Questions
Free help to stop gambling. No account, no paywall.
- Is Hold The Bet free?
- Yes. Hold The Bet is completely free. There is no account to make, no ads, no subscription, no purchases and no paid upgrade, and recovery help is never put behind a paywall.
- What is Hold The Bet?
- Hold The Bet is a free web app that helps you stop gambling at the moment you reach for the next bet. It shows a 30 second card with your own number and your own reason, lets you text a person you trust in one tap, and guides you through blocking betting sites on your phone. Its slogan is Hold the bet. Grow instead.
- Is there a free app to stop gambling?
- Yes. Hold The Bet and BetBlocker are free to use, GAMSTOP and BetStop are free national self exclusion registers, and helplines, Gambling Therapy and Gamblers Anonymous are free support. See the guide on free ways to stop gambling for what each one does.
- Do I need to download anything or sign up?
- No. Hold The Bet runs in your phone's browser and can be added to your Home Screen. You do not need an account to use it. An optional free account only saves your progress across devices.
- How does Hold The Bet help in the moment of an urge?
- When you reach for a betting app, the card shows your own number and your own reason and starts a 30 second timer. You can text a person you trust with a pre filled message, lock yourself out with self exclusion links for each book, or block betting sites on your phone. You can always open the app anyway, since the point is a pause you choose.
- Does Hold The Bet block betting sites?
- It guides you through blocking betting sites in Safari and Chrome with your phone's own free controls, and through a DNS based block that covers apps and browsers. It links to the self exclusion page for each major sportsbook and casino.
- Is Hold The Bet a sportsbook or does it move money?
- No. It is not a sportsbook, it does not take bets, and it does not move, hold or save money. The jungle in the app is a picture of the nights you held and is not money.
- Is Hold The Bet a replacement for treatment or a helpline?
- No. It is a self help tool. If you are in crisis or thinking of hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the US or Canada, call GamCare on 0808 8020 133 in the UK, or find a helpline for your country at gamblingtherapy.org.
- What do you do with my data?
- Gambling behaviour is sensitive, so your reason, your phone number and any typed goal stay on your phone. Events are logged without an email or user id, no ad tracker or pixel is loaded, and we never build ad audiences from users.
- Who makes Hold The Bet?
- Hold The Bet is an independent project made by a small team. You can reach it at holdthebetofficial@gmail.com.
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