Gambling addiction help in the United Kingdom

Verified helplines

Helplines and online chat

The National Gambling Helpline is run by the charity GamCare and answers calls free of charge, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The number is 0808 8020 133 in England and Scotland and 0808 2819 265 in Wales. If you would rather not speak, GamCare runs live chat and a WhatsApp service through its website.

The helpline is not only an emergency line. It is also the usual route into free treatment: advisers can book you into counselling delivered through the National Gambling Support Network, which is free and available across Great Britain. Partners, parents and other family members can call the same number on their own behalf.

Self-exclusion

GAMSTOP is the national online self-exclusion scheme. Registration is free, takes about five minutes, and blocks your access to accounts on every gambling website and app run by a business licensed in Great Britain. You choose a period of six months, one year, five years, or five years with automatic renewal. The block can take up to 24 hours to take effect, and you can extend a registration from your GAMSTOP account. It is open to anyone living in the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, and more than half a million people have registered.

GAMSTOP does not cover premises. For land-based gambling, the Gambling Commission lists separate free schemes, each covering one type of venue:

Registering with one scheme does nothing about the others, and none of them binds sites licensed outside Great Britain. That is why the Gambling Commission and GambleAware both present self-exclusion as one layer among several rather than a complete solution. Our country-by-country guide to self-exclusion schemes covers the equivalents elsewhere.

Blocking gambling payments and sites

Most UK banks let you switch on a gambling block from inside the banking app. The block works on the merchant category code that card payments carry, so it stops card spending at gambling companies without closing your account or affecting your credit score. Look under card controls or search the app for "gambling". Monzo, for example, lets you set a cooldown of anywhere between two days and one year when you turn the block on, and you have to wait that period out before the block can be lifted. Card blocks are not airtight: if a merchant is tagged with the wrong category code, the payment can still go through.

Device-level blocking software covers a different gap, because it stops the sites and apps loading at all, including offshore ones that ignore GAMSTOP. GambleAware points to BetBlocker, which is free, and Gamban, which is a paid subscription after a seven-day trial. We compare the options in our guide to apps that block gambling sites on iOS and Android.

Free treatment and counselling

Treatment for gambling harm is free on the NHS, and you do not need to see a GP first: you can refer yourself to a clinic directly. The NHS runs regional gambling services staffed by psychiatrists and psychologists, including the National Problem Gambling Clinic and the National Centre for Behavioural Addictions in London, the Northern Gambling Service, the Southern Gambling Service, the West Midlands and East Midlands Gambling Harms Clinics, the East of England Gambling Service and the South West Gambling Service. They also offer support to family members.

Alongside the NHS, the National Gambling Support Network provides free counselling nationally, and the Primary Care Gambling Service works through GP practices. Gordon Moody runs the residential options: full residential treatment centres for men and for women, and a Retreat & Counselling Programme that combines two four-night stays with 18 weekly one-to-one therapy sessions delivered online or by phone. There is currently no cost to the person attending beyond travel to the venue; the waiting list averages four to six weeks. Apply online or call 01384 241292.

Support for family and friends

The National Gambling Helpline takes calls from anyone affected by someone else's gambling, not only from the person gambling, and the NHS gambling clinics include family support in what they offer. GAMSTOP publishes guidance for people supporting a partner or relative.

Two practical points come up repeatedly. You cannot register someone else with GAMSTOP or any venue scheme — the person has to do it themselves — and taking over their debts usually removes the pressure that makes stopping feel urgent. Our guides on helping someone with a gambling problem and on what to do about gambling debt go through both in detail.

Gambling law and the regulator

Gambling in Great Britain is licensed and supervised by the Gambling Commission. Online gambling is legal when the operator holds a Commission licence; sites without one are outside the system entirely, which is why GAMSTOP has no effect on them and why complaints about them cannot be escalated to the regulator.

The minimum legal age is 18 in most cases, covering betting shops, bingo halls, casinos, race tracks, online gambling and the National Lottery. Some low-stake arcade machines are the exception. Every licensed operator must have policies to prevent underage gambling, display a warning that it is an offence, and require customers to confirm they are old enough.

Northern Ireland has its own gambling legislation and is not covered by the Gambling Commission, but GAMSTOP registration is open to residents there.