Help and limits

There are no partner buttons on this page. Everything below is free, and none of it requires you to describe yourself as having a problem before it will help.

Free support, available now

• Gambling Help Online — free counselling by chat, phone and email, around the clock, anywhere in Australia.
• BetStop — the National Self-Exclusion Register. One registration excludes you from every licensed Australian wagering operator, for a term from three months upward.
• GambleAware NSW — state services including face-to-face counselling and financial counselling.
• Lifeline — 13 11 14, for anyone in crisis, at any hour.

The tools that actually stop spending

Not all limits do the same work. One of them removes a decision; the others only help you notice it. The difference matters at the moment they are needed.

• A deposit limit is the only tool that works while you are losing, because it makes the next deposit impossible rather than inadvisable. Set it on the first day, when the number still looks generous.
• A loss limit stops play once losses reach a figure, which helps if you are still reading the screen clearly.
• Session reminders tell you how long you have been playing. Useful, and easy to dismiss.
• A cooling-off period locks an account for days or weeks, and is reversible afterwards.
• Self-exclusion is the strongest step, and through BetStop it applies across every licensed operator at once rather than one at a time.

Regulated practice is that a decrease in a limit applies immediately while an increase takes effect after a delay. An operator that reverses that has told you something about itself.

Bank-side controls

Most Australian banks now offer a gambling block in their app, which declines payments to gambling merchants from your card or account. It sits outside the operator entirely, which is exactly why it is effective.

Many banks also require a waiting period before the block can be switched off, which is the point of it. If account-level limits have not held, this is the next step worth taking.

The signals worth taking seriously

None of these are dramatic, and all of them tend to arrive before any serious financial damage.

• Playing longer than you planned to, more than once.
• Increasing the stake to recover a loss.
• Depositing a second time in one evening.
• Money that belongs to rent, a bill or another person.
• Hiding the amount, or the playing, from someone close to you.
• Relief when you win rather than enjoyment.

The last two are the ones people recognise in hindsight. If either is familiar, the services at the top of this page are free and will talk to you today.

For family and friends

Gambling Help Online supports people affected by someone else's gambling, not just the person playing. Financial counselling is also free and is often the more urgent need.

You cannot register someone else with BetStop, and you cannot set their limits for them. What you can do is make the free services known and available, which is more effective than it sounds.

What this site will not do

We will not tell you that a system beats a pokie, that a game is due, or that a bonus is likely to convert into money. Every game described here has a built-in margin, and the page about winning says so in plain terms.

Gambling costs money and is not a way to earn it. The honest way to treat a balance in a gambling account is as money already spent.

Minimum age

Eighteen, everywhere in Australia. Licensed operators must verify identity rather than simply ask you to confirm a date of birth, and a site that never asks has told you something about its licensing position.