Responsible gambling: limits, help and self-exclusion

Gambling is for adults aged 18+ and it is addictive. Every casino game costs money on average. If play has stopped being a choice, the tools and contacts below exist for that situation.

Last updated 2026-10-04

Where to get help now

If you are in immediate distress or thinking about harming yourself, contact a health facility or someone you trust straight away. A gambling debt is a money problem with solutions; it is not worth a life.

Signs that gambling is becoming a problem

• Staking more than planned, or depositing again in the same session.
• Raising stakes to win back losses.
• Using money meant for rent, food, school fees or loan repayments.
• Borrowing, including mobile loans, in order to gamble.
• Hiding play or losses from family.
• Feeling restless or irritable when trying to stop.

One sign is enough to act on. The belief that the next round will repair the damage is explained, and taken apart, in the guide to the gambler's fallacy and session limits.

Tools a licensed platform must give you

Regulation 87 of the Gambling Control (Conduct of Gambling Operations) Regulations, 2026 obliges licensees to provide real-time tools: deposit limits on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, loss, session and expenditure limits, reality checks showing duration of play, and an easy to access self-exclusion option for a period of at least twenty-four hours.

Set them when you are calm, before any stake. A limit entered into the system holds better than a promise made to yourself.

Self-exclusion under Kenyan law

Section 115 of the Gambling Control Act, 2025 allows a person who recognises that their gambling is harmful to enter a self-exclusion agreement with a licensee, covering gambling establishments and controlled games, including online gambling. The person notifies the Authority, which keeps a register and informs all licensees.

Once a licensee has the notification, section 115(4) requires it to refuse service, stop marketing to the person, remove their details from marketing databases within two days, close their accounts and return any funds held. An operator that fails to implement a request within seven days of written notification commits an offence (section 115(5)).

The 2026 regulations add a national route. Under regulation 70 a person completes Form 1 and supplies a copy of a national identification card or passport; the Authority acknowledges the application within seven days. The form offers six months, one year, two years or an indefinite period, and the period cannot be shortened once chosen (regulation 72(1)).

Under 18

Gambling is for adults only. Section 72 of the Act requires operators to keep children from being registered and to require proof of age of majority before registering any player. This site is not written for anyone under 18.

What this site adds

Nairobi Ultimate is not a counselling service and cannot act on your behalf. What it can do is show, in numbers, why "winning it back" is not a plan: see how RTP and house edge work.