# How to Stop Gambling > Stop gambling by self-excluding with GAMSTOP, blocking gambling sites and apps, setting bank gambling blocks, telling someone about the money, and getting support. Published: 23 July 2026 Read time: 6 min Section: Recovery Topics: how to stop gambling, gambling self-exclusion, block gambling sites, stop gambling addiction, GAMSTOP, gambling blocks bank, gambling addiction support URL: https://renovyn.io/spaces/how-to-stop-gambling --- To stop gambling, put real blocks between you and the next bet. Self-exclude with GAMSTOP and with each operator. Install blocking software on your phone and laptop. Ask your bank to block gambling payments. Tell someone about the money. Then line up support from GamCare or Gamblers Anonymous, and make a plan for the urges before they arrive. Wanting to stop and being able to stop are two different things, and the gap between them is not a lack of willpower. Gambling disorder is a recognised behavioural addiction. The American Psychiatric Association places it in the same family as substance use disorders because it behaves the same way in the brain, in the body, and in the way it pulls you back. So you don't beat it by trying harder in the moment. You beat it by making the moment harder to reach. The steps below are about distance: putting locks, delays, and other people between you and the bet, so a bad hour has fewer ways to become a lost month. --- ## Understand the chase before you fight it Most gambling harm is not the first bet. It's the chase. You lose, and the losing itself becomes the reason to keep going, because stopping now means the loss is real and permanent. So you bet again to win it back. That's loss-chasing, and it's the engine that turns a bad night into a genuine crisis. The chase runs on access. It needs an open account, a working card, and a quiet moment. Take those away and the chase has nowhere to go. This is why blocking works when promising yourself doesn't. You are not relying on a clear head at your worst moment. You are making sure that moment hits a wall. > You don't beat the chase with willpower. You beat it by taking away the door it walks through. ## Put the blocks in place, in order Do these while you're steady, not while you're craving. Each one adds friction. Stacked together, they make gambling slow and difficult instead of instant and easy. Start at the top and work down. 1. Self-exclude with GAMSTOP. It's the free national scheme that blocks you from every online gambling site and app licensed in Great Britain, in one request. You choose 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years. Once it's set, licensed operators must refuse you for the whole period. 2. Turn on your bank's gambling block. Most UK banks let you switch on a block that stops your card and account being used for gambling payments. Many add a cooling-off delay before you can turn it off again, so an urge can't undo it instantly. 3. Install blocking software on every device. Tools like Gamban block gambling sites and apps across your phone, tablet, and laptop. Put it on all of them, not just the one you gamble on most. 4. Self-exclude from the venues too. GAMSTOP covers online only. For high-street betting shops, arcades, and casinos, use the separate multi-operator self-exclusion scheme to be refused service in the physical places near you. 5. Hand over the money. Ask someone you trust to hold your cards, take you off shared accounts, or set up a spending limit you can't quietly lift. Access to cash is the last door. Close it too. None of these is perfect on its own. GAMSTOP doesn't reach sites licensed abroad. A blocker can be uninstalled. That's the point of stacking them. Every extra layer buys you time, and time is what the urge doesn't have. --- ## Tell someone about the money This is the hardest step and the one that changes the most. Gambling harm grows in secret. The debt, the borrowed money, the hidden accounts, the story you keep adjusting so no one asks. Carrying that alone keeps you gambling, because winning it back in silence starts to feel like the only way out. It isn't. Telling one person breaks the loop. Pick someone steady, a partner, a family member, a close friend, and be plain about the numbers. It will be an awful conversation and a huge relief, often in the same breath. If the debt is serious, the National Debtline and free money advice services can help you make a real plan instead of chasing. > The secret is part of the addiction. Saying it out loud is part of the recovery. ## Know your danger zones Gambling has a geography and a calendar. There are places that pull you in and moments that catch you off guard. Name them, because a trigger you've named has far less power than one that ambushes you. ### The places The betting shop by the station. The route home that passes three of them. The friend's flat where it's always on the telly. You can't self-exclude your way out of walking past a shop, but you can plan a different route and know which streets to avoid when you're low. ### The moments Payday is the big one. Money lands, and the account that felt empty suddenly has room to chase. Pay your essential bills the moment you're paid, before anything else. Then there's the late night alone, the boredom, the argument, the win you're still thinking about. These are the openings. Guard them. This is where Renovyn helps. You can mark the betting shops and streets that pull at you as danger zones, so your phone gives you a quiet nudge as you get close, before you're through the door instead of after. ## Get real support Blocks buy you time. Support helps you use it. You don't have to work this out alone, and the help is free. The National Gambling Helpline, run by GamCare, is free and open 24 hours a day, every day, on 0808 8020 133. You can talk it through with someone who has heard it all before, with no judgement and no need to have it figured out first. Gamblers Anonymous offers the same thing in a room full of people who understand the chase from the inside. Many find the two together stronger than either alone. Renovyn sits alongside that support, not in place of it. Connect an accountability partner who can see when you go quiet. Track the days you hold, so progress becomes something you can see instead of something you hope for. And when an urge hits hard at 2am, crisis support is one tap away. ## Have a plan for the urge The urge will come. It comes even when everything is blocked and everyone knows. Expecting it is half the battle, because an urge you planned for is one you can ride out instead of obey. Make the plan now, in plain words. When the urge hits, I will: put the phone down and move to another room. Text my accountability partner one line. Wait twenty minutes, because the pull always eases if you don't feed it. Cravings peak and pass. They feel permanent and they are not. Every one you sit through makes the next one quieter. Stopping gambling isn't one heroic act of willpower. It's a set of locks, a few honest conversations, and a plan you made before you needed it. Put the blocks up today. Tell one person this week. Line up your support. You don't have to do it perfectly, and you don't have to do it alone. > We've got you. — Renovyn. We've got you.