Editor Note: This post is done in collaboration with GamStop and should not be considered an editorial endorsement
Gambling addiction means that a person is unable to stop playing casino games. He or she doesn’t feel lucky when winning and financial instability is paired with the issue. GamStop is created to help people who suffer from gambling addiction. UKGC developed the platform a while back. There are a lot of apps of this kind that do the same thing. It is important to evaluate how well these apps and GamStop work in order to take a proper approach and make needed adjustments.
How Effective Blockers On Android
Here is the simple thing you need to know about. GamStop is effective in 80% of cases. This means that 80% of the users have solved the gambling addiction problem and they are feeling better now. 84% of the users stated that they felt much better and safer once they started with self-exclusion. The data is obtained using the feedback of the users who used or are still using GamStop.
The situation is completely different when it comes to apps for blocking online casinos. Each app is different and therefore effectiveness percentage varies. We do know that Gamban is effective in blocking 99% of gambling sites.
We can add that the apps and GamStop work well and they can help people without any major issues. For example, over 80% of the users stated that they would like to use an app of this kind forever and make online gambling permanently banned for them. There is no app like this at the moment.
Overview of GamStop and Other Gambling Blockers
There are a lot of options here that you can use. Below we will cover the main ones and we will list the challenges users and also developers or creators had to face. This should help you form a much better opinion about the main topic here.
GamStop
The platform works well. It is very effective, free, and blocks all sites in the UK. But it works with UKGC sites only. This means that there are some casino websites not with GamStop which do not have such a licence and are still available to gamblers. Add the fact that GamStop is not available outside UK and you can see the issue. There are some details and efforts to make this platform effective all around the world but we don’t have any details right now.
GamBan
GamBan is an app that has been more than just popular. They got numerous rewards and all sorts of recommendations. The app works well and it can be used to block all gambling sites. Well, some issues are present here as well. For instance, in some cases, the app would completely block access to the internet. Some users have discovered that restarting the phone allowed them to gamble online.
BetBlocker
BetBlocker is a free app developed in Scotland. It works like any other app of this type. You will download it, install the app and use it. It will block over 84.000 gambling sites. It is stunning and there is no need to add that it works. But, the issue is that a site must be added to the database in order to be blocked. What this means is that theoretically, gamblers can gamble at sites that are not part of the database.
NetNanny
This app has been available since the 90s but in the early 2000s, it became an app that could help gamblers with addiction. You can block gambling sites easily when using this app. The app is expensive which is not an option for some players with addiction. It is also known that occasional bugs can become present which will make the app problematic.
All of these apps and methods have one thing in common. They can make gamblers try to gamble at unregulated and unsafe sites. There is no one method that can block all gambling sites on the whole web.
User Experience Analysis And The Room To Improve
In a nutshell, users have reported that they are satisfied with these apps and GamStop and that they would like to continue using them. The satisfaction rate is around 80% most of the time and regardless of which method you choose.
The biggest thing however is room for growth. These apps and programs need to become more versatile and not limited. They need to cover all the sites and betting platforms at once and make gambling completely impossible if they want a high success rate.
Conclusion
GamStop and apps of this kind are effective and they work better than you may believe. Obviously, you can see that GamStop is different from other apps, but it works for the same purpose. We can add that people have defeated gambling addiction and they have been using self-exclusion methods for a long time. Further development is needed or even mandatory. Online gambling is one of the industries that grow faster than any other hence these methods need to be improved as well.
