Gamstop was founded as recently as 2017, as a project of the UK Gambling Commission permitting people who felt they had gambling problems to self-exclude automatically from betting sites. When it comes to differentiating a Gamstop casino from a non Gamstop casino, the answer would seem to be obvious. One is on Gamstop, the other isn’t. That’s it, right?
In some ways, yes, that is the key difference between Gamstop and non Gamstop casinos, but the differences go a lot deeper than that, and if you want to know how to use these casinos properly it is beneficial to know as much as possible. It is worth looking deeper, and that’s why we’re going to look specifically at what being on Gamstop means for a casino. So here are some of the key factors that differentiate these types of casino, above and beyond simple membership of a program.
All UK casinos are Gamstop casinos
Well, for the sake of completeness, all legal UK casinos are Gamstop casinos. There are illegal casinos operating in the UK, and they aren’t on Gamstop. But in order to operate legally in the UK, a casino needs to have a UKGC licence, and to get one of those a casino needs to sign up to Gamstop. Getting that licence means being auto-included with Gamstop, and allowing customers to automatically exclude when they have a gambling problem. So if a casino is on Gamstop, it is a UK casino, and vice versa.
Non Gamstop casinos allow credit card deposits
If you sign up to a Gamstop casino, you will be barred from depositing there using a credit card. This is a requirement with legal force behind it. It is entirely your choice whether you think this is a good thing or not, but the fact of the matter is: if you want to bet at UK casinos, you have to accept you can’t use credit to do so. If you want to bet using your credit card, you can only do it with casinos not on Gamstop. Again, this is black and white – if you’re betting at a UK site and it lets you use credit cards, it’s an illegal site.
When you auto-exclude from a Gamstop casino, you auto-exclude from them all
Gamstop is very much an all-for-one and one-for-all concept. If you have acknowledged a gambling problem, and want to exclude from Casino X (a UK casino – insert the name of one you know here), then you will also be automatically excluded from all other UK casinos from A to Z whether or not you want to be. If you auto-exclude from a casino that is licensed in Curacao, however, that does not mean you are excluded from other casinos licensed by the same authority. You’ll need to do that yourself on a casino-by-casino basis. Some non-UK casinos have sister sites that are run from the same HQ – you can always ask that you be excluded from any sister site, but it’s not an automatic exclusion.