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The Loophole That Is Not Really a Loophole
Every few weeks, someone contacts me asking for a list of “casinos not on GamStop.” The request always makes me pause, because the framing implies a workaround — as if operators like Love Casino found a clever gap in the system. They did not. The system was never designed to cover them. GamStop applies to operators holding a UK Gambling Commission licence, and Because no UKGC licence sits behind Love Casino, the equivalent UK requirement is absent here. There is no loophole; there are two separate regulatory universes that happen to serve overlapping populations of players.
The uncomfortable truth is that GamStop’s limitation is structural, not accidental. The UK Gambling Commission has jurisdiction over UKGC-licensed operators. It cannot compel a foreign-licensed operator to participate in a UK self-exclusion scheme any more than a UK traffic warden can issue a parking ticket in Curaçao. What the Commission can do — and has done, with 741 cease-and-desist and disruption notices in financial year 2024–25 — is pursue operators that actively target UK players without a licence. But pursuit and prevention are different things, and the internet makes geographic enforcement fundamentally difficult.
For the 5.8% of UK gamblers who access offshore sites using VPNs, the GamStop gap is not theoretical. These players are actively circumventing the one self-exclusion mechanism the UK system provides, and the operators they reach — Love Casino among them — have no obligation to check GamStop registration or refuse their custom.
Why Some Players Seek Out Non-GamStop Sites
I have spoken with enough players to know that the motivations for seeking offshore casinos vary widely. Some want access to games or features banned by the UKGC — bonus buy slots, higher stake limits, certain promotional structures. Others are chasing odds or payout structures they believe are more favourable. And some — the group that concerns me most — are registered on GamStop and looking for a way back to gambling despite having previously recognised it as a problem.
That last group is the reason this topic matters beyond regulatory theory. 21.9% of adults aged 18-24 in the UK scored on the Problem Gambling Severity Index in the year to January 2025. The National Gambling Support Network treated 10,754 people in 2023/24. These are not abstract statistics; they represent real people, many of whom used self-exclusion as a protective measure. When an offshore casino accepts those players without checking their GamStop status, it removes a barrier that the player deliberately placed between themselves and gambling.
The UKGC’s position on this is unambiguous. Tim Miller, the Commission’s chief executive, described operators that deliberately attract GamStop-registered players as running operations that are “especially insidious” because they target a population that has already identified gambling as harmful to them. The enforcement response — increased funding, more cease-and-desist orders, closer cooperation with payment processors and internet service providers — reflects the severity with which the regulator views this issue.
What Actually Works for Players Who Need Protection
If you have self-excluded through GamStop and are considering an offshore casino, the most important thing I can tell you is this: the urge to find a way around self-exclusion is itself a data point about where you stand with gambling. Self-exclusion exists because you recognised a problem. Seeking to circumvent it does not mean the problem has gone away — it means the problem is asserting itself.
The practical alternatives to GamStop for blocking offshore casinos are software-based. Gamban blocks over 60,000 gambling sites across all your devices, including offshore operators and their mirror domains. BetBlocker offers a free alternative with similar coverage. These tools operate at the network level on your device, blocking gambling traffic regardless of the casino’s licensing jurisdiction. The self-exclusion options guide walks through the installation process for both tools in detail.
Device-level content restrictions — available on both iOS and Android — add another barrier. Enable gambling-site blocking in your device settings, protect it with a separate PIN, and give that PIN to someone you trust. This creates a physical barrier between impulse and action: even if the urge strikes at 2am, you cannot disable the restriction without involving another person. That friction is the point.
The Regulatory Direction of Travel
The UK government’s approach to offshore gambling is tightening, not loosening. The new statutory gambling levy, which replaced voluntary industry contributions from April 2026, provides dedicated funding for enforcement against unlicensed operators. The UKGC reported 397,527 gambling URLs and secured removal of 266,667 from search engines in financial year 2024–25. Payment blocking — where the Commission works with banks and card providers to block transactions to unlicensed gambling sites — is expanding in scope and effectiveness.
Andrew Rhodes, the Commission’s former chief executive, outlined a timeline for making offshore gambling increasingly difficult for UK players. The strategy combines URL removal, payment blocking, ISP-level domain blocking, and enhanced cooperation with international regulators. None of these measures will eliminate offshore gambling entirely, but they will progressively raise the friction involved in accessing it — and friction, in gambling harm prevention, is the mechanism that gives self-exclusion its protective power.
The Curaçao side of the equation has shifted too. The old master licence system, under which sub-licences proliferated with minimal oversight, is gone — the last master licence expired on 31 January 2025, and the orange seal that once served as a visible trust signal lost its validity by 15 October 2025. The new Curaçao Gaming Authority now requires individual B2C licences costing approximately €49,200, a figure that pushes marginal operators out of the market entirely. Whether Love Casino secures one of these new licences or continues operating under transitional arrangements tells you something about its long-term intentions.
Love Casino’s current accessibility to UK players exists within a regulatory environment that is actively working to reduce it. The UK online gambling sector generated £7.8 billion in gross gambling yield for the year ending March 2025, a 13.1% year-on-year increase that gives regulators both the motive and the resources to pursue unlicensed operators. Whether that reduction comes through payment blocks, URL takedowns, or broadened self-exclusion coverage, the direction is clear. Players who choose offshore casinos now should understand that the landscape they are navigating is changing faster than at any point in the UK’s gambling regulatory history.
Is Love Casino on GamStop?
No. GamStop covers only UKGC-licensed operators. Love Casino holds a Curaçao licence and is not part of the GamStop self-exclusion scheme. Players who have self-excluded through GamStop can still access Love Casino, which is why additional blocking measures such as Gamban or BetBlocker are recommended for comprehensive protection.
Why do some casinos not participate in GamStop?
GamStop participation is mandatory for UKGC-licensed operators but cannot be required of operators licensed in other jurisdictions. Curaçao-licensed casinos like Love Casino operate under their own jurisdiction’s regulations, which do not include UK self-exclusion requirements. This is a jurisdictional limitation rather than an intentional workaround.