Safer Gambling Week 2023

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Note: *The following article is purely for fun. It is based on individual opinions and does not constitute advice. The drawing of lottery numbers is entirely random. Please always gamble responsibly. #Ad. Find out more on our How Our Site Works page.

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Safer Gambling Week is a campaign that is organised across the gambling industry, including operators and responsible gambling charities, and aims to promote safe gambling practices. The week-long event focuses on raising awareness about the potential risks of gambling, encouraging gamblers to keep their habits in check, and providing information on how and where to obtain help if gambling starts to become a problem.

This year, Safer Gambling Week is running from 13th - 19th November.

Key Questions To Ask Yourself

1. Are you only betting what you can afford to lose?
2. Have you ever tried to chase your losses?
3. Are you keeping track of the time you spend gambling?
4. Are you keeping track of the amount of money you spend gambling?

With the answers to the questions above in mind, we can now take a look at all of the Safer Gambling Tools available to you:

Safer Gambling Tools: On Bet49s.com

At Bet49s.com we wanted to dedicate practical resource to helping customers gamble safely and stay in control. That’s why we developed our Bet Budget calculator on our sister site - comparethelotto.com. The objective is to give our users the opportunity to take a little bit of time to quickly calculate what is affordable to them. Once you have calculated how much you can afford and where you like to spend - you can simply set deposit limits with your chosen operators.

So why not play your part in Safer Gambling week and take the time to use our Bet Budget calculator today.

Safer Gambling Tools: On The Bookmakers

Each Lottery Operator or bookmaker you bet with will have various tools to make it easier to manage your betting.

These tools make it less likely to lose control in the heat of the moment.

Some common tools include:

• Deposit Limits: Set a limit on the maximum amount of money you can deposit into your account on a daily, weekly or monthly basis
• Reality Check: Receive a notification when you have been playing for a certain amount of time. For example, if you’ve been playing a slot game for over 1 hour, show a notification
• Time Limits: Set the maximum amount of time you can stay logged in to a betting site
• Max Stake Limit: Limit the maximum amount you can stake on one bet.
• Deposit Curfew: You can set a limit to when you’re allowed to deposit money into your account - for example, you could limit deposits to only be during day time hours or only Monday - Friday.
• Time Out: You can take a time out from your betting account - for example, for one day, one week or one month. During this time you won’t be able to login, deposit money or place any bets, however, once the time out is over your account will still be there.
• Self Exclusion: All bookmakers have to allow users to self-exclude. This means you are closing your account permanently and will no longer be able to login, deposit money or place bets.

Setting the above will need to be done with the bookmaker or lottery operator you bet with. Here are links to the Responsible Gambling sections with some of the bookmakers popular with CompareTheLotto.com users:

1. Betfred Responsible Gambling
2. bet365 Responsible Gambling
3. Boyle Sports Responsible Gambling
4. Ladbrokes Responsible Gambling
5. Coral Responsible Gambling

Safer Gambling Tools: Social Media

Are you concerned with the amount of gambling information you are seeing across social media? The majority of social networks include settings to hide gambling information from you. Currently, the social networks offering this include X/Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. See this guide for how to block gambling content on each platform.

Safer Gambling Tools: Online

There are various tools available that block access to gambling websites and attempt to limit the amount of gambling marketing you see. There are currently three different tools recommended by Safer Gambling:

• BetBlocker
• Gamban
• GamBlock

BetBlocker, for example, blocks access to 15,000 gambling-related websites.

Safer Gambling Tools: Your Bank

Did you know, the majority of large banks in the UK allow you to block gambling payments coming out of your account? For a full list of establishments offering this service, see this Gambling Commission page. The link also includes links to setup guides for each bank.

Safer Gambling Tools: Self-Exclude

If you would like to ban yourself from all UK bookmakers you can use the free government-backed service of GamStop. For more information on how this works, see video below:

Who Can You Talk to if You're Concerned?

If you need to talk confidentially about your gambling and are unsure where to start, we would recommend calling the Gambling Helpline - it’s free, confidential and open 24/7. The numbers to call are:

• GB 0808 8020 133
• IRL 1800 936 725
• NI 08000 886 725

Or, if you prefer, you can contact GamCare Live Chat here.