Self-exclusion from all online casinos!

Hello everybody!

My name is Simon, and I am part of the Casino Guru team in responsible gambling. My job is basically to lead our efforts in the area of safer gambling and the reduction of gambling harm. My main concern is the Global Self-exclusion Initiative, intending to create a global scheme including all gambling operators.

The reason for such an initiative is that we see current self-exclusion options as insufficient. Even if a player manages to exclude on a national or license-wide level, many other operators with no clue about it are willing to accept the player. We want to bridge this gap by creating a reliable system and convincing the rest of the industry to join it. You can find out more about it here.

I want to bring this project closer to the community. Ever since we created the initiative, we started receiving requests for self-exclusion globally. Unfortunately, this is not possible yet, but it made me think more about the individual stories of players struggling to build a reliable barrier from online gambling. That's when Charlie reached out with his experience with gambling addiction and troubles with self-exclusion. He was brave enough to share his story with me and the world to help others in similar situations. I want to pay it forward here.

This is his story.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts about this or share your own stories. I am a firm believer in community support when gambling becomes problematic. I also hope you might find inspiration in Charlie's story and possibly move to a better path.

Simon

Hi Guys,

The story is a brief overview of my gambling journey over the last decade or so.

if anyone wants to chat to discuss anything or if you just need someone to talk to who has been through some horrible times with this dark addiction then please drop me a message!

Stay safe everyone.

Charlie

After years of gambling 5 years signed up for Gamstop then finding no Gamstop casinos I finally found the will to close my last 2 accounts. A particular Slot became my obsession for years and although I had some good wins I lost thousands of pounds. I lost £600 yesterday and that was the straw that broke the camels back. The last 50 spins I had 49 were dead and I lost it and told both casinos I had a gambling problem which I do. Now I’m free of it I have to recalibrate my brain to stop thinking about it and move on. Casino always WINS

I know the position you’re in very well. First of all well done for closing your account, this is the most important step to put some distance between you and the casino.. now it’s time to be strong and get thru the first few hours and days of anger and disappointment at yourself.

I too had a very unhealthy obsession with a particular slot and used to chase and chase the bonus spins convinced it would pay me huge amounts of money.. very occasionally it would, but as you know it’s not the money that we chase as we aren’t in control of what we are doing once this horrible disease takes over.

Just remember you are not on your own through this tough time. Hopefully sharing your story here will help you find a bit of focus to steady your mind.

Keep strong 👊🏻

Well Done Charlie for being so brave and sharing your story.

It is great Casino GURU is lobbying a Global Self-exclusion. Gamstop has many loopholes that I believe both Gambling Businesses exploit to profit from Gambling Harm, but in recent years it has got better.

Hi Karen,

Thank you for your kind words.

I totally agree about Gamstop. I think a major problem is the rise of all these unlicensed casinos that will allow anyone to sign up without any checks. In my opinion you should only be able to use online casinos that are registered in your country of origin. At least that way Gamstop and other initiatives can be almost perfect in stopping players.

Hopefully the GSE can become implemented and then maybe more and more people can be saved from a life of misery due to the addiction.

All the best,

Charlie

Casino Intense is not responding to mail asking for account closure due to gambling addiction!

Hello,

For how long have you been waiting, please?

Can you confirm that you used this email, please?

support@casinointense.com

I can understand charly or understand other users very well when they turn away from gambling.

If you can admit to yourself that gambling is a problem. Then the only way to help yourself is to turn away.

For me gambling is not fun. It has taken me many years to understand this. Now that I don’t gamble, my mind is so free. It does take a long time to to feel this way. But it is possible

Great! Good to hear that, Charlie!

Hi Simon I opted out on October 8th to Yabby casino yet I continued to play and I was curious as to if they has systems problems or just plain cheating and unfortunately after playing almost 48 hours straight and at least 15 deposits of $100 I found my answer what recourse do I have if I told them I want to be self excluded? Thanks Keith

May I know whether the printscreen you previously share in Yabby Casino (where I already replied to you) General thread is the actual reply to these two, please? I believe that you have to follow specific procedures to ask for the self-exclusion properly.

Whenever you want to block your account in a casino, you need to contact them with regard to their terms and conditions. For example: in some casinos, it's enough to contact their live chat and they just block it, but sometimes, you need to send an email to a special email address. It's always important to mention your issues with gambling, otherwise, they have no obligation to block your account.

I can see that you have not mentioned the gambling problem. 🙁



No I did back in September and they talked me out of it I guess I’ll send you that email too or I’ll send it to Danielle if I have her address or get it from data@ guru you gave me thanks

I texted different emails to Yabby and exclusive and I have attached everything to Danielle I always sent emails to self exclude and wasn’t ready last month nor did I know I could do all of them at once I also have two or three others that have allowed me to play after I sent them a self exclude email but I’m not going to report them because I guess it’s my fault but until you have this problem you wouldn’t fully understand what goes on in your head and after almost 50 years of doing it so my bad I will be done after this thanks for all your help goodbye you can donate any $$ you recoup to any charity the guru would like I just tried to help other people mainly before myself because of my curiosity so again I’m sorry and I appreciate what everyone at guru has done for me so with that I’m disconnecting ✌️👍👏😩😢

Hello,

I do not need that, I'm not a part of the complaint team, so if you want the matter to be investigated properly, submit the complaint again, please provide all relevant communication and PrintScreen right there.

This goes for every casino separately.

I understand that you may feel like casinos are not paying the proper attention to your problem, but there are just a few general standards when it comes to gambling issues, and players can't self-exclude for every casino at once - sad but true.

Go ahead and submit the complaint against every casino that has ignored your self-exclusion requests (when gambling addiction was mentioned) in the past, or where the account closure took more than days to be fulfilled.

Can you do that, please?

I'm sorry to hear that.

It is important to understand how exactly to ask the casino to close your account and the importance of mentioning the gambling issues. Just submit the complaints as I mentioned in my previous reply, and the complaint team will go through them.

Please read our section dedicated to problem gambling. Do not hesitate to contact local help centers, please.

Congrats Charlie!

Thank you so much.