Free help, and how to block MyStake and Donbet

Where can you find someone to talk to?

GamCare’s National Gambling Helpline is free and confidential, day and night, on 0808 8020 133 if you’re in England or Scotland. In Wales, the NHS Wales gambling helpline (new tab) answers on 0808 2819 265 at any hour. You can call either one about a partner’s, parent’s or friend’s gambling too.

If life feels too heavy, Samaritans (new tab) listen on 116 123, free, whatever the time. In England, the NHS runs specialist gambling clinics you can refer yourself to, and the NHS page on help for problems with gambling (new tab) lists them.

What does a GAMSTOP registration do?

GAMSTOP (new tab) keeps a register that gambling operators check when someone tries to use an online account, and an operator that finds you on it blocks you from its services. Its terms of use (new tab) let you choose six months, a year or five years. Choose auto-renewal with the five-year option and a new five-year period begins as each one ends, up to four times. A registration can’t be cancelled while that period runs. Once it ends, the block carries on until you contact GAMSTOP to lift it, for up to seven more years. If you’ve registered, the next section shows how to put blocking software on each of your devices as well as a block on your card.

Where can you put a block?

• Blocking software. Put a gambling blocker on every device you could gamble from, phones and laptops included. The NHS page linked above names Gamban, which blocks gambling websites and apps on your devices, and GAMSTOP’s own site points to this kind of tool alongside its register.
• A gambling block on your bank card. Where your bank offers one, it declines card payments coded as gambling, a layer that doesn’t depend on the casino’s licence. You’ll usually find it in the bank’s app, or you can ask its helpline.
• Each casino’s own exclusion. Ask every casino where you hold an account for self-exclusion, and keep its written confirmation of the length and of which sites it covers. Donbet’s self-exclusion page (donbet.com) separates a time-out, which can be reopened early at the casino’s discretion, from self-exclusion, asked for by email and lasting half a year to five years, with six months as the default when no length is given. At MyStake, put your request to its support team in writing.

Does an exclusion cover a sister site?

Whether an exclusion reaches other brands of the same operator isn’t confirmed. None of the documents read here says a MyStake exclusion extends to Donbet, or to the brands often listed beside them, so assume it doesn’t until each casino confirms it in writing. If you notice yourself searching for a sister site because one account is closed, treat that search as the signal to use the steps above, not as the start of a new account.

Which signs are worth acting on?

• Depositing again to win back what was lost.
• Borrowing, or using money meant for bills, to keep playing.
• Hiding how much time or money goes on gambling.
• Looking for new sites after a limit, a break or a closed account.

Any one of these is reason enough to call the helpline. You don’t need to wait until things feel serious.