Do two things before you close this tab. Register with Gamstop Online, which blocks the gambling sites and apps licensed in Great Britain, and switch on the gambling block inside your banking app. Ten minutes, both of them. Then, when you can face it, ring the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133.
Nothing you do in the next hour gets the money back
The money is gone. There's no version of this page that avoids that sentence.
What's sitting on your chest is the pull to go and win it back, and it feels like the only sensible move available. It's written into the diagnosis. DSM-5 criterion six is "after losing money gambling, often returns another day to get even ('chasing' one's losses)", and four or more of the nine criteria inside twelve months is the threshold clinicians use.
So the urge you're having is the textbook one. That's how ordinary it is, and how little it says about you.
You don't beat the chase with willpower at two in the morning. You beat it by taking away the door it walks through, tonight, while you still want to. [We've written about the chase and the near miss separately](/guides/gambling/loss-chasing-and-the-near-miss).
If the thought of ending it has crossed your mind
Read this bit even if you think it doesn't apply.
NICE, which writes NHS clinical guidance, tells clinicians to "recognise that gambling and gambling-related harms can be a dominant risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, even in the absence of other risk factors". The same guidance notes the risk may be highest immediately after a gambling episode. Which is roughly now, for a lot of people reading this.
Samaritans is **116 123**, free, 24 hours a day. If you're in immediate danger, **999**.
You don't have to be certain and you don't have to have a plan. You can ring because today went badly and you don't want to be alone with it.
The blocking stack, in the order to do it
Each layer covers something the others miss. Do them in this order, because the first two are the fastest and cover the most.
- **Gamstop Online.** In its own words, "when you register with Gamstop Online you'll be blocked from accessing gambling websites and apps licensed in Great Britain." You pick the length, "from 6 months up to 5 years", and then it holds: "once you've registered, you cannot cancel your registration during the exclusion period." *Doesn't cover:* betting shops, casinos, bingo halls, arcades, or anything not licensed in Great Britain.
- **Your bank's gambling block.** Most UK banks have one in the app, under card controls or account settings. It declines gambling card payments as they happen. *Doesn't cover:* payments routed through e-wallets, cash from a machine, or an operator whose payments arrive under the wrong merchant category. [The next piece goes through those gaps properly](/guides/gambling/gamstop-bank-blocks-and-blocking-apps).
- **Gamstop Betting Shops**, the high street scheme formerly called MOSES. It's "a free service for users who want to control their gambling by choosing to self-exclude from multiple land-based bookmakers in Great Britain". You do it by phone: "the service is telephone based. To use the service call 0800 294 2060." Photographic ID and a recent photo of your face are required, and "you will be excluded for a fixed term period of 12 months". *Doesn't cover:* casinos, bingo halls and arcades, which run separate schemes you have to ask each operator about.
- **Blocking software on your phone and laptop.** Gamban is the best known example. It's paid in most of the UK now, so check before you assume otherwise. *Doesn't cover:* any device you haven't installed it on, including a work phone.
- **Stop the marketing reaching you.** NICE lists "blocking marketing messages" alongside the other tools. Unsubscribe, mute, report the texts as spam. Free bet offers land at exactly the wrong hour.
- **Take your own access to money away.** NICE also lists "methods to limit access to money, for example, agreeing that a family member will take control of finances". Blunt, and it holds when the rest springs a leak.
One honest gap. Prediction markets and crypto casinos sit outside all of the above, because they aren't licensed by the Gambling Commission and Gamstop has no reach into them. If that's where the money went, what still helps is the bank block, the software, and someone else holding the card.
Setting one block today is enough. You don't have to do all six tonight.
Then say it out loud to one person
The secret is doing a lot of work for the gambling. Telling one person breaks the part of the loop that runs on nobody knowing.
It doesn't have to be the person you owe, and it doesn't have to be tonight's full accounting. "I've lost money gambling and I've just blocked myself" is a complete sentence. [Here's the harder conversation about the money](/guides/gambling/telling-someone-about-the-money) when you're ready.
If the debt is the emergency, StepChange is free and independent on **0800 138 1111**, Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm. [First steps on gambling debt are here](/guides/gambling/gambling-debt-what-to-do-first).
Getting help that lasts longer than tonight
Blocks buy you time. They don't do the rest of it.
NICE tells clinicians to "discuss and agree the aim of treatment for gambling that harms (typically abstinence) with the person", and to "offer group CBT to reduce gambling severity and frequency". It also says to "offer peer support as an integral part of the support and treatment for gambling-related harms for people who wish to engage with it". The two sit alongside each other in the guidance, so nobody is asking you to choose.
**The National Gambling Helpline** is 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across England, Scotland and Wales.
**Gamblers Anonymous UK** is 0330 094 0322. Their site puts it plainly: "meetings are the most important part of Gamblers Anonymous. NO APPOINTMENT IS NEEDED, JUST TURN UP!" It's a fellowship with its own beliefs, and plenty of people use it happily without signing up to all of them.
**The NHS National Gambling Clinic** is "a free, confidential NHS service supporting people who are experiencing harm from gambling aged 13 to 18 years from anywhere in England, and 18 or over living in Greater London". Note their caveat: "please note we support those suffering from gambling harm and cannot offer crisis interventions." If tonight is a crisis, use Samaritans or 999 first.
The next ten minutes
- Register at gamstop.co.uk. Pick 5 years if you're wavering, because you can't undo it later.
- Open your banking app and switch the gambling block on.
- Text one person the sentence above.
- Put 0808 8020 133 in your phone under a name you'll actually ring.
Then get through tonight, which is [a separate problem with its own answers](/guides/gambling/getting-through-the-urge-to-bet).
Some people find it easier to keep the blocks, the danger hours and the people who know in one place. That's what [Renovyn's Shield](/shield) does. Friction, plus someone in the loop. It isn't treatment and it isn't a stand-in for the helpline.
Common questions
**I gambled my rent money. What do I actually do now?** Block first, then talk to the people you owe before they chase you. Ring StepChange on 0800 138 1111 for free debt advice, and tell your landlord or lender early, because arrangements are easier to make before arrears build. Block first because otherwise the next paycheque follows the last one.
**Does Gamstop block everything?** No. It blocks gambling websites and apps licensed in Great Britain, and it leaves betting shops, casinos, arcades, unlicensed offshore sites and crypto casinos untouched. That's why the bank block and the betting shop scheme exist as separate layers.
**Can I cancel my self-exclusion if I change my mind?** Not during the period you chose. Gamstop states that once you've registered you cannot cancel during the exclusion period, and the betting shop scheme runs for a fixed 12 months. The lock is the whole point. It holds on a bad night, when the version of you who registered has gone quiet.
**Is gambling really an addiction if there's nothing to withdraw from?** There is something. One of the nine diagnostic criteria is restlessness or irritability when you try to cut down or stop. It doesn't look like a chemical detox, and the agitation and the shortening temper are real and recognised.
Sources
- [Gamstop, About](https://www.gamstop.co.uk/about). What Gamstop Online blocks, the 6 month to 5 year range, that registration cannot be cancelled during the period, and the four layer stack.
- [Gamstop Betting Shops, how the scheme works](https://self-exclusion.co.uk/how-the-scheme-works). The free land-based bookmaker scheme, the 0800 294 2060 telephone process, the ID requirements and the 12 month fixed term.
- [NICE NG248, Harmful gambling recommendations](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng248/chapter/recommendations). Gambling as a dominant risk factor for suicidal ideation, the practical blocking stack, abstinence as the typical treatment aim, group CBT and peer support.
- [CNWL National Gambling Clinic](https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/services/addictions/national-gambling-clinic). Who the NHS clinic can see by age and area, and that it cannot offer crisis interventions.
