Each month, thousands of Americans who have opted into self-exclusion from land based casinos in addition to gambling apps/websites perform an online search for “how to gamble when self excluded?” in the hopes of finding a workaround after voluntarily banning themselves from the activity. There are an unfortunate share of online forums providing such advice. In most cases, responses come from those with vested interest in the unregulated offshore betting market, be it illegal operators or affiliates who earn a commission from sending players their way. While the unregulated market does feature self-exclusion verbiage in their small print to put on a veil of responsible gaming, they do not enforce any of it. Meanwhile, regulated operators such as DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM fully enforce self-exclusion time periods that players have opted into, even if a player makes a case that they have recovered financially and can gamble responsibly once again.
As someone searching for insight into how to get around self exclusion, we’re wholeheartedly thankful that you have found this resource instead of one of the predatory articles and forum boards out there. To respond to your query, we want you to instead consider three far more important questions, which we have laid out below.
3 Other Questions to Ask When Searching for Answers on How to Gamble When Self-Excluded from Casino Gaming and/or Sports Betting
Are You Willing to Break the Law?
As mentioned in the introduction, you’ll quickly figure out that the only way to get around self exclusion in the regulated market is to look towards unregulated offshore platforms. If you’re unfamiliar with this market, you require a brief history lesson to find out what you would be getting yourself into in following the advice of exploitative operators and affiliates who send self excluded players into the realm.
More than a decade ago, the most infamous operator to accept and actively solicit U.S. players was Bodog. In 2012, U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Calvin Ayre, a Canadian billionaire who was indicted for owning and operating an illegal gambling business involving online casino gaming, sports betting, and conspiring to commit money laundering. In the end, Ayre’s punishment was inconsequential; one year of unsupervised probation and a $500,000 fine. Today, Bodog operates in a legal grey area in Canada, and is also up to its old tricks in the United States after having been rebranded as Bovada. It has recently come to light that they are violating all sorts of legalities regarding online gambling in the United States, and are falsely suggesting that they have a land-based casino in certain districts (view details here). They, along with other unregulated offshore operators (BetOnline, BetUS, et cetera) have been able to operate with relative impunity, and have been targeting not just players who reside in U.S. states without legal sports betting (view map) and without legal online casino gaming (view map) but those such as yourself who want to get around self exclusion.
Be warned.
Governing bodies of the United States of America together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and current presidential administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) have their eyes set firmly on taking down unregulated gambling. For one, a number of individual U.S. states have issued cease and desist letters to unregulated offshore operators over the past six months. Further, the IRS and OBBBA have coordinated to focus on citizen taxation regarding gambling income and are also looking more closely at income (claimed or unclaimed) that may come from unregulated gambling platforms. The crackdown is no longer just focused on illegal operators, but on American citizens who choose to gamble with them.
View more on why you should not just avoid the unregulated market to get around self exclusion, but to help join the fight against them:
Illegal Online Gambling and How Americans Can Do Their Part
Can Your Finances Sustain the Return?
Moral and legal ramifications aside, we also encourage you to consider what may have caused you to self exclude in the first place – significant financial loss and quite likely debt.
Those who self exclude and then seek to return to gambling platforms before the deadline may have recovered financially. If you’re among this group, what makes you think that things will be different this time around? It won’t. The saying that “the house always wins” is a truism that highlights the inherent advantage casinos and sportsbooks have over the long run. Casino games and sports betting wagering types (point spread and parlays) are designed with a built-in “edge” that essentially guarantees operators will recoup short-term losses to players and ultimately generate a profit overall. You may suspect that you were one more wager away from a big win before you self-excluded, but that is a proven myth and mathematically disproven by the Gambler’s Ruin formula. Details regarding these financial fallacies can be found via the links below:
90% of Gamblers Quit Before They Win Big, is a Big Lie
Gambler’s Ruin and Opportunity Cost of Gambling
But what if you haven’t recovered financially? If so, and you are trying to subvert self exclusion, you have likely rationalized that you need to gamble again to recover losses and cover debt. This is what is known as chasing losses and is directly connect to the concept of cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are faulty beliefs and perspectives that people have about themselves and/or the world around them that are reinforced over time and typically associated with habitual participation in an activity such as gambling. The strategic viability of gambling to cover prior losses is a lie that your compromised brain is telling you, one that requires intervention. Please read the following for further insight before continuing on to the final and most important question:
Cognitive Distortions in Gambling
Is Your Mental Health Exactly Where it Needs to Be?
Self exclusion is rarely just about the need to recover financial loss. Financial loss is generally a symptom of problematic gambling behavior, which indicates that more than financial interventions are required so that someone can potentially return to responsible participation.
Are you certain that your mental health is where it needs to be to return to gambling prior to the end of self exclusion, or at all? Are you even qualified to make that decision on your own? If like nearly all other Americans, the answer is probably no, you’re not.
Problematic gambling behavior is rarely an isolated concern. It is often comorbid with other mental health issues that make escape (from problem gambling) impossible without addressing the these cooccurring issues. Millions of America’s problem gamblers are surprised to learn that the following are tied up in their struggle to maintain a healthy relationship with casino gaming, parimutuel wagering, lottery, and sports betting:
If you known or suspect that you struggle with any of the issues delineated in the above table, please abandon your desire to subvert self exclusion and first address the issue/s with a specialist who understands exactly what you’re going through, gambling behavior included.
Reach out for a FREE assessment and to book your first counseling session via your preferred form of contact below (direct billing available).
Get a FREE Assessment and Get Help for Problem Gambling
CALL +1 (877) 426-4258
OR
Email help@kindbridge.com
