The 24-Hour Betting Shutdown Plan

A therapist's plan for your first day without sports betting.

Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC· Gambling & sports betting therapist, Chicago· August 31, 2026

I've sat with a lot of people on their first day without betting. Here's what I have them do.

By way of introduction: I'm a licensed clinical therapist in Logan Square, and gambling — sports betting above all — is the core of my practice. This page is the day-one plan I build with clients, laid out so you can run it yourself, today. Go in order, starting at Hour 0–1, and check items off as they're done. Done beats perfect at every step. Print the three one-page sheets from the appendix and put them somewhere they'll catch your eye.

Prefer a printable copy? Download the free PDF — no email required.

Download the PDF

1. Read This First

Who I wrote this for

Most people who end up across from me don't match anyone's mental image of a gambling problem. They're employed. They show up on time. Nobody at work suspects a thing. What they carry is private: deposits that have crept past what a paycheck can quietly absorb, a bad Sunday that gets "fixed" by a worse Monday, a habit of minimizing the numbers when anyone asks, and a first bet of the day that tends to decide the rest of the day. If some version of that is you, this page is for you.

You've probably already tried the willpower route — a promise made on the drive home, a per-game limit that survived until the next prime-time slate. When resolve keeps losing, people usually conclude something is wrong with them. I draw the opposite conclusion: something is wrong with the setup. An app that lives eleven inches from your face, pre-linked to your bank, pinging you the moment the game tips — that setup would beat nearly anyone's self-control. It was engineered to.

A few numbers, so you know how crowded this particular boat is. After sports betting was legalized, help-seeking internet searches about gambling addiction rose roughly 23 percent nationwide — on the order of 6.5 to 7.3 million searches — and the increase in Illinois, around 35 percent, ran ahead of the national figure ¹². In a 2026 national survey, 60 percent of online sports bettors said they had bet a larger amount to try to win back a loss ³.

If you'd like a reading on where you stand, this site has a short self-assessment you can take privately — it runs entirely in your browser, and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere. That said, most people who make it to this paragraph already know the answer.

The idea behind the next 24 hours

Here's the deal I make with clients on day one: we leave your character out of it. Nobody's willpower gets graded today. Today is construction work. You're going to rebuild the space between you and the next bet until that space is measured in obstacles instead of seconds — a log-in that's been shut off, an app that isn't on the phone, a card number that isn't saved anywhere, a passcode you genuinely don't hold, and one person who expects your call. Urges survive all of that; I'd be surprised if one didn't visit tonight. Bets, mostly, do not.

Barrier-first isn't a private theory of mine. NICE — the body that writes national clinical guidance in the UK — directs clinicians to have exactly this conversation with anyone whose gambling is causing harm: blocking software, blocking the marketing messages, self-exclusion systems, ways to block gambling payments, and an agreement that a trusted person takes charge of the money ⁴.

Why pile up so many barriers at once? Because the evidence favors stacking. When a UK program that bundled a helpline, blocking software and self-exclusion was independently evaluated in 2026, 68 percent of users said engaging more than one element made cutting back "much easier," and another 20 percent said "a bit easier" — self-reports, from a sample that leaned toward the people who installed the software, so I read it as a strong hint rather than a verdict ⁵. A systematic review of 19 casino and betting-shop exclusion studies has the same texture: gambling usually dropped, abstinence sometimes followed, results swung widely, and a fair share of people simply gambled somewhere else ⁶. One wall gets walked around. Several walls, much less so.

A word about where this plan sits. It borrows its principles from evidence-based gambling treatment, but it is not that treatment, and finishing it commits you to nothing. People leave gambling through different doors: this plan alone, this plan plus Gamblers Anonymous or SMART Recovery, this plan plus a therapist, or straight into formal treatment. I've watched every one of those routes work, and I don't rank them.

Please read this before anything else. This guide is educational self-help. Reading it — or anything else on this site — does not make you my client and does not create a therapist–client relationship between us. It is not therapy, not a diagnosis, and not medical, legal or financial advice. If you want help that's specific to you, the resources section at the end lays out the options, including how to reach me and several ways to get help that have nothing to do with me. If you're in crisis or in serious financial trouble, please talk to a qualified professional directly.

If you're thinking about hurting yourself. Gambling problems raise the risk of suicidal thinking above the general population's, and clinical guidance flags the stretch right after a gambling episode, a heavy loss, or a slip as the most dangerous window ⁴⁷. If tonight is that night, set the rest of this guide aside — it will keep. Call or text 988, or use the chat at chat.988lifeline.org: free, confidential, staffed around the clock ⁸. The gambling-specific line works the same way: call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), the National Problem Gambling Helpline, 24/7 ⁹. You don't need the right words or a plan. You need a person, now.

2. The 24-Hour Timeline

When	What you do	Section
Hour 0–1	Shut off the sportsbooks: self-exclude or time out, close the accounts, then handle prediction markets and the state program	3
Hours 1–3	Lock down the devices: blocking software, phone controls, DNS, delete apps and saved logins	4
Hours 3–6	Cut off the money: map every route cash reaches a book, strip payment methods, freeze your credit	5
Rest of today	Silence the marketing; tell one person	6–7
Tonight	Get through the first game with a written plan, the 20-Minute Urge Protocol, and a late-night plan	8
Tomorrow morning	Re-check everything, read the chasing card, decide what comes next	9

Treat the hours as a suggested pace, not an exam. Starting at 9 p.m.? Do the sportsbook hour immediately, get the device work done before bed, and let the rest wait for morning. The one non-negotiable is what comes first: the accounts. Everything else in this plan gets easier once those doors are locked.

3. Hour 0–1 — Shut Off the Sportsbooks

The Betting Firewall: master checklist

Read the whole list before you open any app — it's the map of your next hour. A printable copy is in the appendix.

Write down every sportsbook, daily-fantasy and pick'em app where an account exists in your name, including the ones you haven't touched in months
In each one, open the Responsible Gaming section and set the longest self-exclusion you can commit to (or the longest timeout, if exclusion feels like too much today)
In each one, drop the deposit limits to the minimum allowed — a backstop in case an exclusion doesn't take
In each one, request a withdrawal of your full balance, or get support to confirm they'll return it
Contact support at each and ask, in writing, for permanent account closure and removal from all marketing
Repeat all of it for prediction-market apps (Kalshi, Robinhood event contracts, Polymarket, Crypto.com, DraftKings Predictions, FanDuel Predicts)
If prediction markets are part of your betting, register with SelfExclude.io
Start enrollment in your state's self-exclusion program — in Illinois, that's the Gaming Board's program, covered below
Screenshot every confirmation screen and keep them in a single folder

Two patterns are worth knowing before you start. Every operator page I reviewed treats limits asymmetrically: a decrease lands the moment you set it, while an increase sits in a mandatory waiting period of days or weeks ¹⁰¹¹¹². The books built that delay to slow down a future version of you who wants the limit gone — let it do that job. And whenever a screen offers both a break you can cancel and an exclusion you can't, pick the one you can't. Reversible is a speed bump. Irreversible is a wall.

One caution as you work through the cards below: menus differ by state as much as by operator, and I found operators' pages disagreeing with one another ¹³¹⁴. Anywhere I couldn't confirm a path or duration on the operator's own page, I say "open the Responsible Gaming section" rather than guess at a menu.

Operator quick cards

FanDuel (Sportsbook, Casino, Fantasy, and FanDuel Predicts)

Tools. Self-exclusion from one year up, in one-year increments; a timeout of 3 to 365 days with no log-in for the duration; deposit, wager, loss and time limits, a maximum wager size, and deposit alerts ¹⁰. Path. FanDuel publishes direct links: self-exclusion at account.www.fanduel.com/responsible-play/self-exclusion, timeout at fanduel.com/timeout, limits at fanduel.com/account/user-limits ¹⁰. If any link is dead, use the Responsible Gaming section inside the app. Reversible? FanDuel's public pages don't say. Treat it as permanent and don't test it. Close. Go through Customer Support at support.fanduel.com; closure is available "at any time" ¹⁰. Reports indicate marketing can be shut off by unchecking "marketing" under email preferences ¹⁵. FanDuel Predicts users: see the prediction-markets section below.

DraftKings (Sportsbook, Casino, DFS, and DraftKings Predictions)

Tools. Self-exclusion, cool-off periods, and deposit, loss and time limits. DraftKings' own responsible-gaming page lists exclusions of one or five years and cool-offs of three days to four weeks; other sources describe options from a few months to five years, so expect your state to determine the menu ¹⁴¹⁶. If you're in Pennsylvania, DraftKings sends you to the PA Gaming Control Board to self-exclude ¹⁴. Path. The Responsible Gaming Center is at rg.draftkings.com, and DraftKings links self-exclusion at sportsbook.draftkings.com/myaccount/self-exclusion ¹⁴. I couldn't verify the in-app menus, so if a link fails, open the Responsible Gaming section directly. Reversible? Not stated on any page I could confirm. Assume no. Close. DraftKings' terms say players "can also permanently close their account at any time for any reason through the DraftKings customer service department" ¹⁷. Put the request in writing. DraftKings Predictions users: see below.

BetMGM (and sister brands such as Borgata)

Tools. Time-out of 3 to 180 days; deposit and spend limits (daily, weekly, monthly) with increases delayed 1, 7 or 30 days; self-exclusion with state-dependent durations ¹¹¹⁸. Path. From BetMGM's own FAQ: "My Account > Settings > Responsible Gaming" for exclusion preferences; limits sit one level deeper at "Responsible Gaming Limits" ¹⁹. Multi-state. A time-out or service closure set in one state "will automatically be applied in every state," and limits follow you everywhere BetMGM operates ¹⁹. Take advantage of that. Reversible? Not stated on the pages I could verify. Close. BetMGM offers a time-based "service closure" rather than a true delete button. Use Help & Contact in the main menu or betmgm.com/en/mobileportal/contact, and ask for the longest closure available plus removal from marketing ¹⁹.

Caesars Sportsbook & Casino

Tools. Self-exclusion of at least 12 months, done in the sportsbook or through a notarized form; a Cool Off of 3 to 30 days; deposit, spending and daily time limits ²⁰. Path (New Jersey page). "My Account" → "Responsible Gaming" → "Self-Exclusion." In New Jersey the options are one year or five; lifetime exclusion happens in person at the state's Division of Gaming Enforcement ²¹. Other states have pages at the same address pattern — pull up yours. Reversible? No. You can only apply for reinstatement after the term ends, via a reinstatement form ²⁰. Caesars also warns the exclusion may reach its land-based properties and its online gaming in other states ²¹. Close. Email responsiblegaming@caesarssportsbook.com or call (855) 474-0606; the same contacts handle SMS and marketing removal. Closures unrelated to responsible gaming go through the Caesars web form ²⁰.

Fanatics Sportsbook & Casino

Tools. Self-exclusion of at least one year — access blocked, no wagers, deposits or account changes; a timeout of 3 to 365 days; deposit, single-wager, time-based and session limits; plus a deposit-method restriction that blocks specific payment methods — a tool few competitors offer ¹². Path. Not published anywhere I could read. Log in and open the Responsible Gaming section. Reversible? Access stays locked until the term runs out; withdrawing funds during exclusion goes through support ¹². Close. "You may close your account at any time. If you'd like to, please contact our support team." Email support@betfanatics.com ¹².

bet365

Tools. Two distinct things — and mixing them up matters. Self-Exclusion is the hard door: in Colorado, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years or indefinite, and "it will not be possible to re-open your account for any reason" ²². Account Closure is the soft door: one week to indefinite, reopening automatically at the end unless you picked indefinite ²³. Path. Self-exclusion: Account Menu → Gaming Controls → Self-Exclusion ²². Account closure: Account Menu (top right) → Gaming Controls → Account Closure → pick period and reason → Continue ²³. State differences. bet365 keeps a separate responsible-gaming page per state. In New Jersey, self-exclusion runs through the state DGE program (1 year, 5 years or permanent) and covers every NJ licensee ²⁴. Reversible? Self-exclusion, no — bet365 says it detects and closes new accounts, though you can still log in to withdraw a remaining balance ²⁵. Account closure, yes, once the period lapses. Close. Set Account Closure to indefinite, then have support confirm it and switch off Marketing Preferences.

theScore Bet (formerly ESPN BET)

First, a name change to know about: on December 1, 2025, PENN Entertainment rebranded ESPN BET as theScore Bet ²⁶²⁷. An old ESPN BET account is a theScore Bet account today, and it needs the same treatment as the rest. Tools. Self-exclusion; cool-off from one day to three months; daily time, deposit, spend, loss and maximum-wager limits; a reality check-in; and a "Disable Casino" switch ²⁸. Path. The published link is sportsbook.thescore.bet/account/responsible-gaming/self-exclusion ¹³. Durations are set state by state — Illinois offers 1 year, 5 years or lifetime; New Jersey 1 or 5; New York 1, 3, 5 or lifetime ¹³. Reversible? No. Exclusion "is not reversible" until it expires, extends across PENN-owned properties, and most states require your full Social Security number. Remaining balances come back by check ¹³. Close. Email support@thescore.bet ²⁸.

Hard Rock Bet

Tools. Deposit limits (daily, weekly, monthly), wager limits, session limits with automatic logout, and a "Timeout (Self-Exclusion)" option that temporarily closes the account while leaving withdrawals open ²⁹. Reports indicate timeouts of 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days, and self-exclusion of six months or more with no early reversal ³⁰. Path (Iowa terms). "Navigate to 'My Account' and then 'Responsible Gaming'" ³¹. Hard Rock's main responsible-gaming page wouldn't load when I checked, so look up hardrock.bet/responsible-gaming for your state. Reversible? Not verified on Hard Rock's own pages. Assume exclusion isn't. Close. Ask customer support through the app for permanent closure and marketing removal.

Underdog (Fantasy, plus Sportsbook in North Carolina)

Tools. Self-exclusion of 1, 3, 5 or 10 years or lifetime; cool-offs from 3 days to 9 months; deposit, entry-fee and entry-count limits ³²³³. Path. Straight from Underdog's help article: "Head to Account and scroll to Preferences → Select Responsible Gaming Limits → Toggle to Exclusion → Set your desired length of self-exclusion and Save" ³². Reversible? No. "This is something that cannot be undone." Winnings during exclusion get paid out via support — except in Pennsylvania, where they're forfeited ³². Close. No published route; contact Underdog support and ask.

PrizePicks

Tools. Deposit or entry-fee limits lasting at least 90 days; alerts; timeouts of 1 to 30 days; self-exclusion of 30 days or longer, up to a permanent "LIFETIME" deactivation that bars reactivation and new accounts ³⁴. Path. "Log into your account and look for the 'Responsible Gaming' tab on the dropdown menu located in the top left corner" (top right or footer in a browser) ³⁴. Reversible? Limits "cannot be edited or cancelled until the specified period expires"; lifetime deactivation is exactly that ³⁴. Close. Email PrizePicks support through the Help Center.

About the pick'em apps. There's a pattern I run into constantly: someone shuts down the sportsbook and hangs on to PrizePicks or Underdog, on the theory that fantasy isn't really betting. Functionally, it is — money staked on outcomes, losses chased — and the survey data agrees: in 2024, 24 percent of fantasy sports bettors reported problematic behaviors, a higher share than traditional sports bettors ³⁵. The pick'em apps go on the list.

Prediction markets and event contracts

Event-contract platforms are the newest way to put money on games without calling it betting. They answer to the CFTC rather than a state gaming board, and their consumer protections are thinner and still settling. For today's purposes, every one of them is a sportsbook.

Kalshi. Offers Voluntary Opt-Outs (self-exclusion for a set period), Personal Funding Caps (deposit limits) and trading breaks. On the web: log in → menu (☰) → "Responsible Risk Management"; in the app: menu → Settings → "Responsible Risk Management." Once set, these "cannot be lifted or changed" before they expire ³⁶. Close open positions first — you can't sell them mid-exclusion — and know that a Kalshi opt-out doesn't stop access through a brokerage ³⁷. Kalshi's "Inner Circle" feature can give a friend or family member a live view of your trading with real-time alerts ³⁸.

Robinhood event contracts. There are two levers. The quick one hides sports markets: Account (person icon) → Menu → Investing → "Event contracts trading" → "Event contract settings" → toggle "Hide sports prediction markets"; it can take up to 24 hours and can be flipped back any time ³⁹. The firm one is a formal, account-level self-exclusion from all event-contract trading — requested through support after closing open positions; undoing it means contacting support and requesting a review ³⁹. Kill push notifications under Account → Notifications → Event contracts ³⁹. You can also ask Robinhood to add a Trusted Contact Person — someone the firm may call if it believes the account is at risk; that person can't see or control anything ⁴⁰.

Polymarket (US app). Reports indicate that, as of my check, Polymarket's US platform offered no deposit limits and no self-exclusion ⁴¹. So: close every position, withdraw everything, delete the account. The global help center puts deletion under Settings → Account ⁴², though I couldn't confirm the US app matches. Register with SelfExclude.io (below) so you're already on the list when its Polymarket integration goes live.

Crypto.com sports event trading. Crypto.com's help article documents no self-exclusion, no limits and no closure process, and its sports contracts have been paused in some states ⁴³. Withdraw, ask support to close the account, and register with SelfExclude.io.

DraftKings Predictions and FanDuel Predicts. Both say they offer deposit limits and self-exclusion — DraftKings through a "Responsible Trading Center" ⁴⁴⁴⁵. Use those tools, then close the accounts.

SelfExclude.io. A cross-platform self-exclusion register built for prediction markets: 1, 3 or 6 months or 1 year, ID-verified, enforced within 24 hours; it can be extended but never shortened. When I checked, Kalshi and Novig were live, with Polymarket, Robinhood and others listed as coming ⁴⁶. The roster changes — look at the site.

State self-exclusion — start with Illinois

Why it matters. Closing accounts one by one has a blind spot: the sportsbook you haven't joined yet. A state self-exclusion register closes it. The list is held by your state's gaming regulator; all 38 US commercial gaming jurisdictions require operators to offer self-exclusion, most jurisdictions keep a central register ⁴⁷, and in regulated online states an operator must screen that register before it can open an account for anyone ⁴⁸. Some states go further and make your listing a legal cutoff on gambling marketing to you ⁴⁸. These programs generally can't be reversed early — which is precisely their value. Read your state's terms, then enroll.

Illinois. Since you're most likely reading this from Chicago or elsewhere in the state, here is the honest picture of the Illinois Gaming Board's program. Enrollment happens in person — that's the only route — at sanctioned enrollment sites around the state, including IGB offices at the casinos, where you can walk in without an appointment. Bring a driver's license or state ID; there's no charge. The commitment is real: the minimum term is five years, the list covers sports wagering, and removal afterward isn't automatic — it requires an affidavit from a licensed mental health professional who is a certified gambling counselor (or a psychiatrist), followed by a vote of the Board. Sports wagering operators may also choose to bar Illinois self-excluded persons from betting with them outside Illinois ⁵⁰⁵¹. Questions go to (312) 814-8832 or 1-877-968-7848. Clients sometimes balk at the in-person requirement, and I get it — it feels like a lot. I've come to see the trip itself as part of the treatment: it is the exact opposite of a 2 a.m. impulse. I've written a step-by-step walkthrough of the whole Illinois process, including what enrollment day actually looks like.

If you're somewhere else. Start from the National Council on Problem Gambling's Help by State directory (ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/help-by-state) or call 1-800-MY-RESET and ask to be pointed to your state's program ⁴⁹; the directory links to state resource pages rather than regulator portals, so one extra call or a search for "[your state] gaming commission self-exclusion" may be needed. Programs vary enormously. New Jersey, for instance, splits the choice — internet gaming and sports wagering only, Atlantic City venues, or both — and takes enrollment in person or by video conference (one year, five years or lifetime), online for internet-only (one or five years), or from inside your operator account ⁵²⁵³; DGE hotline 1-833-788-4DGE. Pennsylvania maintains four distinct lists; the iGaming one covers online sports wagering (fantasy contests have their own), with online enrollment at the PGCB site — the portal takes live photos, so use a phone — or by appointment through the Office of Compulsive and Problem Gambling, 717-346-8300 ⁵⁴⁵⁵. Pennsylvania is also where DraftKings itself directs its PA users ¹⁴. Colorado, one more data point, runs one-, three- and five-year terms at betsmart.colorado.gov covering every Colorado licensee ²².

4. Hours 1–3 — Lock Down the Devices and the Internet

By now the operators have their instructions. Your hardware hasn't gotten the memo: the browser will still autocomplete "fa" into a sportsbook, and the app store can reinstall anything in seconds. The next stretch of work is getting every device you own to agree with the decision you made an hour ago — and making sure that you, at 11 p.m., are not the one holding the keys.

Blocking software

How well does this category actually work? A 2018 test commissioned by GambleAware gives the honest range: the strongest gambling-specific blocker caught about 99 percent of the gambling sites tested, the weakest about 59 percent, and the evaluators would only conclude that the software "can be helpful in reducing the accessibility of gambling" — not that it works for everyone ⁵⁶. The behavior-change evidence rested on a few dozen users. So: a good lock, not a guarantee. Good locks still matter.

Tool	What it blocks	Price	Can you remove it early?	Notes
Gamban	Gambling websites and apps on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac; multiple devices per license	$6.99/month or $41.99/year; 7-day free trial ⁵⁷	No. "All Gamban installations are final and cannot be removed early" ⁵⁸. Stops working when the license or trial ends ⁵⁹	Free for all Ohio residents through Time Out Ohio (6 months to 5 years) ⁶⁰; Michigan has offered residents free licenses in limited numbers ⁶¹
BetBlocker	Gambling sites and apps on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Fire OS	Free, no ads, run by a registered charity ⁶²	No. Durations from 1 day to 5 years; "once a gambling restriction has begun, it cannot be lifted" ⁶²	Support won't lift an active block; longer blocks add a cooling-off period after expiry ⁶²
GamBlock	Gambling sites and gambling-app installs on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android	Not published; contact the company ⁶³	No. "Designed not to be removed during a license period" ⁶⁴	States it blocks or survives a factory reset, depending on platform ⁶³
Freedom	Any apps, websites or the whole internet on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Chromebook, Linux	Free limited tier; Premium $39.99/year ⁶⁵	Only if you skip "Locked Mode," which prevents ending a session early ⁶⁵	Not gambling-specific — you add the sportsbook sites and apps yourself

My standing advice: BetBlocker (free) or Gamban goes on every device today, set to the longest period you can accept, with Freedom in Locked Mode layered on if you want scheduled game-night sessions. Then write the trial-end or renewal date into your calendar. An expired block fails silently, and silent failures are how firewalls die.

Apple Screen Time (iPhone and iPad)

iPhones and iPads carry a built-in barrier most people never arm: Screen Time, which can filter web content and refuse new app installs once a passcode locks it. Arming it, per Apple: Settings → Screen Time → "Lock Screen Time Settings" → set a four-digit passcode ⁶⁶. Then open Content & Privacy Restrictions → "App Store, Media, Web, & Games" → "Web Content" and choose "Limit Adult Websites" or "Only Approved Websites"; under "iTunes & App Store Purchases," set installing apps to "Don't Allow" ⁶⁷. The same area lets you put individual sportsbook sites on a never-allow list — the precise step depends on your iOS version.

The catch: Apple's "Screen Time Passcode Recovery" through your Apple Account means you could reset the passcode yourself ⁶⁶. Which is why the passcode was never going to be yours — your trusted person sets it and keeps the recovery details, or it isn't a barrier.

Android controls

On Android, Digital Wellbeing's App timers, Focus mode and Bedtime mode look useful but fold under pressure — Google's own documentation notes a timer can be deleted at any time ⁶⁸. The piece with teeth is the App limits PIN: to shut off an app completely, "create an App limits PIN and set the time limit for the app to zero" ⁶⁸. The PIN belongs to your trusted person, not to you. And don't repurpose Google Family Link here — it's designed for children's accounts, not for an adult supervising themselves.

DNS filtering for the home

One filter at the router level covers every screen in the house, including the old laptop you'd forgotten about. NextDNS runs a free tier of 300,000 queries a month — past that, traffic goes unfiltered — with a Pro plan at $1.99 a month or $19.90 a year ⁶⁹; reports indicate its Parental Control settings include a Gambling category ⁷⁰. CleanBrowsing's paid plans ($8.99 a month or $75 a year) carry a Gambling filter ⁷¹. The hole in this barrier is the router's admin password: whoever has it can switch the DNS right back. Set the filter, change that password, hand the new one to your trusted person.

The passcode principle

You may have noticed the theme. Every tool in this section fails in the identical way: the person who set the passcode can remove the block, and late on a bad night that person will negotiate with themselves — and win. I've had that conversation in my office too many times to soften it. So the rule is flat: the passcodes are not yours to know. Screen Time, the Android PIN, the router, the Freedom account — your trusted person sets every one. You're allowed to ask when there's a genuine need, and "not tonight" is an answer they're allowed to give. Section 7 is about setting that up.

Delete the apps, bookmarks and saved logins

Delete every sportsbook, DFS, pick'em and prediction-market app from every phone and tablet
Delete odds apps and betting-content apps (picks services, line trackers)
Strip sportsbook bookmarks out of every browser
Purge saved sportsbook passwords from your password manager and browsers
Block re-installs — deleting an app means little while the store can restore it in seconds, so the install passcode above is required
Turn off payment-card autofill in your browsers
Clear history and site data for sportsbook domains, so typing "fa" no longer completes to fanduel.com

None of this makes the sportsbooks vanish, and it isn't meant to. It converts a two-second reflex into a small, annoying project — and a small, annoying project is exactly long enough for a different decision to happen.

5. Hours 3–6 — Cut Off the Money

One thing I will not do here is walk you through adding up what betting has cost you. In a first session I never open with that number; it has no work to do today. Today's question is narrower and far more useful: by which routes can money travel from you to a book? Name every route. Then close them, one by one.

My Gambling Money Map

Work down this table: against each route, jot which books it feeds, then mark it once you've shut it. A printable copy waits in the appendix.

Route	Linked to which apps?	How I closed it	Done
Debit card(s)		Removed from cashier; locked card
Credit card(s)		Removed; issuer asked to decline gambling
PayPal		Cancelled automatic payments/saved businesses
Venmo		Unlinked
Apple Pay / Google Pay		Card removed from Wallet
Play+ prepaid account		Closed via portal / cashier
ACH / e-check (VIP Preferred)		Called to close enrollment
Cash at kiosks / casino cage		Told my trusted person; carrying less cash
Crypto wallets / exchanges		Withdrawn; app deleted
Brokerage (event contracts)		Self-excluded; trusted contact added

Remove saved payment methods and close the routes

Inside the sportsbook. While you still have access — or through support once you don't — strip every saved card and bank link out of the cashier or wallet section. Fanatics is unusual in offering a formal "Deposit Method Restriction" that blocks specific payment methods ¹²; at other operators, work through the cashier or ask support directly.

PayPal. In the US, PayPal permits gambling transactions only with PayPal-approved merchants, a group that includes the regulated sportsbooks ⁷². On the web: Settings → Payments → "Automatic Payments" (or "Subscriptions and saved businesses") → select the sportsbook → cancel ⁷³. If PayPal was your main pipeline to the books, closing the account entirely for a stretch is a reasonable call.

Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay. Any card that has ever funded a bet comes out (in Apple Wallet, open the card and remove it; the steps vary by iOS version), and sportsbooks come off any "linked businesses" list you can find.

Play+ prepaid accounts. These operator-branded prepaid accounts (FanDuel Play+ is one) are managed through the sportsbook cashier or the Play+ cardholder portal ⁷⁴. Pull the balance out, then close through the portal or the number printed on the card.

VIP Preferred (ACH / e-check). VIP Preferred, operated by Pavilion Payments, is a consumer reporting company that sportsbooks use to accept bank transfers ⁷⁵. Call 800-500-1973 and ask to close your enrollment. While you're at it: you're entitled to a free copy of your VIP Preferred report every 12 months ⁷⁵.

Cash. There's no settings toggle for the kiosk or the casino cage. The barrier for cash is a person: your trusted person knows, and for the next few weeks your wallet carries only what the day requires.

Crypto. Balances go to your bank or into a wallet you don't handle day to day; the exchange apps that feed prediction markets come off the phone.

What US banks will and won't do

Time for some straight talk, because the internet is genuinely unhelpful on this one. In the UK, a gambling block you can flip on in the banking app is common. I went looking for the American equivalent and came back empty-handed: I could not find a single US bank that publishes such a toggle. Wells Fargo's card controls, to take one example, stop at switching a card on or off — there's no merchant-category block ⁷⁶. Third-party sites claim several major US banks offer gambling blocks; none of the banks' own pages supported that when I checked.

What's actually available:

Lock the card. Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo all put a lock or on/off switch in their apps ⁷⁷⁷⁸⁷⁶. Every card that has ever funded a bet gets locked; one stays open for ordinary life.
Call the issuer about gambling charges. Capital One's help pages list buying casino chips or lottery tickets among transactions treated as cash advances ⁷⁹, and reports indicate many issuers either handle gambling deposits as cash advances — fees, immediate interest — or decline them outright ⁸⁰. A detail relevant to readers here: reports indicate Illinois is among the states that bar credit-card deposits to online sportsbooks altogether, one more door already partly shut ⁸⁰. Whatever your issuer, the move is the same: call the number on the back of the card and ask whether they'll decline gambling transactions on your account.
Understand what card blocks miss. Money that travels through PayPal, Play+, ACH or a wallet is often coded to the intermediary rather than to a gambling merchant, so a card-level block alone may never see it ⁸¹. Which is the whole reason the Money Map exists.
Consider a fresh account. Some people I work with find the cleanest solution is a new checking account with visibility for their trusted person, and the paycheck redirected there.

Freeze your credit at all three bureaus

I push the credit freeze harder than almost anything else on this page. Frozen credit means no one can open a new credit account in your name — you included — until the freeze is lifted. It costs nothing and does not affect your credit score ⁸². Its day-one value is very specific: with the existing cards locked, the freeze removes the workaround of a brand-new card. It takes all three bureaus ⁸²:

Equifax: online at myEquifax or (888) 298-0045 ⁸³
Experian: online or 1-888-EXPERIAN (1-888-397-3742) ⁸⁴
TransUnion: online at service.transunion.com or 800-916-8800; it "typically takes effect almost immediately" ⁸⁵

A freeze isn't forever — when a legitimate application comes along, you lift it. If you'd like that lift to require a conversation first, your trusted person holds the log-ins.

Opt out of prescreened credit offers

The credit-reporting industry's official channel for stopping "firm offers" of credit is OptOutPrescreen.com — five years online, or permanent by mailed form ⁸⁶. The FTC gives the phone route as 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688), confirms it's free, and notes that while requests process within five days, the offers can keep arriving for several weeks ⁸⁷.

Ask a trusted person to hold access

The last item on NICE's list of practical barriers reads: "methods to limit access to money, for example, agreeing that a family member will take control of finances" ⁴. In real life that spans a wide range — full custody of the cards down to simple read-only visibility. From lightest to strongest:

They receive your bank's transaction alerts.
They hold the credit-freeze log-ins and the device passcodes.
They hold your cards for 30 days while you carry a fixed amount of cash.
Your pay lands in an account they can see.

For event contracts held at a brokerage, a Trusted Contact Person gives the firm someone to call if it suspects the account is at risk — that person can't see or control the account ⁴⁰. On Kalshi, Inner Circle gives a chosen person a live window into trading activity ³⁸.

A short note on debt

If there's debt — and with betting there often is — notice the urge to solve all of it today: the consolidation loan researched at midnight, the retirement account eyed sideways, the one perfect bet that would clear the board. That urgency is the same urgency that built the debt. My rule for day one is simple: no large financial moves. Every option you have tonight will still exist tomorrow, and tomorrow you'll be judging it with a clearer head.

When you're ready to work the problem properly, the starting points are good ones. The National Problem Gambling Helpline (1-800-MY-RESET) connects people to financial counseling for problems that grew out of gambling ⁸⁸. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling is a nonprofit network of certified credit counselors covering budgeting, debt counseling and debt management plans — 877-360-6322, nfcc.org ⁸⁹. If collectors are already calling, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lays out your rights, including the right to tell a collector to stop contacting you, and takes complaints at consumerfinance.gov or (855) 411-2372 ⁹⁰. None of that is financial advice from me; a certified counselor looking at your actual numbers beats any web page, this one included.

And here is the frame that replaces the loss tally. From today, every dollar that doesn't reach a sportsbook already has a job: next month's rent, the car payment, the thing you've been postponing. When people I work with drift into arithmetic about what's gone, I steer them back to what's now protected. It's the only direction with anything useful in it.

6. Rest of Today — Silence the Marketing and the Noise

Go quiet on a sportsbook and it will not return the favor. Winning back a lapsed customer is a discipline these companies fund seriously. Their own industry code of conduct says operators should provide email opt-outs, text-message unsubscribe options and communication preference settings ⁹¹ — but the code is voluntary, so treat it as a floor and close every channel yourself.

Sportsbook emails, texts and push

Unsubscribe from every promotional email via the link at the bottom, then build a filter that routes anything from sportsbook domains to trash
Reply STOP to sportsbook texts, or follow the unsubscribe line in the message
Ask support, in writing, to remove you from all marketing (Caesars: responsiblegaming@caesarssportsbook.com or (855) 474-0606 ²⁰; bet365 lists a Marketing Preferences tool ²⁴; reports indicate FanDuel keeps a "marketing" checkbox under email preferences ¹⁵; Robinhood: Account → Notifications → Event contracts ³⁹)
The deleted apps took their push notifications with them; if a sportsbook site lives on in a browser, turn off its site notifications too

Also worth knowing: in some states, being on the self-exclusion list legally bars operators from sending you gambling advertising at all ⁴⁸. Add it to the reasons to enroll.

Social media

Your feeds need the same sweep as your inbox. On X, mute words carry most of the load: More → Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Mute and block → Muted words → add words and hashtags (start with: parlay, odds, sportsbook, picks, units, "bet slip") and select Home timeline and Notifications, from anyone, forever ⁹². Reports indicate X also has a "Sports Betting" interest that can be switched off in privacy settings ⁹³.

For Google and YouTube: My Ad Center → "Customize Ads" → the "Sensitive" tab → turn off "Gambling" — with Google's own caveat that this reduces rather than eliminates the ads ⁹⁴. On Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, look for a gambling, special-topics or real-money-gaming option under Ad preferences or Manage Ad Topics; the menus move often and differ by region. Then handle the accounts themselves — every picks account, tout and betting brand you follow gets unfollowed, muted or blocked in one sitting, so it's a single decision instead of thirty separate ones.

Podcasts, picks accounts and group chats

Betting podcasts: unsubscribed. Picks subscriptions: cancelled. The group chat where the slips get posted: leave it, today. If it's genuinely a friends chat that happens to run on betting, tell them you're stepping away from the wagering side and suggest a second thread that's just about the games. Friends who are actually friends handle that request fine — I hear it from clients all the time.

Odds in sports media: what can and can't be hidden

Now the part I can't fix for you, and won't pretend I can. Odds are woven into broadcasts, into most sports sites, and into every commercial pod. What is in your control:

In the Apple Sports app, open the menu (upper right) and turn off "Show Betting Odds" ⁹⁵.
In the ESPN app, look through Settings or Preferences for a betting or odds toggle; it has moved or vanished in past versions, and ESPN's betting integration is changing again in 2026 ²⁷.
Favor scores apps and sites that don't lead with odds, and consider the radio call — it carries far fewer on-screen prompts.

For everything beyond that, remember what today was actually for. The goal was never a world with no odds in it. The goal is odds with nowhere to go: no live account behind them, no app under your thumb, no working card. You built that this afternoon.

7. Rest of Today — Tell One Person

Why secrecy keeps the loop running

Here's a fact that tends to get people's attention in session: "lying to hide the extent of gambling involvement" is itself one of the criteria used to diagnose gambling disorder ⁷. The field didn't put it there by accident. Concealment isn't a byproduct of the problem — it's a load-bearing part of it. Every wall you've built today needs maintenance, and as long as you're the only one who knows the walls exist, you're also the only vote on whether they quietly come down.

The research on bringing someone in all points the same way. Clinical guidance recommends involving a partner or family member in treatment when both people agree to it ⁴. Among more than 4,000 people in Oregon's treatment system, having a significant other participate significantly affected how long people stayed in treatment ⁹⁶; in a Spanish study of 675 men, those with a concerned significant other involved attended more sessions and dropped out less — and when that person was a spouse, relapsed less ⁹⁷. Different setting than a friend holding your passcode, I'll grant. But I have yet to meet the person who did worse for having an ally.

Who to pick

The assignment is one person, chosen today. The longer list of people who deserve to know can wait for later weeks. Rough screening criteria: steady under bad news; reachable tonight and through the weekend; not someone you bet with; trustworthy with a passcode and, ideally, with an occasional look at a balance. What you don't need: a lecturer, a panicker, or someone who'll make your news about them.

A partner is the most common right answer and the most loaded one — often the partner is exactly who the hiding was for. If that conversation is bigger than today can hold, that isn't failure; choose a sibling or close friend now and put the partner conversation on this week's calendar. And if the honest answer is that there's nobody, call 1-800-MY-RESET — the counselors there handle precisely this call — or find a Gamblers Anonymous or SMART Recovery meeting, where the entire room already speaks the language.

A short script

No speech required. Something on this order does the job:

"There's something I've been hiding, and I need help with one specific part of it. My betting is out of control — I'm losing more than I can afford, and once I start I can't stop. Today I closed my accounts and blocked the apps. I don't need you to fix anything. I need you to keep a few passcodes away from me, and to be the person I contact before a bet instead of after one. Are you up for that?"

Then let the silence sit while they answer.

What to ask them to do

Set and keep the Screen Time passcode, the Android App limits PIN, the router password and the Freedom password — and hold the line if you come asking tonight.
Be the call. When an urge lands, they're the first contact, before anything else happens. Wisdom optional; answering required.
Keep today's confirmation screenshots, in case an exclusion ever needs proving.
Optionally: receive your bank alerts, or hold your cards for 30 days.
Watch one game with you this week.

What not to expect from them

Calibrate the ask. This person is not signing on as your therapist, your bookkeeper or your parole officer. Expect feelings — anger, fear, or a long silence — especially if the money touches their life too; those reactions are legitimate, and you can survive them. Enforcement is not their job; the barriers do the enforcing. If what you tell them lands hard enough that they need support of their own, Gam-Anon exists exactly for the people on their side of this ⁹⁸, and clinical guidance treats help for family members as a need in its own right, not a courtesy ⁴.

One more thought while we're on the subject of who's in your corner. Some people want a professional in that seat from the start, and if that's you, therapy is one of the options. That can be with me — I see clients in person in Logan Square and online anywhere in Illinois or Minnesota; you can reach me at Chris@chicagoaddictiontherapy.com — or with any therapist trained in gambling problems, and the helpline can match you with one in your state. It can just as well be GA, SMART Recovery, or this plan on its own for now. The plan works the same whichever you choose.

8. Tonight — Get Through the First Game

The day was construction. The evening is the inspection: the first real urge arrives and finds out whether the walls hold.

Why game night is the hard part

There's a reason the first game is the test, and it isn't your imagination. Live, in-game betting runs on the game's own clock, and it keeps the worst company in the research literature: in an Australian sample, 78 percent of people wagering on rapid in-game "micro" events met criteria for problem gambling ⁹⁹; among 920 Ontario sports bettors, the in-play group carried heavier problems and more harm than those who only bet before kickoff ¹⁰⁰; and a review commissioned by the National Council on Problem Gambling named live betting during play an important risk factor and found more problems among people betting on phones ¹⁰¹. Parlays tell a similar story from a different angle: 30 percent of sports bettors placed them in 2024, nearly double the 17 percent of 2018 ³⁵.

Read all of that as product design, not personal indictment. A machine has been tuned, carefully and expensively, to make the second quarter feel like a fork in the road. Tonight the road doesn't fork.

Your Game-Day Plan

Five questions, answered on paper, before kickoff.

1. Am I watching at all? Sitting the game out is a fully legitimate answer. If you have never once watched without money riding and the mere idea tightens your chest, skip this one — there will be another game on Thursday, and the season is long. Skipping requires its own plan, though: decide now what you'll do instead, with whom, and where the phone will be.

2. If I watch, how? The setups that work in week one: company that knows what today was, a living room instead of a phone alone; a game you have no betting history with; radio or a delayed stream, so the live line never reaches your screen; the phone in another room, or in the other person's pocket.

3. Who am I with? Send the text now, not at 7:55: "First game in a long time without a bet on it tonight. Can I come by — or if not, will you answer if I text during it?"

4. What happens at commercial breaks? The ad pod is the urge's home turf — sportsbook spots, odds graphics, the very promo you unsubscribed from this afternoon. Pre-decide the break routine: stand, refill something, step outside, glance at the printed protocol. The one banned activity is scrolling.

5. What happens after a bad beat? This is the moment I rehearse with every client. Late turnover, missed kick, backdoor cover — and your nervous system fires as though money just moved, because for years it did. Have the line ready, out loud if needed: "Nothing of mine is riding on this. There is no bad beat here tonight — there's a football game." Then start the protocol.

The 20-Minute Urge Protocol

About the name: twenty minutes is a commitment device, not a biological fact. The one study I can point to that tracked gambling urges in real time clocked them at roughly half an hour on average, and found that quick techniques — delaying, distracting, urge surfing, slow breathing, calling someone — took some of the edge off ¹⁰². It was small, and the effects were modest, so you'll get no promises about the clock from me. What I can vouch for, from the research and from years of sitting across from people describing it: an urge builds, crests, and subsides. The only live question is whether a bet gets placed on the way down.

The "surfing" idea has a real pedigree in relapse prevention. Tested with smokers, it left the urges exactly as strong as before — and the people who practiced it acted on them less over the following week ¹⁰³. That's tonight's bar, stated precisely: not comfort. Non-action.

Minute 0 — Name it. Out loud or on paper: "This is an urge. Not a decision, not an emergency." Score it 0 to 10 and write the number.

Minutes 0–2 — Move. Different room, now. The phone doesn't come — it stays put or goes to the person you're with.

Minutes 2–5 — Add one barrier. Fire up a Freedom Locked Mode session, hand the phone over, or recite the inventory: excluded, deleted, locked. Then say what it would actually take to get a bet down tonight. The length of that list is your day's work, holding.

Minutes 5–10 — Make the call. Your person gets a text or a call: "Urge, 7 of 10, riding it." If they don't answer, the helpline does — text 1-800-MY-RESET or chat at 1800myreset.org; this is exactly the message their counselors take, at every hour ⁹.

Minutes 10–15 — Surf it. Sit down somewhere new. Locate the urge physically — chest, hands, gut. Slow the breath and watch it like weather. It will move. Your job is observation, not combat.

Minutes 15–20 — Write one line. The trigger: a score, an ad, a text, boredom, an argument, the memory of a hit. One line only. It's the first entry in next week's pattern log.

Minute 20 — Re-rate. New number, written down. Still high? Back to Minute 0 and run it again. Note what's true: nothing was decided, nothing was lost.

"Can't sleep, want to bet": a late-night plan

The firewall's real stress test comes late, because there is always a game somewhere — a West Coast fourth quarter, an overseas league, a live market on a sport you couldn't name three players in. Tired, alone, phone in reach: the loop's favorite conditions. So the late plan gets built now, in daylight:

The phone sleeps in another room, tonight and for two weeks. If the alarm is the excuse, a ten-dollar clock retires it.
Blocks run on schedules, not on memory. A Freedom Locked Mode session from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., every night; BetBlocker or Gamban confirmed live on every device before bed.
1 a.m. gets a script in advance. Not the goal ("don't bet") — the actions: up, tea, a paper book, three laps to the kitchen, or the printed protocol starting at Minute 0.
The helpline, not the group chat. Text and chat at the National Problem Gambling Helpline run 24/7/365 ⁸⁸. At 1 a.m. you want the stranger who does this professionally, not the friend who might reply with a play.
If the night goes somewhere darker and thoughts of harming yourself show up, that's a 988 call or text, immediately ⁸. Don't spend the night deciding whether it qualifies. It qualifies.

9. Tomorrow Morning — Check the Firewall and Look Ahead

Re-run the checklist

The scores can wait ten minutes. First: the appendix checklist, walked top to bottom. Email checked for exclusion confirmations. Then a deliberate test — try to load one sportsbook site on your phone. If the block holds, note it and move on; if it doesn't, this calm, coffee-in-hand moment is when you fix it, not midnight. Confirm the credit-freeze letters or emails arrived. Then breakfast, and only after breakfast, the phone.

The Chasing-Losses card

Read this card whether last night went well or badly. Chasing is the engine of the whole problem — it's what turns a bettor into someone who needs a plan like this — and it's the focus of the weeks ahead.

What chasing is. One diagnostic criterion for gambling disorder, in the American Psychiatric Association's public wording: "After losing money gambling, often returning to get even. (This is referred to as 'chasing' one's losses.)" ⁷¹⁰⁴. It is anything but fringe behavior — in the 2026 Siena/St. Bonaventure survey, 60 percent of bettors reported having bet an increased amount in hopes of getting their money back ³. Majority behavior; clinical weight. If you see yourself in it, you're standing with most bettors, not apart from them.

Why "winning it back" math fails. The case against the recovery bet is short. The book prices your next wager with perfect indifference to your last loss; losing changed you, not the odds. Two well-documented thinking errors fill the space between: the gambler's fallacy — streaks must break, a win is "due" — and the illusion of control — the belief that skill steers chance ¹⁰⁵. You can watch both operate at scale: across more than half a million real online sports bets, people coming off losses moved to riskier odds on the next bet, playing "due," and lost more for it ¹⁰⁶. Bigger stake on longer odds — the get-it-back bet is, structurally, the worst-priced bet you make all week.

What's happening in you. Brain-imaging work frames the pull to keep betting after a loss as reward-anticipation circuitry doing what it evolved to do, while stopping recruits regions that register conflict and discomfort ¹⁰⁷; a 2024 study of habitual gamblers found that craving itself predicted chasing ¹⁰⁸. Stronger urge, likelier chase — which is exactly why the tool you practiced last night targets the urge and not the logic.

What to do instead.

Say the sentence: "This bet cannot get anything back. It can only add."
Run the 20-Minute Urge Protocol.
Tell your person the number you wanted to bet, out loud.
Look forward, not back: name the bill or plan that money is now protecting.
If you did place a bet, stop reading this card and read the lapse section below.

What the coming weeks are about

Day one was walls. The next month is pattern and practice — which happens to be what the recommended treatments are made of. NICE endorses cognitive behavioural therapy for gambling, typically 8 to 10 group sessions or 6 to 8 individual ones, with a built-in relapse-prevention component covering triggers and what to do after a slip ⁴.

Since I make my living doing this work, you should hear its report card from me and not from a brochure. A 2023 meta-analysis of 29 trials found that cognitive-behavioral techniques clearly reduced gambling severity and frequency at the end of treatment — and could not show the gains persisting at follow-up; the authors judged the true effect probably smaller than the raw numbers and not reliable for everyone ¹⁰⁹. Cochrane's 2012 review reached similar ground: real benefit right after therapy, unknown durability, limited underlying studies ¹¹⁰. My read from inside the field: do the work, and keep the walls up while it beds in. The walls are what carry you through the weeks before the new responses become automatic.

The pattern half of the work: two weeks of the one-line urge log, then study it. When do urges come — which hours, which moods, which games, which losses? And which beliefs about odds, streaks and "reading the game" were dressing the betting up as skill? The practice half: the urge protocol drilled into habit, more tools from the same family (delay, distraction, changing the thought, breathing, calling someone), and finally a written plan for the situations most likely to test you — the Sunday slate, payday, a fight at home, your team winning big.

You can do that work with a counselor, in Gamblers Anonymous, in SMART Recovery, on your own, or in whatever combination fits. If you want more to read on the road past day one, my full library on quitting sports betting is here. And whenever you want a professional, the helpline can connect you to one in your state ⁸⁸.

What a lapse means

Some of the people reading this will place a bet within the week. If that turns out to be you, treat the bet as reconnaissance. It got in through a gap, and the gap has a name: the fantasy account that survived the purge, the passcode you turned out to know, the cash in the glovebox. Find the name. Close the gap. Today.

On this point the clinical guidance is unusually gentle, and worth quoting: relapse "is not shameful," it "may be part of a recovery journey or learning event," it "does not indicate individual failure," and "having a plan in place to recover quickly increases confidence and reduces shame" ⁴. The same guidance is blunt that a slip after a stretch of progress can be a dangerous moment ⁴. So a bad lapse is not something to sit alone with: 988 or 1-800-MY-RESET, and your person, in whichever order you can manage.

Then the checklist again. A plan you're rebuilding is not a plan that failed. Rebuilding is how it works.

The plain note, once more. This guide is educational self-help built on principles used in evidence-based treatment for gambling problems. Reading it does not make you my client or create a therapist–client relationship, and it is not therapy, diagnosis, or medical, legal or financial advice. Every resource below is a real door, and walking through one isn't the plan failing — it's the plan continuing.

10. Get Help Now

If you are thinking about hurting yourself. The hours after a big loss, or after a slip, can be the most dangerous ones ⁴. You owe nobody an explanation. Call or text 988, or chat at chat.988lifeline.org — 24/7, free, confidential ⁸. Call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) to reach a gambling counselor right now ⁹. In immediate danger, call 911.

National Problem Gambling Helpline: 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738). Call or text, or chat at 1800myreset.org or ncpgambling.org/chat. Free, confidential, 24/7/365, in all 50 states; routes to a local contact center and can connect you to treatment and financial counseling ⁹⁸⁸¹¹¹.

1-800-522-4700. The National Council on Problem Gambling's original helpline number, still active for calls and texts ¹¹²¹¹³.

A note on 1-800-GAMBLER. You'll still see 1-800-GAMBLER printed in sportsbook apps and ads. That number belongs to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, which operates it as a New Jersey helpline, 24/7. NCPG's arrangement to use it as the national number ended in late 2025, and in January 2026 NCPG launched 1-800-MY-RESET as the National Problem Gambling Helpline ⁹¹¹⁴. One wrinkle for readers here: Illinois's own resources still point residents to 1-800-GAMBLER — the Illinois Gaming Board's help page lists it alongside the state's "Are You Really Winning?" site at helplineil.org ¹¹⁹ — so calling it from Illinois is reasonable. Nationally, use 1-800-MY-RESET.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988; chat at chat.988lifeline.org. 24/7/365, free and confidential, for anyone in emotional distress — not only a suicidal crisis. Spanish and Deaf/hard-of-hearing options available ⁸.

Gamblers Anonymous. A peer-support fellowship with in-person, virtual and telephone meetings, listed in the finder at gamblersanonymous.org/find-a-meeting. "No dues or fees. Just Show up, you will be welcomed." National hotline 855-2CALLGA (855-222-5542) ¹¹⁵¹¹⁶.

Gam-Anon. For the people around the gambler — partners, parents, friends. Directory at gam-anon.org/meeting-directory; phone 844-475-4213 ⁹⁸.

SMART Recovery. Free, evidence-informed recovery support groups run by trained facilitators, in person and online nationwide, covering addictive behaviors including gambling; Family & Friends resources too. Finder at meetings.smartrecovery.org ¹¹⁷¹¹⁸.

Therapy with me. If you'd like to do the coming weeks' work with a gambling-specialized therapist, that's what I do: in person in Logan Square, Chicago, and online for anyone in Illinois or Minnesota. Email Chris@chicagoaddictiontherapy.com and tell me a little about what's going on; if I'm not the right fit, I'll say so and point you somewhere good. If you'd rather check your insurance and book a first session directly, you can do that through Headway. This sits beside — never above — GA, SMART Recovery, the helplines and every other door on this list.

NCPG Help by State directory. Gambling help resources for every state and territory, including how to reach your state's self-exclusion program: ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/help-by-state ⁴⁹.

National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). Nonprofit network of certified credit counselors for budgeting, debt counseling and debt management plans. 877-360-6322 or 833-746-7578; nfcc.org ⁸⁹.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Your rights when collectors call, sample letters, and a complaint process. consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/debt-collection; (855) 411-2372 ⁹⁰.

Free credit freeze (FTC). How a freeze works and how to place one with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion: consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-know-about-credit-freezes-fraud-alerts ⁸².

What's next. Tomorrow: the checklist again. This week: a second person told, and the address of one meeting or one counselor looked up — before you've decided whether to go. Every day: the one-line urge log. As for the games themselves — many people I work with keep watching, some take a season away first, and both are respectable answers. Sports were never what was costing you. The wagers were.

Appendix A — The Betting Firewall Checklist (printable)

Date: ________ My trusted person: ________________ Their number: ______________

Sportsbooks and pick'em apps (list every account, including unused ones)

______________ — self-excluded / timed out for ______ — balance withdrawn — closure requested — marketing off
______________ — self-excluded / timed out for ______ — balance withdrawn — closure requested — marketing off
______________ — self-excluded / timed out for ______ — balance withdrawn — closure requested — marketing off
______________ — self-excluded / timed out for ______ — balance withdrawn — closure requested — marketing off
______________ — self-excluded / timed out for ______ — balance withdrawn — closure requested — marketing off

Prediction markets (Kalshi, Robinhood, Polymarket, Crypto.com, DraftKings Predictions, FanDuel Predicts)

Positions closed, funds withdrawn, self-excluded or account deleted: ______________
Registered with SelfExclude.io for ______

State program

Illinois: IGB enrollment site chosen; ID ready; visit planned for ________ (elsewhere: found my state's program via ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/help-by-state or 1-800-MY-RESET)
Enrollment started / completed on ________

Devices

BetBlocker or Gamban installed on every phone, tablet and computer, for ______
Screen Time passcode / Android App limits PIN set by my trusted person (I do not know it)
Home DNS filter on; router password held by my trusted person
All sportsbook, DFS, odds and picks apps deleted; bookmarks and saved passwords removed; card autofill off

Money

Gambling Money Map completed; every route closed
Credit frozen at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion
Opted out at OptOutPrescreen.com

Marketing

Unsubscribed from all sportsbook email and SMS; asked support in writing for marketing removal
Gambling ads limited on Google/YouTube; mute words set on X; picks accounts unfollowed; betting group chats left

People

Told one person; they hold the passcodes and are my first call

Confirmations saved in one folder: [ ]

Appendix B — My Gambling Money Map (printable)

Routes, not amounts: each way money could reach a book, and how it was closed.

Route	Linked to which apps?	How I closed it	Date	Done
Debit card ending ____		Removed from cashier; locked in bank app
Debit card ending ____
Credit card ending ____		Removed; issuer asked to decline gambling
Credit card ending ____
PayPal		Automatic payments / saved businesses cancelled
Venmo		Unlinked from sportsbooks
Apple Pay / Google Pay		Betting cards removed from Wallet
Play+ prepaid		Balance withdrawn; account closed
VIP Preferred / ACH		Called 800-500-1973 to close enrollment
Cash (kiosks, cage)		Told my person; carrying only what I need
Crypto		Withdrawn; exchange apps deleted
Brokerage event contracts		Self-excluded; trusted contact added
Other: ____________

Credit freeze: Equifax [ ] (888) 298-0045 — Experian [ ] 1-888-397-3742 — TransUnion [ ] 800-916-8800

Prescreened offers: OptOutPrescreen.com [ ] — 1-888-567-8688 [ ]

Who holds what: cards ______ — freeze log-ins ______ — bank alerts ______

What stopping protects this month: ______________________________________

Appendix C — The 20-Minute Urge Protocol (printable)

The commitment: twenty minutes before any decision gets made. Until Minute 20, nothing is decided.

Minute 0 — Name it. "This is an urge. It is not a decision and it is not an emergency." Rate it 0–10: ____

Minutes 0–2 — Move. Stand up. Leave the room. The phone stays behind or goes to someone else.

Minutes 2–5 — Add one barrier. Start a locked blocking session, hand over the phone, or list out loud everything that would have to happen for you to bet right now.

Minutes 5–10 — Make the call. Text or call your person: "Urge, __/10, riding it out." No answer? Text or call 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) or chat at 1800myreset.org. 24/7.

Minutes 10–15 — Surf it. Sit somewhere else. Where is it in your body? Breathe slowly. Watch it change. You are not fighting it.

Minutes 15–20 — Write one line. What set it off? _______________________________________

Minute 20 — Re-rate. ____ /10. Still high? Start again at Minute 0. You have not lost anything.

If the night turns dark: any thought of harming yourself is the signal to call or text 988 right away — morning is too far off.

Educational self-help, not therapy or medical advice; reading this does not create a therapist–client relationship. Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC — chicagoaddictiontherapy.com