Safer gambling: where to get help
If gambling’s taking more of your money, time or headspace than you’d like, you can talk to someone today. Help comes free from GamCare’s National Gambling Helpline: it’s confidential, staffed around the clock and reached on 0808 8020 133. You don’t need to be in crisis to call.
Who can you talk to today?
Someone, at any hour. A phone call is only one way in. If calling feels like too much right now, GamCare’s WhatsApp and live chat let you start with a written message instead.
National Gambling Helpline
- Phone: 0808 8020 133, with no charge and no closing time.
- WhatsApp and live chat: both listed on GamCare’s contact page.
NHS Wales helpline
- Phone: 0808 2819 265, a gambling line run by NHS Wales.
Samaritans
- Phone: 116 123, if you need someone right now and can’t get through to GamCare.
- Emergency: dial 999.
Every number here was checked on the service’s own site, most recently on 30 September 2026. They’re free to call.
What signs suggest gambling is a problem?
GamCare lists these signs in your own gambling:
- Preoccupation: thinking about betting for much of the day.
- Withdrawal: pulling out of plans with friends or work so you can place a bet.
- Escape: using gambling to cope when life feels like too much.
- Chasing losses: playing to win back what’s gone.
- Lying: hiding how much you spend or how long you play.
You don’t need every one. A single sign, even one that only shows up now and then, is reason enough to pick up the phone.
In someone else, GamCare points to a different set:
- Withdrawn: dropping usual activities and people.
- Mood: changes in mood that don’t fit.
- Sleep: problems sleeping.
- Money: signs of money trouble.
- Lying: about where their time or money goes.
How do you block gambling sites?
With software, or through your bank. Blocking software is an app or programme that stops a phone, tablet or laptop from opening gambling websites. GamCare names BetBlocker and Gamblock. Some cost nothing, while others charge a fee.
Blocking software
- What it does: stops the device it’s installed on from opening gambling websites and services.
- Where to put it: on each device you’d gamble on.
Bank gambling blocks
- Cost: free at most UK banks, according to GamCare.
- How it works: it stops card transactions coded as gambling.
- Each card: blocks are set card by card, so every card needs its own.
- Credit file: a block isn’t shared with credit reference agencies.
How can family members get support?
By calling the same helpline. GamCare’s helpline isn’t only for the person gambling, and anyone close to them can get confidential support of their own. A partner, parent, child or friend all count.
- Gam-Anon: meetings for anyone affected by a loved one’s gambling.
- GamCare forum: a space where partners, family and friends talk to others in the same position.
What can an overseas regulator do for you?
An overseas licence is not permission to offer gambling in Great Britain. It does not guarantee a payout.
Complaint reviews have limits, though. Anjouan’s policy says complaints from excluded territories aren’t reviewed, and the United Kingdom is on its excluded list. The CGA says it won’t take up a single player’s complaint against a gaming provider.
No promise is possible. Licence File can’t say that any overseas regulator will take up a complaint from a reader in Great Britain. If a dispute is pushing you to keep playing, call 0808 8020 133 first, and let someone outside the dispute help. The contact page has the complaint steps.
How does self-exclusion with GAMSTOP work?
GAMSTOP costs nothing to join, and the length is yours to choose: 6 months at the shortest, 5 years at the longest. Once it’s started, it can’t be ended early, even on request.
The block outlasts the term you picked. It carries on for 7 more years after that, unless you approach GAMSTOP about removing it.
If the urge gets hard to handle, phone GamCare straight away on 0808 8020 133, since someone’s always there to answer. Licence File isn’t written for anyone under 18.