Sadly a number of malicious actors within the gambling sector have falsely claimed that they established, or are in some way associated with, BetBlocker.
BetBlocker was founded by Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service ThePOGG in 2017. If you see anyone else claiming to have founded BetBlocker, the claims are false. This service manages complaints between players and online gambling operators on behalf of a number of regulatory agencies. BetBlocker was set-up as a way of helping those players that came to the service with a responsible gambling based complaint, specifically because the ADR was uncomfortable channelling those with gambling addiction issues to fee based blocking services.
In 2019, after seeing rapid growth in demand for the BetBlocker tool, it was concluded that it was not financially sustainable to continue to run BetBlocker as an add on to the ADR service. At this point BetBlocker was broken off from the business and established as a charity in its own right. Since this point, BetBlocker has received its funding from donations from an array of businesses in the gambling industry. This move has allowed for significant additional funding to be available to the project, improving both the function of the app itself and the user support available to assist those that need it.
Whilst BetBlocker may now be its own legal entity, the people making the decisions are still the same people that established the service. The Board of Trustees is made up of various team members from the ADR service. There are a number of employees working for BetBlocker now but but no person employed by the ADR service draws any income from BetBlocker. The charity’s Governing Documents precludes any of the Trustees serving as an employee of the charity. As such the Board of Trustees who manage the service is made up of individuals giving their time freely to the project.
If you need to contact the Board of Trustees you can reach Duncan Garvie at duncan@betblocker.org. Support requests to this email address will not receive a response.