The best gambling blocker apps, compared honestly

By Kyrylo Lozovyi · August 10, 2026

Disclosure first, because it changes how you should read this: we make Silex, one of the apps below. So this page does two things to stay useful — it names what each competitor does better, and it verifies every price against the vendor's own website rather than repeating other roundups. Prices below were checked on 10 August 2026.

How these were assessed

• Coverage: does it block every app and browser, or only Safari?
• Platforms: phone only, or computer too?
• Removal resistance: how long does undoing it take at 1am?
• List maintenance: who keeps the domain list current — you or them?
• Honesty of claims: does the marketing promise things iOS cannot do?
• What happens after the block: does anything help you actually stop, or does the product end at the wall?

The comparison

BetBlocker — free, and not a lesser option

BetBlocker is a charity project: founded by the dispute-resolution service ThePOGG in 2017 and established as an independent charity registered in Scotland (SC049565) in 2019. It costs "absolutely nothing. Ever.", carries no ads, and states it blocks 356,000+ gambling websites and 1,900+ apps for more than 105,000 active users.

Its best feature is the one paid apps often lack: you can set a restriction period from one day up to five years and you cannot shorten it once it starts. That's a real commitment device, given away.

Where it's weaker: it is a blocker and nothing else — no program, no urge tools, no money tracking. Setup is more manual than a polished commercial app. But if you install exactly one thing today, install this, and only pay for something else if you find a gap it leaves.

Source: betblocker.org, checked 10 August 2026.

Gamban — the cross-platform choice

Gamban charges £4.99 billed monthly or £29.99 billed annually, with a 7-day free trial and no payment up front. One subscription covers iOS, Android, Windows and Mac. It advertises blocking, progress monitoring, layered self-exclusion and on-demand technical support.

Why it's worth the money for some people: gambling rarely stays on one device. If your pattern includes a laptop at night, Gamban covers both under one licence, and it detects new gambling sites rather than relying purely on a static list.

Where it's weaker: like every blocker, it can't defeat iOS's own rules — removal on an iPhone is a Settings trip. And there's no recovery content: it walls the door, then hands the rest back to you.

A note on other roundups: several currently list Gamban at £24.99/year. That figure is out of date; the pricing page says £29.99. It's a small thing that tells you how much of this niche's content is copied rather than checked.

Source: gamban.com/pricing, checked 10 August 2026. Full Gamban alternatives comparison →

GamBlock — the heaviest lock, on the right platforms

GamBlock takes a different technical approach, using heuristics to identify gambling sites rather than "the simple lists imitators use that are never up to date", in its own words. On Windows and Android it claims removal "cannot happen" and that it blocks factory resets; for Apple devices it claims the protection survives a factory reset.

Consider it if your risk is a Windows PC and you want the least removable option available.

Two caveats. Its pricing isn't shown on the homepage, which makes comparison shopping annoying, and strong removal-resistance claims deserve testing on your own hardware during any refund window. We have not independently verified them.

Source: gamblock.com, checked 10 August 2026. Claims are the vendor's, not ours.

Silex — ours, so read this sceptically

Silex is iPhone-only, $4.99/week or $49.99/year with a 3-day trial. It installs an encrypted-DNS shield that covers every app and browser, ships a Safari content blocker built on a large bundled domain list, and walks you through setting up the layers it can't provide itself — self-exclusion, a bank block, killing promo emails.

The actual reason it exists is the other half: a 90-day program written from clinical CBT material, an always-available urge button that is never paywalled, and a counter for the money you kept. Blocking buys ninety seconds; the program is about what you do with them.

Where it loses to the apps above: iPhone only — no Android, no desktop. It costs more than BetBlocker, which is free. And it is new, with none of Gamban's operating history. If you want a blocker and nothing more, we are not the best-value answer, and saying otherwise would be the kind of claim this page exists to avoid.

Not included, and why

Betfilter, Bet Breaker, Screen Stoic and Freedom all appear in other roundups. We have not verified their current pricing or tested them, so they are listed here rather than ranked — assigning them a place we hadn't checked is exactly the practice that makes these pages useless. If you have used one, tell us what it actually did.

The part no blocker can do

Every app on this page is one layer, and the weakest of the three that matter:

1. Self-exclusion — free, and the only genuinely irreversible option. How to do it →
2. A bank gambling block — free, usually with a 48-hour cooling-off before it lifts. How to turn it on →
3. A blocker app — the convenience layer, and the one you can undo in a minute.

Do all three. The order above is by strength, not by ease.