Gambling is a temptation, but seeing gambling as an addiction is a significant step because it permits you to use skills from addiction recovery and relapse prevention. For someone in recovery, avoiding people, places and activities linked to gambling can help them avoid a setback. Use gambling addiction calendar to stop gambling and lower your risk of losing money that you can’t afford to pay back, or family member that love you. Join the no gambling movement and stop gambling addiction! People who have used this app have seen a great increase in self-control and patience.

What Tools Do Banks Provide Their Users?

Can banks block gambling transactions? We run through the major UK high street banks and outline what services they provide to their at-risk customers.

Many banks are now working on plans to help customers restrict their spending on gambling, offering gambling blocking solutions, with some banks allowing customers to 'turn off' payments to certain types of retailer, including gambling services.

What is the Gambling Block?

While each scheme operates in their own way, fundamentally they all work the same. The gambling block is a feature that allows you to block your bank account/bank card/credit card from being used for gambling transactions.

Which banks offer a Gambling Blocking Services?

Royal Bank of Scotland

Offers a card locking feature to customers which include a blocker specifically for gambling transactions.

Learn more about the Royal Bank of Scotland's services below.

Lloyds Bank

A feature within their banking app, which lets customers quickly freeze and unfreeze different types of transactions on their debit or credit cards. As well as offering their customers access to Gamban.

Learn more about Lloyds Bank's services below.

Halifax

Offers customers various useful tools and support such as; financial tracking, personal support and advice and access to Gamban licences to block online gambling.

Learn more about Halifax's services below.

Bank of Scotland

Offers a card freezing feature, which, include a blocker specifically for gambling transactions.

Learn more about the Bank of Scotland's services below.

mbna

Allows customers to keep track of their bills and spending by using their Online Card Services.

Learn more about mbna's services below.

HSBC

Allows customers to voluntarily add or remove gambling restrictions on their debit cards or credit cards (including Pay by Bank app). HSBC also offers a 'Cool Off Period', this means that customers can opt to lift the gambling restriction, but transactions will still be declined until the 'Cool Off Period' has completed.

Learn more about HSBC's services below.

Monzo

Allows customers to block gambling transactions on their Monzo account, straight from the app. To turn off the block, customers will need to talk to Monzo's customer support team. Where they'll ask questions to see if their situation has changed since first switching on the restrictions.

Learn more about Monzo's services below.

Starling Bank

Allows customers to block online payments, including gambling transactions, easily from their banking app.

Learn more about Starling Bank's services below.

Natwest

Offers customers a card locking feature, which includes a gambling transactions blocker, within the banking app.

Learn more about Natwest's services below.

Barclays

Allows customers to block debit card payments to certain types of merchants, including gambling websites and apps, within their banking app.

Learn more about Barclays' services below.

Santander

Allows customers to block specific transaction types without freezing their Mastercard entirely (iOS devices only, coming soon for Android).

Learn more about Santander's services below.

Why are banks doing this?

People who have gambling problems and decide to stop can choose to self-exclude from gambling, use software to block online gambling sites and self-exclude physically from betting shops and casinos. While these are all helpful ways for people to get support, many banks believe they can do more to support self-exclusion too.

Decided to quit but not quite sure where to start? Maybe you are looking for some extra strategies to stay away from gambling. This section will give you some of the tools for quitting.

Wanting to stop

Deciding to stop doing something you enjoy can be challenging, there may be times when it feels impossible but remember lots of people have quit gambling and we can help you.

Do your best to stay away from gambling, the ideal outcome is that you stay away. However if you do revert to gambling don’t get down on yourself. You can always get back on track and use the experience to learn how to stop next time.

It is helpful to know lapses are normal and can happen at any time when you are trying to quit.

When lapses occur, becoming aware of the triggers that lead you to gamble can help you manage urges more effectively in future situations.

To give yourself the best chance of sticking to your new path, try some of our strategies for change.

The urge to gamble

As with quitting smoking, people who stop gambling experience urges to gamble. Urges are an inevitable part of stopping gambling and a natural part of the process of regaining control.

Every time you overcome an urge, you are gaining more and more control.

While you can restrict your exposure to gambling triggers, you will not be able to avoid them completely, which is why it is important to learn ways of managing the urges.

Below are a few different strategies you can try:

Delaying the decision

Delaying the decision to gamble allows time for the urge to pass and for you to feel more in control of the decision. This is different to urge surfing as the focus is on the person using distraction from the urge to gamble rather than letting it pass without distraction.

Distraction takes the focus temporarily away from the urge and can give you time to rethink your decision to gamble.

Try the following next time you have the urge to gamble:

• Relax and focus on staying calm.
• Take some deep breaths to slow yourself down and refocus on what you can do now.
• Try to distract yourself with an activity to keep calm, such as a shower or a bath. Or you may read a book, cook or watch a TV show to stop thinking about gambling. Find an activity that suits you.
• Say to yourself 'maybe I won't go, I will see how I feel in an hour' and then go and do something else.

Remember you may find the urge returns when you stop the other activity. If this happens, perhaps try the urge surfing technique as above.

Set a goal that you can achieve if you stop gambling or develop a list of reasons why you made the decision. For example:

• I will have more money to put towards a holiday.
• I will be able to hold my head up high.
• My family will be proud.
• I will be able to pay my bills.
• As my savings begin to grow money will have value once again.

Staying quit

Remember urges do not usually last longer than one hour.

DELAY
+
DISTRACT
=
STAYING STOPPED

Once you have decided to delay the decision to gamble, shift your attention to what you might like to do. It might be something you used to do before gambling became a problem or something you've always wanted to try.

Many people find engaging in sport fulfilling; this could be anything that gets you moving. From a daily walk or run to joining a gym or team sport.

When you feel an urge, do something else immediately and keep the following in mind:

• Limit access to money
• Surf the urge
• Distract from the urge
• Seek support from someone you feel you can trust. You don't have to call someone to talk to them about experiencing an urge. You might just want to ring and talk about something completely unrelated to gambling.

Not sure about what activities you can do when dealing with an urge? Maintaining change and our healthy hobbies blog have some useful tips.

The first time you experiencing an urge subside, without gambling, will be a powerful experience.

Apps To Stop Gambling

People who have slowly overcome the urge to gamble say that their thinking becomes clearer and that they are more confident with each urge they conquer, setting them up to beat the next one.

Gambling Addiction

You can learn to manage urges by being aware of an increased desire to gamble, some people say
an urge is like an adrenaline rush. It can be so exciting and difficult to resist.

Learning to cope with urges when they arise is a crucial component to staying quit.

Think of an urge as being like a wave. Urges can start off as nothing, perhaps a gentle ripple out to sea but as they come closer to shore they get bigger and bigger, until they break.

To stay in control, you need to learn to ride that wave into shore rather than get dumped.

If you are trying to surf the urge it’s helpful to remember:

App To Stop Gambling Winnings

• It is important to stay with the urge until it passes by itself; this may take up to an hour the first time.
• Each time you resist gambling and the urge subsides it loses its power.
• The more you resist, the stronger you can become. If you give into the urge and gamble that urge takes control again, but you can take control of it next time.

App To Stop Gambling Websites

It is important to limit your access to any cash when you begin the process of surfing the urge as money makes the urges more difficult to resist.

Is There An App To Stop Gambling

If you do experience an urge and would like assistance, you can contact an online counsellor for more information and support.