Get Ready For Safer Gambling Week 17th – 23rd October

Safer Gambling Week Insight

Safer Gambling Week is cross-industry initiative to promote safer gambling in the UK and Ireland. The annual event encourages the gambling industry and players to engage with each other for a safer gambling environment. Running between October 17^th and the 23^rd, responsible gambling messages will be posted to social media and online bingo and casinos to remind players of the importance of staying within their means.

What You Can Do As A Player

All licensed gambling operators, including remote operators, offer ways to help you keep track of the time and money you are spending gambling, including:

• Reality Check Timers: Time can fly when you’re playing bingo games, which is why operators have introduced a time keeper feature allowing you to manage the time you spend playing on their website. You can set the timer to 30 minutes or up to 3 hours and when that time has passed, an alert will appear on your screen.
• Deposit Limits: A deposit limit is a set sum you can deposit per day, week or month. When you have reached your personal limit, you won’t be able to add any more funds. An increase to limits usually takes 24 hours, but some operators have a 7 day pending period for larger deposits. A decrease in deposit limits will take effect instantly.
• Stake Limits: A maximum amount you can spend per game.
• Game Freeze: This feature gives players even more control by allowing them to freeze games. If a bingo or casino game is eating into your funds too quickly, you can choose to freeze them.
• Cool Off: You can temporarily exclude yourself for any period of time from 24 hours up to 5 months by selecting a cool off.
• Self-Exclusion: If you feel that you are gambling too much or spending too much time gambling, you can choose to exclude yourself from gambling for a period of 6 month to permanently.

If you’re concerned about your gambling activity, you can block your access to gambling websites completely! Having a self-exclusion ban on one website doesn’t mean you can’t gamble on others. To help block gambling completely, you have a few options:

• BetBlocker: A free tool that can be installed on as many devices as you own, blocking you from accessing over 15,000 gambling websites.
• GamBan: Software by GamBan will automatically block access to thousands of gambling websites and apps. Call the freephone line or visit the website for more details.
• GamBlock: This tool was devised to prevent underage gambling.

Gambling content can appear everywhere, from social media pages to news websites. If you’d rather not see this type of content, there are steps you can take to reduce the number of ads you see, including reducing content on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Did you know, most major banks are now able to block or reduce gambling activities? Each bank offers a different service, from banning gambling transactions completely to only allowing a set amount to be spent. To find out more information, contact your bank.