Betting block apps

Hi Wayne

If your gambling is online then I recommend you join Gamstop. This will block access to all UK registered online sites and you won’t be able to access any for the duration you choose. You can sign up for 6 months to 5 years so I would highly recommend you sign up for 5 years as this will take a lot of stress off you. 

The other thing would be to see if your bank offer a gambling block feature so that you can block all gambling transactions on your account. If your bank doesn’t do this then I would suggest opening an account with a bank that does. Monzo for example offer this along with a few of the big high street banks. 

Hope this helps.

Lively

Wayne.

There isn't one answer or a quick fix to this problem. A short term solution might be this.

You need three things to gamble. Time, place and money. Take away one of those and you can't gamble.

The easiest to do  is take away the money. You could ask a family member, a partner, a parent, someone other than yourself to look after your money and your card so that you don't have access to it without permission. You then need to be accountable for what you spend. They would also have access to your online banking to ensure you are not circumnavigating the block.

 The next thing to do is take away the place that you need to gamble. Now at the moment all the standard gambling facilities are closed so what you need to do is put some blocks online.  You can sign up to Gamstop which will help massively by stopping you from joining any new online sites.  You could also download software and the Gamecare website has links to those different types of software including Gambloc and K-9. These will stop any gambling features on your phone, tablet or pc.

Finally  you can take away your time. Now this really has a double meaning, the standard meaning is to keep yourself busy, to  fill your time doing other stuff to keep your mind away from that first bet. If you look honestly at your gambling you will see you spend an awful lot of time gambling so it needs to be replaced with something else. Read a book, watch a film, go for a walk, anything you can other than gambling.

My own take on the time part of the triangle, so time, place and money, is to be accountable for your time.  So for example if you pop out to get a takeaway for your family call them when you're at the takeaway and call them as you're leaving the takeaway so that they know what you are doing. The amount of times that I would pop out to do a 15 minute job like buy some milk or pick up a takeaway for the family tea and I'd come back an hour later because I went to the bookies or the arcade, and then I'd lie about where I'd been and what I had been doing. So be accountable and honest and it is such a nice feeling not having to lie any more.

I hope that helps a little.

After this I would suggest getting proper help. My personal choice is Gambkers Anonymous but you could pick up the phone to a Gamcare adviser, try some counselling, join in the online meeting or get a sponsor through a programme, but it's on you to do it.

Chris.

Can family set the password for apps? Alternatively ditch the smartphone and get a brick. If it's a work phone you can't ditch  you should be aware employers can and do have usage policies and will monitor and enforce them. If it's not a little bit of inconvenience is a small price to pay for not having a casino in your pocket.

Hello Wayne, online gambling was my thing and I signed up to Gamstop almost two years ago, this stopped me dead in my tracks and has helped me with time to repair the financial damage I had done (still repairing but there is light at the end of the tunnel now). I hope this helps, I wish you well.