Safer gambling
One registration, every licensed site, at once
GAMSTOP is the national self-exclusion scheme for online gambling in Great Britain, and participation is a condition of every remote operating licence. One registration reaches every site on this page at the same moment.
One registration, every licensed site
GAMSTOP is the national online «self-exclusion» (a refusal the operator is obliged to honour) scheme for Great Britain, and participation in it is a condition of every remote operating licence the Gambling Commission issues; that sentence is the whole of its value: a single registration reaches every operator licensed to serve British players, at the same moment, without your having to contact any of them. Registration is free, takes a few minutes, and asks for the details an operator already holds about you: name, date of birth, address, email and telephone number, and the matching is done against those details, which is why entering them exactly as the accounts hold them matters more than anything else in the process.
The three periods, and what happens at the end
Six months, one year or five years, chosen at registration. At the end of the period the exclusion does not simply lapse: it continues until you actively contact GAMSTOP to end it, and there is then a further cooling-off period of twenty-four hours before accounts can be reopened.
That design is deliberate, because the moment of expiry is the moment of greatest risk. An exclusion that ended automatically on a date would end on a day you did not choose and might not notice.
What it covers and what it does not
It covers gambling websites and apps operated by companies licensed in Great Britain, which is every operator listed on the commercial pages of this site. It does not cover sites without a British licence, which is the entire point of the marketing phrase "non-GAMSTOP casino" and the reason that phrase is the most reliable warning sign in the business.
It did not historically cover betting shops, and a separate service now exists for those. Land-based casinos and bingo halls operate their own schemes, and the National Online Self-Exclusion Scheme is, as the full name says, online. It does not cover lottery products sold by the National Lottery, and it does not stop you receiving marketing from a company you excluded from before the registration propagated, which usually takes a short time rather than a long one.
What to do alongside it
GAMSTOP stops the account from opening and it does not stop the impulse, so the people who run it recommend pairing it with two other things. A blocking application on the phone and the computer, which prevents the browser from reaching gambling sites at all; and a gambling block with your bank, which most British banks now offer and which refuses the transaction at the card level.
The three together are described as TalkBanStop (a partnership between GamCare), GAMSTOP and the blocking software Gamban, and the practical reason for using all three is that each covers a different failure, and the registration covers the licensed sites, the blocker covers the unlicensed ones, and the bank block covers the moment a reader finds a route around both.
If a licensed site lets you in anyway
It should not, and if it does the operator is in breach of a «licence condition». Report it to the operator, keep the evidence, and report it to the Gambling Commission as well, because this is one of the places where the pattern of reports does real work. A reader is also likely to be entitled to the return of deposits made in that period, and that question goes through the operator's complaints procedure and then to an approved ADR body on the usual eight-week clock.
Questions readers ask
Does GAMSTOP cover betting shops?
Not the original scheme, which is for online gambling websites and apps. A separate service now exists for betting shops, and land-based casinos and bingo halls run their own arrangements, so covering everything means registering in more than one place.
Can I cancel a GAMSTOP exclusion early?
No. The minimum period is six months and it cannot be shortened, which is the feature rather than a limitation. At the end of the chosen period the exclusion continues until you contact GAMSTOP to end it, followed by a further twenty-four hours before accounts reopen.
What is a «non-GAMSTOP casino»?
A site without a Gambling Commission licence, since participation is compulsory for every licensed operator. The phrase is a site describing its own regulatory position in its marketing, and it also describes what you would be giving up: the complaints route, the fund protection and the intervention duties.
Will GAMSTOP stop the marketing emails?
It should, and it takes a little time to propagate. If marketing continues from a licensed operator after that, the operator is in breach of a licence condition, and it is worth reporting both to the operator and to the Commission.
By the UK Pound Casino editorial team · Last updated November 2026 · Online since 2026