How the GamStop scheme actually works
GamStop is not a warning label — it is a technical block. Understanding how the register operates, what it covers, and where its perimeter ends is the foundation of everything else in this guide.
What GamStop is, precisely
GamStop is a national online self-exclusion register operated by the National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, a not-for-profit company established in 2018. It is not the Gambling Commission and it is not a therapeutic service. It is a database that UK-licensed operators query in real time when a player attempts to log in, register, or receive marketing.
If your details are on that database and the exclusion period is active, the operator is contractually required to refuse the interaction. That contractual requirement comes from Licence Condition 3.5.5 of the UKGC's Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice, which makes participation in GamStop mandatory for every remote-operating licence holder. Non-compliance is a licensing offence — this is what gives the scheme its teeth.
How registration works
Registration is at gamstop.co.uk and takes a few minutes. You provide name, date of birth, address history, email, and mobile number. Providing more identifiers rather than fewer improves the accuracy of the match — the register works on identity, not just email, so an operator that only knows your email will still block a registration attempt from a different email address using the same name and DOB.
You choose a self-exclusion period at signup: six months, one year, or five years. The period cannot be shortened once selected. When it expires, a further "cooling off" period of 24 hours applies before UKGC operators are allowed to lift the block — you must actively contact the scheme to lift it. This is deliberate friction: the design assumes that many people who self-exclude will change their minds at some point, and it wants them to have to make a considered decision rather than a spur-of-the-moment one.
What GamStop covers
Every website, app, and brand licensed to offer remote gambling to British consumers. This is a large list — several thousand brands owned by several hundred licence-holding companies. If a site advertises to UK players and holds a UKGC licence, GamStop covers it. The register also blocks marketing emails, SMS, and in-app notifications from those operators for the duration.
What GamStop does not cover
- Land-based venues. Betting shops use the SENSE scheme; land-based casinos use SENSCE. Both are separate registers.
- Lottery products. The National Lottery, society lotteries, and Postcode Lottery are not covered.
- Offshore, unlicensed operators. The core of this website's subject — GamStop cannot compel operators outside UKGC's jurisdiction to check the register.
- Peer-to-peer or informal gambling. Poker with friends, betting between individuals, and similar.
The offshore gap is well-known to the scheme, to the UKGC, and to policymakers. Successive consultations have raised whether to extend enforcement action against offshore operators marketing to UK players, and the 2023 White Paper on gambling reform proposed further measures. The scheme itself, though, cannot unilaterally close the gap — it depends on the operator's licensing agreement to work.
Who is registered
At the last publicly disclosed figure, over 480,000 people had registered with GamStop across the scheme's life. That number is not a measure of "problem gamblers" — it is a measure of people who at some point decided they needed a block. Many use six-month periods repeatedly; others go straight to a five-year exclusion. Both are legitimate use patterns.
Practical experience of an active exclusion
During an active exclusion, any attempt to log into an existing UKGC account will return a block message. Any attempt to register a new one with the same identifiers will be refused at signup. Marketing emails from all UK operators will stop within about seven days as the register propagates through mailing lists.
What the exclusion doesn't do is remove your existing account balances. Operators are required to return any credit balances to you via the payment method you used, though the process can be slow (up to 30 days is common) and requires KYC completion. Any open bets typically settle in the ordinary way.
When the exclusion ends
At the end of the chosen period, you can either let the exclusion lapse — in which case you must still wait the cooling-off period and then actively re-enable UKGC operator access — or extend it. Many users repeat six-month periods indefinitely, and this is a reasonable pattern. The scheme is not a one-shot tool.
If you're on GamStop and looking to circumvent it
Please read the responsible-gambling section on our home page and the RG tools page before doing anything else. The urge to circumvent a self-exclusion is exactly the pattern the exclusion is designed to interrupt. Call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133. It is free, 24/7, and anonymous.
For the broader legal context of self-exclusion and the UKGC framework, see our UK gambling law overview.