Blocking apps restrict the bet. Nothing restricts the balance.
Every mainstream tool for gambling harm works on access — to sites, to operators, to card rails. They are worth using and this page is not an argument against any of them. It's an account of the one thing they all leave uncovered.
What each layer actually covers
These are complements, not competitors. Someone serious about protecting themselves generally ends up running several at once, and the useful question isn't which is best — it's which parts of the problem are still exposed once you've set them all up.
| Layer | How it works | What it doesn't cover |
|---|---|---|
| Device blocking software Gamban, BetBlocker, Freedom | Filters gambling sites and apps on the devices it's installed on. | Covers the device, not you. A phone it isn't installed on, or an uninstall in a bad moment, defeats it — unless someone else holds the password. |
| Operator self-exclusion State programs, GamStop (UK) | Instructs licensed operators to refuse your business for a fixed term. | Binds licensed operators in the scheme's jurisdiction. Offshore and unlicensed sites are outside it entirely. |
| Bank-level gambling blocks Card controls, merchant-category blocks | Declines card transactions coded to gambling merchants (MCC 7995). | Widely offered in the UK, much rarer in the US. Card-level only — it doesn't stop a bank transfer, a peer-to-peer payment, or cash. |
| Commitment devices Apsis, a trusted third party | Makes the money itself unavailable for a period you choose in advance. | Doesn't restrict access to any gambling venue, and has no effect on money you haven't locked or credit you can still draw. |
Why bank blocks stop where they do
Card networks tag every merchant with a four-digit merchant category code. Gambling sits under MCC 7995, and a bank-level gambling block is, mechanically, an instruction to decline authorisations carrying that code. It is a genuinely good control: it operates at the rail rather than the device, and banks that offer it usually impose a deliberate delay of a day or more before it can be switched back off.
Its limits follow directly from how it works. It applies to card transactions, so a bank transfer, a peer-to-peer payment to someone who will place the bet for you, a cash withdrawal, or a deposit routed through an intermediary that codes as something else all pass through it untouched. And in the US these consumer-facing blocks remain far less common than in the UK, where most major banks have offered them for years.
The layer nobody sells
Stack every tool above and one thing is still true: the money is liquid, in an account built for instant spending, visible on a phone. Each layer raises the effort required to place a bet. None reduces the amount available to lose.
The traditional answer is to hand the surplus to someone you trust. It works, and for a lot of people it is the right call. Its costs are that it makes another person the gatekeeper who has to say no to you, it earns nothing while it sits there, and it holds only as long as the relationship does.
A commitment device does the same job without those costs. With Apsis you pick an amount and a date; the money is held in a contract that has no early-release function for anyone, including us, and it returns to your verified bank account on the date you chose with the interest it earned. There is no request to make and nobody to persuade, because there is no mechanism to persuade them with.
What a money lock does not do
It does not block a single gambling site. It does nothing about credit — a card, an overdraft or a loan is entirely outside its reach. It has no effect on money you chose not to lock. And it is not treatment: it constrains means, not urges, which is why every version of the stack above starts with support rather than software.
It also has a real cost of its own. Locked money is unavailable in an emergency, with no exception process. That is the direct price of the guarantee, and it is why the honest advice is to fund an ordinary accessible emergency account first and only lock what sits above it.
The layer that covers the balance.
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