Responsible gambling

Every app covered on this site is a real-money gambling product. Over time these products are designed to return less than they take — that is not a flaw in a particular operator, it is the arithmetic the business rests on. Anything you read anywhere promising a strategy that beats it is selling you something.

The part that matters

Set the limit before you play, not during. Deciding what you can lose is a different mental task from deciding whether to keep going, and the second one is much harder while you are losing.

A few specifics worth knowing:

• Chasing losses is the failure mode. The urge to win back what you just lost is the single most reliable predictor of a session becoming expensive.
• Borrowed money has no place in it. If a deposit needs a credit card, an overdraft or a loan, the answer is no.
• Bonuses have wagering requirements. A bonus is not money until the conditions attached to it have been met, and those conditions are where the cost is.
• Time is the hidden stake. Sessions that run long tend to run expensive.

Tools that work better than willpower

Most licensed operators are required to offer some combination of deposit limits, loss limits, session reminders, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion. These are worth setting up on day one, while the decision is calm, because they are deliberately harder to reverse than to enable.

At the device level, iOS Screen Time can block an app or a website outright, with a passcode someone else holds. Blocking software such as Gamban and GamStop-style national exclusion schemes go further where they are available to you.

If it has stopped being a game

These services are free, confidential and independent of any operator:

• Gambling Therapy — free online support, available internationally and in multiple languages.
• Gamblers Anonymous — worldwide meeting directory, in person and online.
• BeGambleAware — advice and treatment referral; the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 is free and open 24 hours in the UK.
• GamCare — counselling, forums and self-assessment tools.

If you are outside these services’ regions, search for your national gambling helpline — most regulated markets fund one, and it will be independent of the operators.

Asking for help early is the cheap version of this. Everything after that is more expensive.

Age

These products are for adults only, and the minimum age varies by country. The apps on this site carry Apple’s 17+ rating with a Gambling advisory, and several countries display a higher rating than Apple’s global one — France shows 18+ and Korea 19+ for apps carrying that advisory. Whatever the store label says, follow the legal age where you are.