Responsible gambling
Most people who gamble do it for entertainment and stop when they meant to. Some do not, and for them it costs money, work and relationships. This page is about telling the two apart early, and about what to do if it is already the second one.
Signs it has stopped being a game
- Betting more than you decided to, or more often than you decided to.
- Going back to win losses back, and raising the stake to do it faster.
- Gambling with money meant for rent, bills or food, or with money you have borrowed.
- Hiding how much you play, or how much you have lost, from people close to you.
- Playing to get away from stress, boredom or low mood rather than for the game.
- Feeling restless or short-tempered when you try to cut down.
One of these on its own is worth noticing. Several of them together is worth acting on, and acting on it early is much easier than acting on it late.
What a licensed operator must give you
These are not favours. A properly licensed operator is required to offer them, and you can find them in your account settings or ask support for them directly. If one makes it hard, that tells you something about the operator.
- Deposit limits — a cap per day, week or month. Lowering one takes effect at once; raising one has to wait, by design.
- Loss and stake limits — a ceiling on what a session can cost you rather than on what you put in.
- Session reminders — a clock on the screen, because these rooms are built not to have one.
- Time-out — a short break, usually a day to six weeks, that cannot be undone early.
- Self-exclusion — months or years, closing the account and stopping the marketing with it.
- Your own record — the full history of what you have deposited, staked and withdrawn. Ask for it before you estimate.
Excluding yourself from everywhere at once
Self-exclusion at one operator stops one operator. Most regulated markets also run a single scheme that covers every site licensed there at once, free, in one form. Name the scheme for your market here and link to it — it is the single most useful thing on this page.
Banks and phones help too: most banks can block gambling transactions on request, and blocking software can cover a whole household rather than one account.
Where to get help
Replace this section before you publish. Helplines, counselling services and self-exclusion schemes differ in every country, and the numbers change. A theme cannot know which market you are in, and a wrong number here is worse than none at all — so this is the one part of the page nobody else can write for you.
List, for each market you publish in: the national gambling helpline, with its hours and whether it is free from a mobile; the national self-exclusion scheme; a free counselling service; and one service for family members, who often look for help before the player does.
Age limit
Gambling has a minimum age, and it is not the same everywhere — eighteen in most markets, twenty-one in some. State the one that applies where you publish, and say plainly that nothing on this site is intended for anyone below it.
