Gambling addiction help in Turkey

Verified helplines

Helplines and online chat

YEDAM Danışma Hattı, 115, is the counselling line run by Yeşilay. It is free and answers on weekdays from 08:30 to 17:30 and on Saturdays from 08:30 to 13:30. It is a general addictions line covering alcohol, tobacco, substances, internet and gambling (kumar), staffed by psychologists trained in addiction, and the call can be turned into an appointment at a YEDAM centre. Online counselling is available through yedam.org.tr. Support is in Turkish.

Gamblers Anonymous keeps a meeting finder at gamblersanonymous.org, including online meetings in English for people who cannot find a local group.

Self-exclusion

There is no national self-exclusion register in Turkey as of September 2026. Nothing exists that you can sign once to be shut out of gambling accounts, and the reason follows from the legal structure: sites operating outside the state system are illegal rather than regulated, so none of them carries an obligation to keep anyone out.

Within the state system, ask the operator to close your account and stop marketing to you. Everything else has to be blocked on your own devices. Apps that block gambling sites compares the options, and self-exclusion by country shows what schemes exist elsewhere, for anyone gambling on foreign licensed sites.

Blocking gambling payments and sites

The state already blocks unlicensed betting sites: Law No. 7258 applies the access-blocking provisions of Law No. 5651 to them, and access to them is ordered blocked. That is enforcement rather than protection: it will not keep you off a site you are looking for, so a personal block matters more here than in countries that run a register.

Put the blocker on every device and let someone you trust hold the password. On the money side, ask your bank whether it can decline gambling merchants on your card, take cards off any betting account, and keep the account your salary lands in away from the one you have used to deposit. If debt has already built up, what to do about gambling debt sets out the order to work through it; how to set gambling limits covers the limits worth setting today.

Free treatment and counselling

YEDAM — Yeşilay Danışmanlık Merkezi — provides counselling for gambling addiction free of charge through more than 100 centres covering all 81 provinces. The work is outpatient: building motivation to stop, relapse prevention, coping with high-risk situations, group therapy and social support, plus family counselling that includes managing money in the household. Appointments are arranged through the 115 line.

The medical route runs through hospital psychiatry clinics and AMATEM addiction treatment units, which YEDAM itself points people to when the case calls for it, for example when there is a substance problem alongside the gambling, or a psychiatric condition that needs treatment in its own right. What either route usually involves is described in gambling addiction treatment and CBT for gambling.

Support for family and friends

YEDAM's services include family counselling, covering household financial management and parenting, and the 115 line takes calls from relatives who want to know what to do next.

How to help someone with a gambling problem covers the conversation, and the signs of a gambling problem covers what to look for before it is admitted.

Gambling law and the regulator

Betting on sports is legal in Turkey only through the state system operated under Spor Toto Teşkilat Başkanlığı, which runs Spor Toto and İddaa, alongside the national lottery. The minimum age is 18: İddaa states that by law only people over 18 may play.

Law No. 7258, article 5, sets out what happens outside that system. Running unlicensed sports betting, or providing a place or means for it, carries three to five years in prison and a judicial fine. Providing access from Turkey to betting operated abroad carries four to six years. Acting as an intermediary for money transfers linked to it carries three to five years, and advertising or encouraging people to play carries one to three. People who simply place the bets are fined administratively by the province's senior civil administrator; the article sets the range at 5,000 to 20,000 lira. Premises used for these offences are sealed for three months, and access to the sites is blocked under Law No. 5651.

Two things follow for anyone trying to stop. There is no regulator to complain to about an illegal site, no route to recover money and no obligation on it to honour a limit. And asking for help is a health matter: YEDAM is a counselling service, separate from the enforcement described above.