Gambling Blocking Software: Gamban, BetBlocker and the Blocks That Actually Hold
Software that blocks gambling on your own hardware is the layer most people reach for last, usually after an account-level block has already failed them.
The short answer
- Free option: BetBlocker, free permanently, run by a Scottish charity.
- Paid option: Gamban, $6.99 monthly or $41.99 annually, seven-day free trial.
- Free in some states: Michigan and Louisiana fund Gamban licenses.
- Hardest to undo: BetBlocker, which cannot be lifted before it expires.
- Weakest: operating-system parental controls, off in seconds if you hold the passcode.
- The gap: a device block does not reach a second device.
- Bank layer: ask your card issuer about merchant category code 7995.
- Helpline: 1-800-MY-RESET, which is 1-800-697-3738.
Four Layers, and the Gap Each One Leaves
Treat the controls as four rings, each closing a hole the others leave open. No ring is sufficient alone.
Self-exclusion strips your access to the licensed blackjack sites that honor the list. A device blocker takes away the thousands of sites that never agreed to honor anything. The two are not substitutes. Below is what each established tool does, what it costs, which platforms it runs on, and the one design detail that separates a real block from a placebo.
Account level
A state list or an operator ban reaches accounts you hold at regulated sites. See how state self-exclusion programs work, since enrollment rules and durations differ by state. It misses every site not on the regulator’s roster.
Device level
Blocking software intercepts gambling domains and apps on one piece of hardware. It misses a second device, a work laptop, a friend’s phone.
Bank level
An issuer-side gambling block declines the charge regardless of device or site. It misses rails your card never touches.
Network level
A filtering DNS resolver on your router covers everything on that Wi-Fi, including a console you never thought to protect. It misses cellular data and anything on a VPN.
No ring is sufficient alone, and all four are cheap enough that treating them as competing options is a mistake.
Set the other layers while you are here
A device blocker is one ring of four. These pages cover the rings it cannot reach.
Gamban
A paid, commercial blocker sold on subscription, with one license covering all your devices rather than one machine.
Gamban’s own published pricing lists $6.99 billed monthly or $41.99 billed annually, both in U.S. dollars, with a seven-day free trial. Minimum versions, per Gamban’s apps page: Android 6.0, iOS and iPadOS 9.0, macOS 10.10, Windows Vista SP2.
Coverage is broad, and Gamban publishes both halves of the picture. Blocked categories include sports betting, casino, slots, poker, bingo, lotteries, social casinos, table games, esports and skins gambling, gambling affiliate sites, NFTs, crypto and trading platforms. It states plainly that it does not block gambling adverts, investment websites, adult content, sports information platforms or loot boxes. Blocking runs off a curated list.
On removal, Gamban’s position is friction rather than impossibility. Its own explainer says the company will not uninstall Gamban from your devices until your subscription has ended, and that part of that friction is making Gamban as difficult to remove as different devices will enable. It stops short of claiming removal is impossible, which is honest and worth weighing against BetBlocker’s harder guarantee.
Free access in some jurisdictions. Check before you pay.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board announced a partnership on April 24, 2026 making Gamban free to all Michigan residents, board-funded, with no requirement to enroll in self-exclusion first and license terms of one to five years. That matters here, because Michigan is one of the seven states with licensed online casino play. In Louisiana, the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling announced free Gamban on April 7, 2026, funded with the state Department of Health and the Northwest Louisiana Human Services District. Programs start and end, so confirm availability with the funding body.
BetBlocker
Free, permanently and without conditions, and built so that a restriction you set cannot be lifted early by anyone, including you.
BetBlocker is free, permanently and without conditions. It is run by a charity registered in Scotland, number SC049565, founded in 2017 by an independent gambling dispute-resolution operation and made an independent charity in 2019. Funding comes from donations by gambling-industry businesses plus grants, a conflict the charity discloses openly.
Published coverage is more than 360,600 gambling sites and more than 1,900 mobile apps, with the operator list updated weekly. Platform support is the widest here: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire OS and Huawei AppGallery, with no cap on installs.
The irreversibility is the product
Once a restriction starts, it cannot be lifted before the period you chose expires. Support staff will not help you bypass an active restriction, and the charity states that uninstalling the app or resetting the device does not lift it. Durations run from one, two, three and five days through one week, two weeks, one month, two months, three months, six months, one year, two years, three years and five years. On restrictions of two months or longer a seven-day cooling-off window runs before expiry, during which you can extend. Do nothing and the block simply ends.
A separate parental mode uses a password to toggle restrictions, meant for a parent handing a device to a child rather than for self-restriction. No email address is collected, deliberately, so there is no reset path to exploit.
Two caveats the charity flags itself
Some versions enforce the block through a VPN, so the device appears to connect from BetBlocker’s server and local resources such as printers stop working. And it avoids keyword filtering on purpose, since keyword rules would block recovery material too.
GamBlock
A different route: analysis of the site or program being loaded rather than a maintained list of domains.
GamBlock takes a different route. Instead of matching a maintained list of domains, it advertises analysis of the site or program being loaded, meant to catch new gambling sites without waiting for a list update. It also claims to block installation of gambling apps outright and to survive factory resets and system restores. The company states it is funded by customers rather than operators. Versions cover Windows in personal, small business and corporate editions, iPhone and iPad, a Samsung build for Android 7 and above, a general unfragmented Android build, and a fragmented Android build for Android 5 and above. Pricing is per device with discounts for multiple devices and longer terms; no headline price appears on the pages readable here, so ask rather than assume.
If gambling has stopped being recreational
Installing a blocker is a start rather than an answer. These pages cover the rest.
The Free Alternatives: Parental Controls and DNS Filtering
Two tools you already own or can switch on tonight. Both are useful outer rings and poor last lines of defense.
Operating-system parental controls
On iPhone and iPad, Screen Time’s Content and Privacy Restrictions include a Web Content setting with three positions: Unrestricted, Limit Adult Websites and Only Approved Websites. The middle setting accepts a manual never-allow list for specific domains, all behind a Screen Time passcode. Android supervision runs through Family Link, Windows through Microsoft Family Safety. The catch is obvious: if you know the passcode, the restriction is 30 seconds of inconvenience. These were built for a parent restricting a child, a different problem from an adult restricting themselves.
DNS filtering
Loading a site starts with asking a DNS resolver to turn a domain name into an IP address. Point a device or router at a filtering resolver and it refuses to answer for domains in the categories you blocked, so the page never loads. Cisco’s OpenDNS runs a free home service at 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220, with a preconfigured FamilyShield option needing no signup and a customizable Home tier that requires registration. Set on the router, it covers every device on that Wi-Fi at once.
Know the limits
Switching a phone from Wi-Fi to cellular bypasses a router filter entirely, which matters given how much play now happens on phones rather than desktops. A VPN routes around it, as does the encrypted DNS setting in most modern browsers. Reverting a DNS server takes a minute, and DNS blocks a name rather than an address, so an app connecting to a hardcoded IP is untouched. Fine outer ring, poor last line of defense.
Comparison
What each tool costs, where it runs, what it covers and how hard it is to get rid of.
| Tool | Cost | Platforms | Coverage scope | Removal | Funded by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gamban | $6.99 monthly or $41.99 annually; seven-day trial; free in some funded jurisdictions | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS | Gambling sites and apps, plus social casinos, affiliates, crypto, NFTs, trading; not ads or adult content | Deliberately difficult; not removed before the subscription ends, but not claimed impossible | Subscribers, plus regulators and health agencies buying bulk access |
| BetBlocker | Free, no ads, no paid tier | Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire OS, AppGallery | More than 360,600 sites and 1,900 apps, updated weekly, plus a few hundred gambling-information sites | Cannot be lifted early by any means, including uninstalling or resetting the device; seven-day cooling-off before long blocks expire | Scottish charity SC049565, funded by industry donations and grants |
| GamBlock | Per device, discounted for multiple devices and longer terms; no published headline price | Windows personal, small business and corporate; iPhone and iPad; three Android builds | Analysis-based rather than list-based; also blocks installing gambling apps | States removal is blocked, including by factory reset or system restore | Customer purchases; states it takes no operator funding |
| Screen Time, Family Link, Family Safety | Free, built into the operating system | iOS and iPadOS, Android, Windows | Category filtering plus manual site lists; no gambling-specific list | Off in seconds if you hold the passcode | Device makers |
| Filtering DNS such as OpenDNS | Free tiers available | Any device or router accepting a DNS setting | Whole networks at once, by category | Reversible in about a minute; bypassed by cellular data, VPN or encrypted browser DNS | Vendor, with paid business tiers |
The Question That Actually Decides This: How Hard Is It to Undo?
Everything above is secondary to one thing. A block you can lift in 30 seconds is not protection.
A block you can lift in 30 seconds is a speed bump you will roll over at the exact moment protection was the point, because the moment you most want to remove a gambling block is the moment you are least equipped to judge whether you should.
That explains a design choice that looks user-hostile until you see the purpose. BetBlocker’s refusal to end a restriction early is not poor customer service; it is the entire value proposition. Setting a 90-day block is a decision made Tuesday morning that binds you Friday night, and the Tuesday version of you is the one you want in charge. Gamban builds friction of a lesser grade, declining to uninstall before your subscription ends while being straightforward that someone with full control of a device may still get it off.
Choose honestly
If you are managing spend and want something adjustable, low friction is fine. If you are trying to stop, pick the option you cannot talk your way out of, and set a longer duration than feels comfortable. The cooling-off window at the end of a long BetBlocker restriction exists for the same reason: a deliberate pause between expiry and access instead of an open door at midnight. Prefer one long enforced block to a short one you keep renewing, because every renewal is another chance to decide not to.
Related reading on how sites reach you
Blocking is one side of the problem. These guides cover the other side.
What Blocking Software Does Not Do
These tools reduce access. They do not remove it, and five gaps stay open no matter which one you install.
It does not cover a device it is not on
The old tablet in a drawer, a work laptop, a partner’s phone and a library computer all sit outside the block.
It does not close accounts
Balances, stored payment methods, marketing emails and credentials all survive. Closing accounts is a separate task, and self-exclusion is separate again.
It does not stop a deposit
A blocker keeps you off a site; it has no view of your money. Deposit and loss limits at licensed sites are the tool for that, required by rule in every state with legal online casino play.
It cannot reach a physical casino
Nothing on a phone stops anyone walking to a blackjack table. Only a state self-exclusion list does that, and only where one exists.
It does not treat anything
A block buys time and lowers the odds of an impulsive session. Mistaking it for a cure is how people end up surprised six months later.
Bank and Card Blocks, and Merchant Category Code 7995
The most underused layer, and powerful precisely because it does not care which device or site you used.
Card networks classify every merchant with a four-digit code. Betting and casino gambling, including lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track betting and race track wagers, falls under MCC 7995. That code travels with the authorization request, so an issuer can see a gambling charge for what it is before approving it.
Federal rules already assume the capability. Under Regulation GG, at 12 C.F.R. 233.6, the examples of compliant policies for card systems describe a code system, such as transaction codes and merchant or business category codes, accompanying the authorization request. Subsection (d)(1)(ii)(A) calls for operational functionality letting the card system operator or issuer identify and deny authorization for a transaction the coding indicates may be restricted, and (d)(1)(ii)(B) requires ongoing monitoring and testing to catch miscoded merchants. The machinery for declining a gambling charge is a compliance requirement, not a favor.
Consumer-facing blocks are far more common in the United Kingdom, where major banks ship an app toggle with a mandatory cooling-off period, than in the United States, where availability is uneven. Payment-industry documentation describes some issuers declining 7995 by default, and many U.S. credit card issuers already refuse gambling charges or run them as cash advances at a higher rate with no grace period. Several states separately bar funding a wagering account by credit card, though mostly through sports betting rules rather than casino rules, so check your own state.
Call the number on the back of the card
Go to the issuer directly rather than looking for a setting first.
Ask about blocking merchant category code 7995
Use the number rather than the word “gambling,” which frontline staff often will not act on.
Ask the question that matters more: how fast can it be lifted?
A block removable by one phone call is weak; one with a mandatory waiting period is strong.
Check the card controls section of your banking app
Some issuers expose merchant toggles there. See our guide to payment security and how gambling deposits are processed for the same rails from the operator side.
Two limits on a card block
A card block covers cards, so bank transfers, e-checks, peer-to-peer apps and cryptocurrency go past it. And blocking one card does nothing for another in the same wallet.
Money, accounts and what you are owed
The payment layer overlaps with your rights as a customer. Start with these.
Offshore Sites and the Blocklist Lag
Any tool working from a maintained list of gambling domains inherits that list’s blind spot.
New domains appear constantly, and offshore operators in particular spin up mirrors, regional variants and fresh addresses as routine practice, sometimes because a state regulator just ordered the old one switched off. BetBlocker’s weekly update cycle is fast by any fair standard and still leaves a brand-new domain reachable for days. Gamban cites the same pressure, naming new gambling sites and apps appearing daily as the reason its list needs constant work. GamBlock’s pitch is that its analysis approach does not wait for an update, though you take that on the company’s word.
The consequence is not that blockers are useless. It is that the offshore corner is where a device blocker is weakest and the other layers carry more weight. A card block does not care whether a domain is new. Neither does an empty account. For background, see the comparison of offshore operators against state-licensed sites, the broader material on judging whether a site is safe, and the fake apps and copycat sites that also slip past domain lists.
Stacking the Layers So They Hold
Steps one through three take under an hour combined. Step four takes longest and is the one people skip.
Install a blocker on every device you own today
BetBlocker costs nothing, so there is no reason to research your way into a delay. Pick a restriction period longer than feels comfortable.
Set filtering DNS on your home router the same evening
This catches the devices you forgot.
Call your card issuers the next business day
Ask about an MCC 7995 block and how long lifting one takes. Do every card, not just the one you use most.
Enroll in self-exclusion for your state
The only layer reaching licensed operators and physical properties.
Set deposit, loss and time limits on any account staying open
Limits work on the accounts a blocker cannot see.
Remove stored payment methods and unsubscribe from marketing
Do this on every account you are keeping open.
Write down what you did
Give a copy to somebody who will notice if it changes.
Steps one through three take under an hour combined. Step four takes longest and is the one people skip, so do it while the rest is fresh. The responsible gambling hub has the state entry points.
Installing These for Somebody Else
Doing this for another adult is easy technically and hard in every other way. Do it with them, not to them.
What holds
- Doing it with them rather than to them, so the decision is theirs.
- Letting them choose the restriction period themselves, which is what counts when Friday night arrives.
- Enforced irreversibility: a tool nobody can unlock, including you.
- Removing the nightly negotiation entirely.
What backfires
- A block installed without agreement, which comes off.
- Damage to trust, which outlasts the block itself.
- Holding a password on their behalf.
- Becoming the person they argue with, plead with and eventually resent.
Know the ceiling
You cannot install on devices you do not control, see a new account opened, or block a payment method in another person’s name. Blockers reduce opportunity; they do not create motivation. The guidance on supporting someone whose gambling worries you covers the conversation, which is the harder half.
Where to Get Help
If you are here because of your own play rather than curiosity, install something today and treat it as a start rather than an answer.
The signs that gambling has stopped being recreational are set out in the material on recognizing problem gambling behavior, and treatment options, state helplines and peer support are collected in our directory of help resources.
For a phone number
The National Council on Problem Gambling moved to 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) on Jan. 29, 2026. The older 1-800-GAMBLER line still connects and remains mandated in several states’ advertising rules, so either reaches a person, but 1-800-MY-RESET is the current national number.
The rest of the responsible gambling section
Seven sibling guides, each written for a different moment.
Tool details here were checked against each product’s own published documentation, and the page was last reviewed on Aug. 25, 2026. Prices, platform support and funded-access programs change without notice, so confirm anything cost-related with the vendor or funding agency before relying on it.
