Responsible gambling
If gambling is causing you harm, you can stop today. Most operators let you set a deposit limit or self-exclude in account settings under responsible gaming. Whether that is an obligation depends on the licence: in Great Britain, Malta and comparable regimes it is one, and most operators on this register hold a Curacao or Anjouan licence and are bound by none of it. Help that does not depend on an operator is listed by country at the foot of this page and none of it costs anything.
We make money when you gamble
CryptoGuardz holds commercial affiliate relationships with some of the operators listed here and intends to be paid through them. That is a real conflict of interest on this particular page, and pretending otherwise would undermine everything else on the site. So this page is written to be useful and not to be legally sufficient, and it does not soften anything.
The maths, stated plainly
Every game in every casino has a house edge. On slots it is typically 2% to 8% of every wager, on in-house originals often 1% to 4%, and on some side bets far higher. The edge does not care about streaks, systems, timing or how a game feels. Over enough wagers the expected outcome is that you lose the edge multiplied by everything you have staked.
This is not a warning about doing it wrong. It is what the product is. A casino that took no edge would not exist. Gambling can be a reasonable way to spend entertainment money, in the same way a concert ticket is, and it is not a way to make money or recover a loss.
Signs it has stopped being entertainment
The following are the patterns clinicians and support services consistently identify. Any one of them is worth taking seriously; several together is a reason to act now in place of after the next session.
- Betting more than you decided to, more often than you decided to, or for longer than you planned.
- Returning to win back a loss, and increasing stakes to do it faster.
- Gambling with money meant for rent, bills, food or debt repayment.
- Borrowing to gamble, including credit cards, loans, overdrafts, or from people you know.
- Hiding how much you play or how much you have lost from people close to you.
- Feeling restless, irritable or low when you try to cut down or stop.
- Gambling to escape stress, low mood, loneliness or boredom not for entertainment.
- Continuing after it has already cost you a relationship, a job or your financial stability.
Tools you may have
In Great Britain, operators licensed by the Gambling Commission must offer the tools below and the timings are set by the regulator, not by the operator. The figures in this table are those parameters. Most operators on this register hold a Curacao or Anjouan licence and are bound by none of them: what they offer varies, is set by the operator, and is sometimes reversible on a request to support. Using these tools is not an admission of anything.
| Tool | What it does | How hard to undo |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit limit | Caps what you can put in per day, week or month. | Increases usually take 24 hours or more to take effect. Decreases are immediate. |
| Loss limit | Caps net loss over a period, which is stricter than a deposit limit. | Same delay on loosening it. |
| Session reminder | Interrupts play at an interval you set. | Trivially dismissed, so it is a nudge over a control. |
| Time-out | Under the British rules, locks the account for 24 hours up to six weeks. | Cannot be lifted early where the regulator sets the term. |
| Self-exclusion | Under the British rules, closes the account for six months to permanently, and marketing must stop. | Cannot be reversed within the period where the regulator sets the term. Offshore, check the operator’s own clause before relying on it. |
Blocking software is the layer operators cannot undo for you. Gamban, BetBlocker and GAMSTOP in the UK block access at the device or network level, and BetBlocker and GAMSTOP are free.
A note on offshore and no-KYC operators
Much of what this site covers is offshore. Those operators are not bound by the UK, Malta or equivalent rules that make self-exclusion enforceable across a whole market, and their responsible gambling tooling is frequently weaker, sometimes absent, and occasionally reversible on request to support.
No-KYC and anonymous accounts make this materially worse. If nobody knows who you are, a self-exclusion has nothing to attach to and you can open a new account in minutes. If you are managing a gambling problem, that is a strong reason to stay away from the entire no-KYC category regardless of anything else this site says about it.
Independent support
None of these are affiliated with us, none of them take our money, and none of the links are tracked. The table is rendered from the same verified directory as the band at the foot of every page, so the two cannot disagree. Every URL in it was fetched and confirmed to belong to the organisation named, on the date shown.
| Country | Service | Contact | Self-exclusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | National Gambling Helpline | 0808 8020 133 | GAMSTOP |
| Danmark | StopSpillet | 70 22 28 25 | ROFUS |
| Deutschland | Check dein Spiel | 0800 1 37 27 00 | OASIS |
| Sverige | Stödlinjen | 020-81 91 00 | Spelpaus |
| Suomi | Peluuri | 0800 100 101 | |
| Nederland | Open over Gokken | 0800 24 000 22 | Cruks |
| Polska | Telefon zaufania, uzależnienia behawioralne | 801 889 880 | |
| Italia | Telefono Verde Nazionale | 800 55 88 22 | RUA |
| España | FEJAR | 900 200 225 | RGIAJ |
| Magyarország | Játékosvédelmi zöld szám | +36 80 205 352 | Játékosvédelmi nyilvántartás |
| 日本 | 依存症対策全国センター | ||
| Everywhere else | Gambling Therapy |
This table used to be typed by hand, and it drifted: it carried a Dutch helpline that had been superseded and a German one that had been renamed, while the band at the foot of the same page carried the corrected versions. That is logged on the corrections page. It is now generated, so the failure cannot recur.
International services
- Gambling Therapy, free online support in over 35 languages, worldwide.
- Gamblers Anonymous, meetings worldwide.
- BetBlocker, free device-level blocking software, international.
If you are in immediate crisis, contact your local emergency services or a crisis line. Debt advice is a separate and equally important step, and in most of these markets it is free and independent of the gambling sector.
Under 18
Gambling by anyone under 18 is illegal in most jurisdictions and prohibited by every operator listed here. Nothing on this site is intended for under-18s.