responsible play
Self exclusion
last updated 29 August 2026
Self exclusion means asking to be blocked, so that you cannot get in even on the evening when you would want to. On Pokiq there is nothing to exclude yourself from: you do not play for money here. This page is about the place where you do, and about who arranges it where you live.
Everything below was checked on 29 August 2026 on the site of the regulator or the organisation itself, and each entry links to the page we read. This is not legal advice, and the five countries here are not a complete list. Rules and procedures change, so for your own request the source itself is the place to look rather than this summary.
Where self exclusion is arranged
There is no international register, and the shape of it differs by country. Some places have one national list that covers every licensed operator at once. Others arrange it per state, per province or per operator, in which case one request stops at the edge of that one scheme.
United Kingdom
GAMSTOP, and separate schemes for venues
The Gambling Commission writes that GAMSTOP lets you self exclude from online operators with one request, and that the scheme has been available since April 2018. It also warns that GAMSTOP works by matching the details you enter, so those details have to stay correct. For venues there are separate schemes, one per type of gambling: the Commission names SENSE for casinos, the Bingo Industry Self-Exclusion Scheme, a BACTA scheme for adult gaming centres and arcades, SmartEXCLUSION, and a scheme for betting shops. How long a GAMSTOP exclusion lasts was not stated on the pages we read, so we do not state it either.
United States
State programmes, no national register
We found no national register. Self exclusion is arranged state by state, by the gaming regulator of that state, and separately by individual operators. New Jersey is the one we checked: its programme, run through the Division of Gaming Enforcement, lets you exclude yourself from all Atlantic City casinos and sports wagering facilities, or from internet gaming and sports wagering only, or from both. A state programme covers that state and no other. Other states run their own, and the helpline on the responsible play page can point you to the one where you live.
Canada
Provincial programmes, no national register
Self exclusion in Canada is provincial rather than national. The Responsible Gambling Council lists a programme for each province, among them AGLC in Alberta, BCLC in British Columbia, MLL in Manitoba, My PlayBreak from OLG in Ontario, NBLGC in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia Gaming, PlayWise on Prince Edward Island, Loto-Québec and SIGA in Saskatchewan, and it notes that there is no venue based programme in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut or Yukon. For Ontario that page gives a choice of periods running from three months to five years.
Australia
BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register
BetStop is a national register, run by Dataworks Group Limited on behalf of the ACMA. One registration excludes you from all online and phone wagering providers licensed in Australia, and providers may then not take a bet from you, open an account for you or send you marketing. It does not cover online casino games and it does not reach services offered illegally. You can register for a minimum of three months up to a lifetime, you can extend at any time, and you can apply to cancel early only after at least three months. You can also nominate someone to support you while you are excluded.
Ireland
National Gambling Exclusion Register, being set up
The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 provides for a National Gambling Exclusion Register, to be founded and administered by the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, covering licensed operators. The Authority writes that it is still working on the systems and arrangements to make the register operational. So this is the one entry on this page that may not be open to you yet, and it is also the one we could not load ourselves: the Authority’s site refused our request and we read this through search results from that same site. Check grai.ie for the current position, and in the meantime exclusion is something you arrange with each operator.
The Netherlands has a national register of its own, called Cruks, run by the Dutch gambling regulator. Because the detail there is only useful in Dutch, it lives on our Dutch page about zelfuitsluiting.
If you live somewhere that is not listed here, look for the gambling regulator in your own country. Regulators generally publish the scheme they recognise on their own site, and that is a safer starting point than a search result or a comparison page.
What a register does not reach
A national register reaches the operators that hold a licence in that country, and no further. It does not block sites outside that licence, and it does nothing about an operator in another jurisdiction. Excluding yourself and then moving to an unlicensed site undoes the whole point, and it also drops every other protection that came with the licence.
Schemes also differ in what type of gambling they cover. BetStop, for instance, covers wagering but not online casino games. A scheme for venues does nothing online, and an online scheme does nothing at a venue. It is worth reading which one you are actually signing up to.
Where a scheme works by matching the details you type in, as the Gambling Commission says GAMSTOP does, those details have to stay correct. A new surname or a new email address is the sort of thing that quietly opens a door again.
It is meant to be hard to undo
Every scheme we read sets a minimum, and several add a delay before a cancellation takes effect. That friction is the feature. The version of you who registers is protecting the version of you who will want to cancel it on a bad evening, and a register that let you walk straight back in would protect nobody.
For the same reason, it is worth choosing a period on a quiet day rather than after a losing session, and choosing it before you are certain you need it.
If exclusion feels like too big a step
Exclusion is the heaviest tool, and it does not have to be the first one. A limit on what you deposit and on how long you play bites earlier and is easier to keep to; that is covered on setting limits.
If what you need first is someone to talk to, the organisation for each of these countries, with the number we checked, is listed on responsible play. Which operators are licensed where you live, and how to look that up, is on where you can play.
What we do not know
We are not lawyers and not a support service. This page is a summary of what a handful of official pages said on the day we read them. Where a page did not state something, such as the length of a GAMSTOP exclusion, we left it out rather than filling the gap. Where we could not load a site ourselves, as with the Irish regulator, we said so in that entry.
If something here is out of date, the source linked in that entry is right and we are wrong. Telling us through the about page is welcome.