The UK’s leading problem gambling charity foundation, GambleAware, announced this week that it would be both working with and funding the new self-exclusion app Gamban. The foundation has also produced a detailed report evaluating the service alongside five other software products offering similar functionality. Gamban’s system was shown to achieve up to 99% success in effectively self-excluding players from online gambling options during testing.
“Significant investment in and dedication (to) the development of our software has made Gamban (among the world’s leaders) in gambling blocking,” Gamban CEO Jack Simmons said in a statement. “We’re delighted that this has been recognised by GambleAware, who will provide Gamban for free to those whose treatment they fund.”
Gamban will be provided freely to all clients using the national treatment service provided by GambleAware.
The extensive review, completed by researching group Winning Moves, looked at both technical execution and possible therapeutic functions of the software. While the research has been published, the specific products discussed in the findings are anonymised.
The report indicated that many people found the cost of such tools prohibitive, so GambleAware’s offer is likely to be broadly beneficial, particularly considering that many users of such software were found to never attempt to gamble online once it was installed on their equipment.
One other interesting announcement made by the researchers as they completed their review was that blocking software was in general found “to work best as part of a treatment package” rather than being used “in isolation”. It is surely a necessary component of many problem gamblers’ route to recovery, but blocking the event does not necessarily solve the underlying issues. What it can do is give them room to breathe.
