Gambling is entertainment, not income

A few signs worth paying attention to

Chasing losses, gambling with money set aside for bills, hiding how much time or money you're spending from people close to you, or feeling irritable when you try to cut back are all recognised warning signs. None of them mean something is fundamentally wrong with you — they mean it's worth putting some structure around your gambling, or stepping away from it for a while.

Practical tools most UK operators offer

• Deposit limits — a cap on how much you can add to your account in a day, week or month.
• Loss limits and reality checks — pop-up reminders of time spent or money lost during a session.
• Time-outs — a short break from an account, typically a day to six weeks.
• Self-exclusion — a longer block on your own account, or across every UK-licensed site at once via GAMSTOP.

Where to go for free, independent support

More detail on how these tools actually work

Our safer gambling tools page goes into more depth on GAMSTOP's exclusion periods and what to expect from account-level limits.