Three active recovery communities, what each one is like, and the help available if Reddit is not the right place for you.
In the United States, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-522-4700. It runs 24 hours a day, every day. You can also text the same number, or use the chat service at ncpgambling.org.
In the UK and Ireland, the National Gambling Helpline is 0808 8020 133, also free and 24 hours.
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We publish sportsbook reviews for a living, so we are aware of how this reads coming from us. The reason the page exists is that a lot of people searching for a gambling subreddit are searching for this one, and the lists that turn up first still send them to a community Reddit shut down.
The three active communities
r/problemgambling
46,337 members
The largest, the most active, and the one r/sportsbook itself points to. Several posts a day, a real wiki, and scheduled recurring threads. Members mark clean time with flair, which sounds small and turns out to matter to people. If you only look at one, look at this one.
r/GamblingRecovery
42,662 members
Nearly as large and active every day. Slightly more oriented toward people already some way into recovery than toward first posts, though nobody will tell you that you are in the wrong place.
r/GamblingAddiction
32,088 members
The third of the large communities, also active daily. All three coexist rather than competing, and plenty of people post in more than one.
It was banned by Reddit and there is no archive. It still appears on a lot of resource lists, which is worth knowing if you have clicked one and hit an error page at a bad moment. r/problemgambling is the community that absorbed most of it.
What posting there is actually like
People are usually surprised by how ordinary it is. Nobody lectures. The most common response to a first post is somebody describing something similar happening to them, which is most of the point.
Posts tend to fall into a few shapes: the first admission, usually written at three in the morning after a bad night. The relapse post, which the community treats with noticeably more patience than most people expect. The milestone post, thirty days or six months. And practical questions about self-exclusion, blocking software and telling a partner.
You do not have to have hit a catastrophe to post. A lot of people arrive because something felt off rather than because something went wrong, and that is a better time to arrive.
Practical steps people talk about
Self-exclusion. Regulated US sportsbooks are required to offer it, and most state regulators run a statewide programme covering every licensed operator at once. Your state’s gaming commission website is the place to start.
Deposit and time limits. Most regulated books let you set a limit that cannot be raised for a fixed period. Set it when you are calm rather than when you are chasing.
Blocking software. Gamban, BetBlocker and similar tools block gambling sites across your devices. BetBlocker is free. These are the tools that come up most often in the recovery communities.
Be aware of the gap with offshore books. We are an offshore-focused site and we are not going to pretend otherwise: offshore sportsbooks generally have weaker responsible gambling tooling than regulated US operators, and they are not covered by state self-exclusion programmes. If you are self-excluding, device-level blocking software matters more, not less.
Handling the money side. Recovery communities routinely suggest giving control of accounts to someone you trust for a period. It comes up constantly because it works more often than willpower does.
Beyond Reddit
Peer support online is genuinely useful and it is not a substitute for treatment.
Gamblers Anonymous runs in-person and online meetings in most countries. Gam-Anon is the equivalent for family members, which people forget exists. The National Council on Problem Gambling maintains a directory of counsellors who specialise in this specifically, and gambling disorder responds well to structured treatment when it is the right kind.
If you are reading this on behalf of someone else, the helpline numbers at the top take calls from family members too.