must answer in writing within seven days, and even if it agrees a definite exclusion cannot lift for at least 24 hours and an indefinite one for at least seven days. Operators are also barred from trying to tempt a self-excluded player back.

Blocking gambling payments and sites

Because online self-exclusion in Malta stops at each licensee's own brands, device-level blocking software does more work here than it does in countries with a single register. The MGA and the Responsible Gaming Foundation both point players to BetBlocker, which is free, and Gamban; the Foundation runs its own BetBlocker portal. Both work on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Our comparison of gambling blocking apps covers how they differ.

The MGA also publishes a list of unauthorised URLs — sites offering gambling to players in Malta without a licence. A site on that list is outside the player protection rules described above, so no self-exclusion request to it carries any weight.

Free treatment and counselling

The Foundation for Social Welfare Services provides one-to-one support to people with gambling problems: emotional support, strategies for managing gambling behaviour, and referral to specialised services. Appointments are booked on 1777 or 179.

For longer-term treatment, the MGA directs players to three organisations alongside the Responsible Gaming Foundation: Sedqa, the national agency against drug and alcohol abuse; Caritas Malta; and the OASI Foundation in Gozo. Each offers counselling and structured programmes.

Support for family and friends

The organisations the MGA lists support family, friends and anyone worried about someone else's gambling, not only the person gambling. The 1777 and 179 lines take those calls too.

The MGA publishes a short self-assessment quiz that people often use as a way into the conversation. If you are trying to work out whether what you are seeing is a problem, our guide to the signs of gambling addiction and our self-test may help.

Gambling law and the regulator

Gambling in Malta is regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority under the Gaming Act (Cap. 583) and its subsidiary legislation, including the Gaming Player Protection Regulations. The Act defines a minor as a person under the age of eighteen and prohibits offering, permitting or inducing a minor to take part in gambling, whether by allowing entry to premises, selling a ticket, employment, or advertising.

One point causes constant confusion abroad. Malta licenses a very large number of online operators that serve players in other countries, so an MGA licence tells you the company is regulated in Malta — it does not mean the site is licensed, or even legal, where you live, and it does not connect the site to any self-exclusion register in your own country. If you are outside Malta, check your national scheme in our self-exclusion by country guide.