When it stops being fun
What is a gambling self-exclusion?
Self-exclusion is a formal request to be barred from gambling operators for a period you choose. Once registered, accounts are closed and new ones are refused.
In Ontario a single registration covers every room on the register at once, plus OLG.ca and the land-based casinos.
How to register
Ontario: PlaySmart handles it, it takes roughly ten minutes, and you set the length. It applies across every operator registered with iGaming Ontario rather than one at a time.
Other provinces run their own schemes through the provincial corporation, generally covering their own platform and physical venues.
International operators are outside all of these. Each one has its own exclusion setting in account settings, and blocking software is what covers the gap.
What it does and does not do
It closes accounts, stops marketing, and refuses new registrations at the covered operators for the term you picked. Most schemes will not let you reverse it early, which is the point.
It does not block the internet, and it does not cover operators outside the scheme. Pair it with device-level blocking or the gap will find you at two in the morning.
After the term
Most schemes require an active step to come back rather than reinstating access automatically, and some require a conversation first.
A lot of people renew. That is a normal outcome rather than a failure. The routes, the phone numbers and the blocking tools are all on take a break.
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ConnexOntario answers at 1-866-531-2600. Every province has an equivalent line and they are listed, with the blocking tools and the self-exclusion routes, on take a break. Nothing on that page earns this site anything.