Responsible gambling: help in the UK and in Monaco

Free and confidential, in the UK, right now: GamCare's National Gambling Helpline, 0808 8020 133. It is open 24 hours a day, every day, and there is a WhatsApp option if you would rather not speak.

A note on GambleAware

You will still see begambleaware.org quoted everywhere, including in the small print of a great deal of gambling advertising. The organisation GambleAware closed on 31 March 2026, after the statutory levy introduced in April 2025 replaced the old voluntary funding arrangement; in England the programme has been run by NHS England since 1 April 2026. The domain still resolves for now. We are not going to make it the first number on this page when a stable one exists, which is why GamCare is at the top.

What gambling is, and what it is not

It is a form of entertainment that costs money, in the same category as a theatre ticket. It is not a way to make money, not an investment, and not a plan. The house holds a mathematical advantage that does not go away, cannot be outwitted by a system, and is not affected by how you are feeling about your luck. Anyone selling you a strategy is selling you something that does not exist.

Signs worth taking seriously

Spending more than you decided to, more often than you meant to.
Going back to win back what you lost. This is the single most reliable warning sign there is.
Borrowing to play, or playing with money that has a job already: rent, bills, food.
Hiding it. Lying about the amounts, deleting the history, playing when nobody is around.
It is the thing you think about when you are meant to be thinking about something else.
Sleep, work or relationships have started to give way around it.

If you recognised more than one of those, the helpline number at the top of this page is free and the people answering it have heard it all before.

Tools that exist

As a matter of fact rather than recommendation: self-exclusion schemes let you bar yourself from venues or sites for a fixed period, and once set they cannot be undone on a whim, which is the point. Deposit and time limits, cooling-off periods and account closures are standard across the regulated industry. In the UK, GAMSTOP covers licensed online operators. Land-based venues run their own exclusion arrangements: ask at the venue.

Monaco

The minimum age in Monaco is 18, and SBM words it as being at least one day older than your eighteenth birthday. Gaming is overseen by the Service de Contrôle des Jeux, which sits under the Ministry of Finance; there is no separate gaming commission of the kind the UK has.

Monaco also does something no other jurisdiction in this dossier does: it bars a category of its own people from its casinos entirely. The legal basis is Loi n° 1.103 of 12 June 1987. Whatever one thinks of it, the principle behind it is not complicated. The state took the view that a casino economy should not be funded by the people who live in it.

If you are travelling to gamble

Decide the number before you go, take it in cash, and leave the cards in the room. Not advice from us, exactly: it is the only mechanism that has ever worked reliably, because it is the only one that does not rely on your judgement at midnight.