Quit gambling for good. Keep the money.
Silex is an iPhone app that blocks gambling across your whole phone, walks you through 90 days one at a time, and counts the money you didn't lose. No accounts. No ads. No profile of you. Ever.
- Private by design
- Evidence-based
- No ads. Ever.
- iPhone, iOS 17+
Quit for good. Keep the money.
Silex blocks gambling across your iPhone and walks you through 90 days, one at a time.
Four things, done properly
Five layers of blocking
A system-wide DNS shield that covers every app and browser, a Safari content blocker built on a bundled list of hundreds of thousands of gambling domains, plus guided setup for the three defences that actually hold: operator self-exclusion, a bank gambling block, and killing every promo email and push.
How this compares to other blockers · The full iPhone blocking guide
A real 90-day program
90 authored days in three phases — See the Machine, Rewire, Fortify — built from clinical CBT workbooks and the research on how gambling products are designed to hook you. One lesson a day, not a library to binge.
An SOS for the worst minute
One button, always on screen, never behind the paywall. Rate the urge, breathe it down, then ride it out on a timer while the app shows you your own reasons for quitting and the money you've kept so far.
The money, made visible
Not gambled away. Silex takes what you told it you were putting in each week and counts up what you kept instead. It's the number that keeps people going when motivation runs out.
It never punishes you for slipping
Gambling recovery is not a clean line, and an app that zeroes your progress the moment you lapse teaches you to hide the lapse. Silex does the opposite. A slip triggers a Reset day — a specific lesson about what happened and what to change — and your history is never wiped. Milestones you've earned are never taken back.
What to do in the hour after you gamble again
What it costs, plainly
Silex is a paid app and it tells you so before you invest any time: after the intake questions you reach a paywall. $4.99 per week, or $49.99 per year with a 3-day free trial — about $0.96 a week. Cancel any time in your Apple account settings.
Three things stay free forever, with or without a subscription: the urge button, the crisis helplines, and lapse support. Those are safety features, and safety features should never sit behind a payment screen.
Private because there is nothing to identify you by
No account, no email, no password, no ad network, nothing that follows you between apps. Your answers, your spending figures, your journal and your lapses live on your phone, with an optional iCloud backup encrypted to your Apple account — we cannot read any of it. The one thing Silex sends is an anonymous count of which setup steps get finished, so what trips people up can be fixed. One switch in Settings turns it off.
Start with the guides
Everything below is free to read, with no email required.
Quitting
- How to stop gambling: what actually works
- How to stop sports betting
- What happens when you stop, week by week
- How long gambling urges last
- I gambled again — what to do now
Blocking it
- Block gambling sites and apps on iPhone
- Block gambling on Android
- The best gambling blocker apps, compared honestly
- Gamban alternatives
- Self-exclusion: the strongest block there is
- Make your bank decline gambling payments
Money, and other people
- Gambling debt: where to start
- What has gambling cost you so far?
- Someone you love is gambling
- The PGSI self-check (9 questions, nothing stored)
Quit for good. Keep the money.
Silex blocks gambling across your iPhone and walks you through 90 days, one at a time.
Common questions
Is Silex free?
The safety tools are free forever — the urge button, the crisis helplines and the lapse support work without paying. The 90-day program and the protection stack need a subscription: $4.99 a week, or $49.99 a year with a 3-day free trial.
Does Silex work on Android?
Not yet. Silex is iPhone-only, iOS 17 or later. It uses iOS-specific system APIs — DNS profiles, Safari content blockers, Screen Time — that have no direct Android equivalent.
Can I remove the blocking in a moment of craving?
You can, and Silex is honest about that: no app can make itself truly unremovable on iOS. That is exactly why it layers five defences instead of relying on one, and why the strongest layer it points you at is operator self-exclusion, which you cannot undo on impulse.
Does Silex send my data anywhere?
Almost nothing. There are no accounts, and everything you write stays on your phone with an optional private iCloud backup that only you can read. The app does send an anonymous count of which setup steps get finished, so the places people get stuck can be fixed — one switch in Settings turns that off.
Is Silex medical treatment?
No. Silex helps you build healthier habits around gambling. It is not medical care and doesn't diagnose or treat any condition. If you are in crisis, use the helplines below.