responsible play
Setting limits
last updated 29 August 2026
A limit is the agreement you make with yourself while you are still clear headed, so that you do not have to make it at the moment you are not. On Pokiq there is nothing to deposit and nothing to lose. This page is about the place where you do play for money.
Everything below was checked on 29 August 2026 at the sources listed at the foot of this page. This is not legal advice. What an operator has to offer differs by country, so the regulator where you live is the place to check what applies to you.
Limits live with the operator
A limit is something you set where you play, not something you can arrange from the outside. The Gambling Commission in Great Britain writes that online gambling sites have facilities built into them that let people set a limit and control the time and the money they spend on that site. That is the general shape of it: a cap on money, a cap on time, or both.
How far the rules go beyond that differs by country, and so does what the operator is allowed to do when you ask for more. The one set of rules we checked in detail is the Dutch one, and it is worth reading as an example of how specific this can get.
One country in detail
In the Netherlands a set of player protection measures came into force on 1 October 2024. The Dutch government describes them like this: new players get a monthly deposit limit of at most 350 euro, or at most 150 euro for young adults up to the age of 24. Above 700 euro a month, or 300 euro for those young adults, the operator has to check whether the player can carry it. The limit itself must be set in a neutral environment, with no pre filled options and no advertising around it. And every 30 minutes a message tells the player how long the session has been running.
The Dutch regulator adds that lifting a limit, so that a player can play for more or for longer, counts as raising it, and that the mandatory waiting period applies. How long that waiting period is was not stated on the page we read, so we do not give a number here.
Those amounts apply in the Netherlands and nowhere else. They are here because they are the amounts we could verify at the source, not because they are a standard. The Dutch page limieten instellen covers the same ground in Dutch.
How to choose one
Whatever a regulator requires is a floor, not a plan. These are the rules of thumb that hold regardless of where you play.
Set it before the session
While you are playing you are the wrong person to be asking for a limit, and after a losing run you are the worst possible one. Set it on a day when nothing is at stake.
Put a time limit next to the money limit
An amount says nothing about how long you sit there, and long sessions are where most mistakes come from. Two limits catch two different ways of running past yourself.
Pick an amount you can be without
Not the amount you hope to win back and not the amount that just about fits. What suits your bankroll is arithmetic, and the bankroll calculator does it for you.
A limit you can raise on the spot is not a limit
Where this is done properly, a decrease takes effect immediately and an increase does not. If an operator lets you raise your limit with one click and carry on playing, that operator has turned the purpose of it around.
Which stake level fits the money you can set aside is worked out by the bankroll calculator. It counts in what you can be without, not in what you might win.
What a limit does not do
A limit applies at the operator where you set it. Open an account somewhere else and the limit stays behind, which is why a limit alone is a thin defence for someone who is looking for a way around it. It also says nothing about how well you are playing: staying inside your limit and still losing steadily is entirely possible.
If you notice that you keep raising the limit, or that you go looking for a second operator as soon as the first one closes the door, then the limit is not the tool you need. Self exclusion is the heavier one, and where it is arranged per country is set out on self exclusion.
If you would rather talk to someone first, the organisation for each market, with the number we checked, is on responsible play. Whether an operator is licensed where you live is covered on where you can play.
Sources
The amounts and obligations on this page come from these sources, checked on 29 August 2026. Two of them are in Dutch, because they are the ones that state amounts.
That online gambling sites have facilities built in for setting a limit on time and money.
The Dutch deposit limits, the affordability check and the rules for how a limit is set.
That lifting a limit counts as raising it, and carries the mandatory waiting period.