Website Review
What is Gambling Therapy?
Gambling Therapy is a global online service that offers free practical advice and emotional support to anyone affected by problem gambling. It is aimed not only at people who gamble but also at friends, family members and colleagues who are affected by someone else's gambling.
Its main offerings, based on the site's own sections, include:
- Help for you – support for people experiencing gambling harm.
- Their gambling – guidance for those affected by another person's gambling.
- Self Help & Resources – tools and information for gaming or gambling that is having a negative impact.
- Multilingual forums – a space to share thoughts, feelings and experiences with others in similar situations.
A practical next step: if you are unsure whether the service fits your situation, start with the section that matches who needs help — yourself or someone else — then look at the self-help resources or forums. For UK-based readers who want to compare options, GamCare and BeGambleAware are established alternatives, while Gamblers Anonymous offers a peer-support model built around meetings.
How can I get free help for my own gambling problem?
Start with the service built specifically for the person gambling: Gambling Therapy offers free, online advice and emotional support, and its page is organised around "Help for you," "Their gambling," and "Self Help & Resources." That structure matters because it separates your own situation from the situation of a worried friend or relative.
What "free help" can look like
- Self-help material you read on your own, at any hour, without speaking to anyone.
- Online forums where you post anonymously and read others in similar situations.
- Live text-based support with a trained adviser, usually reached through a chat or messaging window rather than a phone line.
- Support for family and friends, if someone close to you is also struggling with your gambling.
A concrete first step
If you want to stop but keep putting it off, try this tonight: open the self-help section, pick one item, and do only that for fifteen minutes. Then post one sentence in a forum — "I've been gambling most evenings and I want to stop" is enough. Writing it down where another person can read it turns a private intention into something slightly more real, and it gives you a reason to come back tomorrow.
Choosing between options
| If your situation is… | A sensible starting point |
|---|---|
| You want information and no contact | Self-help resources |
| You want to hear from people like you | Forums |
| You want to talk to someone now | Live chat support |
| Someone else's gambling is affecting you | Friends and family support |
Practical points
- Support is online, which suits people who cannot attend a meeting in person, live far from services, or want to stay anonymous at first.
- Online text support is not the same as emergency care. If you are in immediate danger or thinking of harming yourself, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line in your country.
- Language coverage varies by service, so check whether support is offered in a language you are comfortable using.
Decision criterion
Ask yourself one question: do I want to read, or do I want to be heard? If reading, start with self-help. If being heard, go straight to chat or the forums. If you are unsure, the forums are the low-commitment middle ground — you can lurk before you post.
What support is available if a friend or family member has a gambling problem?
Gambling Therapy is built for exactly this situation: it offers free, practical advice and emotional support to anyone affected by someone else's gambling, not only to the person gambling. Its "Friends and Family" section is aimed at friends, family members and work colleagues of someone who gambles, and the site also runs multilingual forums where you can share experiences with people in similar positions.
Gambling Therapy
H3 What you can actually do there
- Read advice written for the affected person rather than the gambler, so you are not treated as a side issue.
- Use the forums to hear how others set boundaries, handle money worries or talk to the person without it turning into a fight.
- Look at the self-help and resources area, which also covers gaming when it is having a negative impact on your life.
- Contact the service directly if you want support for yourself, since the help is described as free and available to anyone affected.
H3 A realistic scenario Suppose your brother has borrowed money from you twice and you have started hiding your bank app when he visits. You could start with the friends and family material to work out what you will and will not fund, then post in a forum to test whether your approach sounds reasonable. The value here is reducing your isolation, not fixing his behaviour.
H3 Trade-offs and next steps Online support suits people who want anonymity or cannot reach a local group, but it is not a substitute for emergency help or formal financial and legal advice if debts or coercion are involved. As a first step, decide what you need most — emotional support, practical boundary-setting, or information — and go to the matching section rather than reading everything at once.
How do I join the multilingual forums to talk with others about gambling harm?
Joining the multilingual forums on Gambling Therapy is aimed at people who want to read and post alongside others dealing with gambling harm, whether that is their own gambling or someone else's.
How to get started
- Go to Gambling Therapy and look for the Self Help & Resources section, where the forums are listed.
- Choose the forum area that fits your situation. The site separates Help for you (your own gambling) from Their gambling (support for friends, family and colleagues), so you are not posting in the wrong place.
- Register for an account if posting requires it, then pick the language you are comfortable writing in. The forums are described as multilingual, so you can usually read and contribute in a language other than English.
- Start by reading a few threads before posting. A short introduction about what you are facing often gets more replies than a general question.
What to expect
The forums are for sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences with people in similar situations. That makes them most useful when you want peer understanding rather than a formal appointment. They are not a crisis line or a substitute for medical care; if you need urgent help, use local emergency or health services.
A practical example: someone worried about a parent's betting might read the friends-and-family threads for a week, then post about a specific incident and ask how others set boundaries. That is a better fit for these forums than asking for a diagnosis.
If forums feel too public, the same site also offers self-help material and other support routes, which can be a gentler first step before you post.
What self-help resources does Gambling Therapy offer for gaming addiction?
Gambling Therapy offers self-help and resource sections for people whose gaming is causing harm, alongside a separate track for friends and family. Its stated focus is practical advice plus emotional support, delivered online and free, with multilingual forums where users can read or post about their own experiences. It is a support and information service rather than a treatment clinic, so expect guidance, peer discussion and signposting rather than a structured therapy programme.
What is actually provided
- Gaming self-help and information — material aimed at people who find gaming is affecting their life or who struggle to stop, under a self-help and resources heading.
- Friends and family support — advice for anyone affected by someone else's gambling, including friends, family members and work colleagues.
- Multilingual forums — a place to share thoughts, feelings and experiences with others in similar situations.
How to use it
Start with the section that matches your role: "Help for you" if the gaming is yours, "Their gambling" if you are affected by someone else's. Then use the forums for the part self-help pages cannot supply — hearing from people at the same stage. A practical first step is to write one short forum post describing what you have already tried and what happens when you try to cut down; specific posts tend to get more useful replies than general ones.
Where it fits and where it does not
| Need | Fit |
|---|---|
| Information, peer support, reducing isolation | Strong — this is the core of the service |
| A relative or partner seeking advice | Covered by the friends and family strand |
| Structured therapy, diagnosis or medication | Not the purpose; expect signposting elsewhere |
| Immediate crisis help | Not a crisis line; use local emergency or crisis services |
If your gaming is tied to spending you cannot control, treat the self-help material as a starting point and combine it with a conversation with a doctor or a local counselling service. For a broader international directory of helplines, Gambling Therapy itself and national regulators' lists are more reliable than general search results.
Is Gambling Therapy available worldwide and in multiple languages?
Yes. Gambling Therapy is set up as a global service: it describes itself as offering free practical advice and emotional support to anyone affected by problem gambling, and its resources include multilingual forums. So it is not limited to one country, and support is not English-only.
What that means in practice
- Worldwide access: You can use it from wherever you are, as long as you have internet access. It is aimed at people experiencing gambling harm directly, as well as friends, family members and work colleagues affected by someone else's gambling.
- Multiple languages: The multilingual forums let people share thoughts, feelings and experiences with others in similar situations. Exact language coverage is not fully detailed in the supplied information, so check the site itself for your specific language.
- Different routes in: The site separates "Help for you," "Their gambling" and "Self Help & Resources," so you can go straight to the section that matches your situation rather than reading everything.
Trade-off to weigh
A global, forum-based service is accessible and anonymous, which suits people who want to talk to others without local services knowing. But it is not a substitute for local emergency or clinical care, and response times and language options may vary. If you need urgent help, contact local emergency services or a local crisis line first.
Next step
Open Gambling Therapy and check whether your language is offered in the forums. If it is not, look for a national gambling helpline in your country as a complement. For general guidance, the World Health Organization at WHO covers gambling as a public health issue, though it is not a support service.
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