Gambling Help and Self-Exclusion in Australia
Gambling Help Online counsels free on 1800 858 858 and by online chat at any hour, and you do not have to give your name. BetStop is the national self-exclusion register for online and phone wagering providers licensed in Australia. It checks your identity so that licensed providers can match you against the register, so the two services do different jobs.
Counselling
Talking to someone today
Phone, chat, email and a forum, from one national service.
Gambling Help Online is the national service.
- Phone and chat
- Phone and online chat counselling are free, anonymous and open around the clock across Australia, on 1800 858 858.
- Email counselling is read Monday to Friday, and the service expects to reply within one business day in most cases, so in a crisis phone or chat is the faster route.
- Forum
- There is also a community forum if you would rather read what other people say than talk.
BetStop
What BetStop does
Licensed providers must refuse your bets, accounts and marketing.
BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, is an Australian Government initiative that lets you exclude yourself from all licensed Australian online and phone wagering services in a single step. After registration, licensed providers are barred from taking your bets, opening new betting accounts for you or sending you marketing messages. You can nominate someone you know to support you while you are excluded.
BetStop's online form says you must be at least 16 years old to register online, and anyone younger is asked to call the contact centre. To register you need a mobile phone number, an email address and an Australian driver's licence, an Australian passport or a Medicare card. If you need help or want to use a different identity document, BetStop's registration help line is 1800 238 786.
Offshore
What BetStop cannot reach
Offshore, self-exclusion is arranged with each operator separately.
BetStop
BetStop covers wagering providers licensed in Australia. It does not extend to an offshore casino or sportsbook, so if you play at one, the register does not apply to your account there. ACMA also warns that a service prohibited in Australia does not give the same customer protection as a licensed one.
Offshore
At an offshore site, self-exclusion runs through the operator. For Curaçao licences, the Gaming Authority's responsible gaming policy says the option must be easy to find and complete online, take effect at once, run for 1, 3, 5 or 10 years or for life, and extend to all of the operator's domains.
The same policy has each operator keep its own self-exclusion register, so it describes nothing that works across operators the way BetStop does. Whether a particular site meets those rules is for its own pages to show.
Report
Reporting a site, and where the rules are explained
ACMA also explains which services the Act bans.
ACMA's page on the Interactive Gambling Act explains which services are banned and how the rules work.
You can read about how to read a Curaçao licence on our method page. For the casino side, read Curacao online casinos and Australian law; sports and racing betting is covered in Curacao betting sites and Australian rules.
Family
Support for family and friends
Help exists for the people around someone who gambles, too.
- Gambling Help Online
- Gambling Help Online has a section on finding help with supporting someone else, for people worried about a family member or friend.
- BetStop
- BetStop lets the person registering nominate up to five people to support them through the self-exclusion.
If money has already been lost or cannot be withdrawn from an overseas site, ACMA says Australian regulators cannot step in, and lists advice from an independent lawyer, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the relevant licensing authority as options.
Contacts
Contact details in one place
Every service on this page, with its site and number.
- Gambling Help Online
- gamblinghelponline.org.au, 1800 858 858 and online chat, both around the clock; email counselling on weekdays.
- BetStop
- betstop.gov.au, registration help on 1800 238 786.
- ACMA
- About the Interactive Gambling Act, for the rules and for reporting a prohibited service.
Where to get help in Australia
If gambling stops feeling like a choice, free and confidential support is there whenever you need it.