A national self-exclusion register lets one request block a person across licensed gambling operators in a market. GAMSTOP, Spelpaus, OASIS, Cruks and Brazil's centralised platform share that purpose, but they differ in legal basis, product coverage, minimum periods, removal rules and who may request an exclusion.
Those differences matter to operators running several licences, to platform and Player Account Management teams building integrations, and to analysts comparing player-protection outcomes. A rule that works in one market can be non-compliant in another, and headline registration figures describe different populations.
National self-exclusion registers at a glance
| Role | What it means | Where to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Great Britain: GAMSTOP | Participation is mandatory for most remote licences under LCCP SR 3.5.5. GAMSTOP offers periods from 6 months to 5 years. Land-based licensees use separate multi-operator schemes. | GAMSTOP says licensed online operators check at registration, at login and daily. It says an exclusion cannot be cancelled during the chosen period and stays in place afterwards until the person asks for removal. |
| Sweden: Spelpaus.se | All gambling that requires registration under Swedish law, online and land-based, with listed exemptions. Periods are 10 days, 1, 3 or 6 months, or until further notice for at least 12 months. | Licensees check at registration, at every login and before direct marketing. An exclusion cannot be ended early. |
| Germany: OASIS | A central, cross-product blocking system for public gambling, including online products, arcades, casinos and betting shops, with exemptions for some lotteries and horse betting. A self-exclusion normally lasts at least one year but may be set at no less than three months. | Online players are checked before their first game; land-based players on entry. A block ends only after a written application from the blocked person once the minimum period has passed. |
| Netherlands: Cruks | Remote gambling, casinos and gaming-machine arcades. Voluntary registration runs from 6 months to 99 years; an involuntary registration lasts 6 months. | Online licensees check at registration and whenever a player logs in; venues check before admission. Registrations end automatically. |
| Brazil: centralised self-exclusion platform | Betting operators authorised by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting. Fixed periods are 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 months, or the person can choose an indefinite exclusion. | Operators query SIGAP at account opening, at the first login of each day and across all registered users at least every 15 days. An indefinite exclusion can be revoked only after 12 months with a psychiatrist's report. |
What a national self-exclusion register does, and does not do
A central register replaces a series of operator-by-operator requests with one record that every connected licensee must honour. The operator's duty is to query the register at defined moments and refuse or close access when the result shows an active exclusion.
A register is not a licence. It proves nothing about whether a website is authorised, and it binds only operators licensed in that market. The licence verification guide explains how to check permission separately. The registers also rely on different identity keys, which is why KYC processes and a reliable Player Account Management system sit underneath the integration.
Central schemes also coexist with operator-level self-exclusion. In Great Britain, LCCP ordinary code 3.5.4 requires a remote operator's own scheme to offer a minimum period of 6 to 12 months and an option of at least five years. At the end of the chosen period, that operator-level exclusion remains in place for at least seven years unless the customer takes positive action to gamble again.
Great Britain: GAMSTOP
The Gambling Commission's remote multi-operator code, LCCP SR 3.5.5, states that licensees must participate in the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. It applies to remote licences except listed categories, including gambling software, host, remote platform betting, trading-room betting intermediary and some ancillary licences. The Commission announced in January 2020 that online operators would be required to participate by 31 March 2020.
GAMSTOP is operated by The National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited. Its consumer pages state that the shortest period is 6 months and the longest 5 years. Its help centre says online operators licensed in Great Britain must check with it whenever a person tries to register or log in, and must check existing customers daily. Those are scheme-operator statements rather than the Commission's own wording.
Land-based gambling is handled differently. LCCP SR 3.5.6 requires non-remote casino, bingo and betting licensees, and adult gaming centres, to offer local multi-operator self-exclusion through one or more available schemes. A GAMSTOP registration should therefore not be described as a ban on every form of gambling in Great Britain. The Great Britain market profile and remote casino licence guide provide the wider licensing context.
Sweden: Spelpaus.se
Spelpaus.se is Sweden's national self-exclusion register, run by Spelinspektionen under the Gambling Act. According to the regulator's Spelpaus guidance, a person can exclude themselves for 10 days, 1, 3 or 6 months, or until further notice. An exclusion until further notice lasts at least 12 months, and an exclusion cannot be reversed or ended early.
The 10-day option is recent. Spelinspektionen announced it on 29 June 2026. A new regulation, SIFS 2026:3, took effect on 1 August 2026 and requires licensees to use the interface that corresponds to the purpose of each check.
Coverage is broader than GAMSTOP. The guidance lists licensed casino gambling on land and online, computer-simulated slot games, online bingo and lotteries, betting and VLT gaming, while exempting specified forms such as scratch cards not sold online. Licensees must check the register at registration, at login and before direct marketing. The Sweden market profile and commercial online gambling licence record show how the register fits Swedish licensing.
Germany: OASIS
The State Treaty on Gambling 2021, section 8, establishes a central, cross-product blocking system operated for all German states by Hesse's competent gambling supervisory authority. Blocked players may not take part in public gambling. The treaty exempts lotteries held no more than twice a week, savings lotteries and certain horse-race bets; online instant lotteries do not benefit from that lottery exemption.
The Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt OASIS questions and answers set out the durations. A self-exclusion normally lasts at least one year, although the person may request an individual minimum of no less than three months. A third-party exclusion always has a one-year minimum. Relatives and other people may apply for a block, and the affected person must first be given an opportunity to comment.
Removal is deliberately active. Lifting any OASIS block requires a written application from the blocked person, and an application made before the minimum period ends is invalid. Separately, section 6i(3) requires certain online products to offer a button that triggers an immediate short block, which ends automatically after 24 hours.
The scale is published by the register operator. In its 2025 review, Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt reported more than 5.2 billion queries in 2025, around 60,000 blocking applications processed and about 367,000 active player blocks, with 9,000 operators and around 41,000 venues connected. See the Germany market profile and German online gambling licence guide for the licensing framework.
Netherlands: Cruks
Cruks is the Dutch Central Register of Exclusion from Gambling, kept by the Kansspelautoriteit. The KSA's Gokstop page says a person can choose an exclusion from 6 months to 99 years. The registration can be cancelled only after the first 6 months, followed by an 8-day reflection period, and it stops automatically at the end of the chosen term. It covers licensed gambling websites, gaming-machine arcades and casinos.
The Betting and Gaming Act gives the statutory frame. Under article 31k, an online licensee may not register a player until it has established that the person is not in the register. Under article 33da, the KSA can register a person involuntarily for six months when there is a reasonable suspicion that excessive gambling or addiction may harm that person or people close to them.
The KSA's involuntary registration policy states that a family member, employer or gambling operator can ask it to register a player. Its Annual Report 2025 says operators must check Cruks every time a player logs in, the number of people with a Gokstop grew from 85,000 to about 109,000 during 2025, and the KSA decided on involuntary registration 380 times. The Netherlands KOA licence guide covers Cruks as a licence obligation.
Brazil: the centralised self-exclusion platform
Brazil's framework is the newest of the five. Portaria SPA/MF No. 2,579, published on 10 November 2025, defines centralised self-exclusion as a voluntary request made on the platform maintained by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting to exclude and prevent registration with all betting operators. Both operator-specific and centralised self-exclusion may be fixed-term or indefinite, and the ban on sending advertising to self-excluded bettors applies to both.
Normative Instruction SPA/MF No. 31/2025 sets the operator workflow. Operators must query SIGAP when a user opens an account and at the first login of each day, and must check all registered users at least every 15 days. When a daily-login query returns an exclusion, the operator must immediately prevent new bets and close the account within three days. Agência Brasil reported the platform's launch on 12 December 2025.
The SPA's usage guidance lists fixed periods of 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 months or an indefinite exclusion. Its frequently asked questions, updated on 14 August 2026, say revocation of an indefinite exclusion may be requested only after 12 months and requires a psychiatrist's report attesting to the absence of gambling disorder. Access uses a gov.br account at silver or gold level. The Brazil fixed-odds authorisation guide and Brazil market profile explain which operators fall under SPA authorisation.
On 15 September 2026, federal technology company Serpro reported that more than one million people had used the centralised function. That is a dated system-provider statement, not a directly published SPA statistical series, so it should not be compared with the active-register counts reported by other markets.
Where the five registers differ most
Five design choices explain most of the operational variation.
- Coverage: GAMSTOP is a remote scheme; Spelpaus, OASIS and Cruks extend to defined land-based venues; Brazil's platform covers SPA-authorised betting operators.
- Governance: GAMSTOP is run by a company whose participation the Commission mandates, while the other four are run by public authorities.
- Removal: Cruks ends automatically; Spelpaus fixed terms simply expire and indefinite exclusions need lifting after 12 months; GAMSTOP and OASIS require the person to act; Brazil adds a medical report for indefinite exclusions.
- Who can initiate: Germany and the Netherlands allow third-party or involuntary routes; no equivalent route was identified in the official sources reviewed for the other three.
- Check timing: registration and login checks are common, but Sweden adds marketing checks, Brazil adds a 15-day sweep and GAMSTOP describes daily checks.
Why the statistics cannot be ranked
The figures published in 2026 are not a league table. Spelinspektionen's guidance gives about 137,000 people excluded via Spelpaus in 2026. Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt counts about 367,000 active blocks, including third-party blocks and land-based players. The KSA reports people with a Gokstop during 2025, GAMSTOP publishes its own scheme statistics, and Serpro reports cumulative use of Brazil's centralised function rather than an active-register total.
Each number has a different scope, reference date and eligibility rule. Comparing them per head of population would mix online-only and cross-product systems, voluntary and involuntary routes, and active and cumulative counts. The BETTIMES regulated markets comparison follows the same principle by keeping unlike market systems in separate fields rather than ranking them.
A multi-market implementation checklist
- Map every licence: list which register each licensed brand and venue must connect to.
- Match identity keys: confirm which identifiers each register accepts and how the operator verifies them.
- Set check points: implement registration, login, daily or periodic sweeps and pre-marketing checks per market.
- Separate suppression lists: keep marketing suppression tied to each register's rules rather than one global flag.
- Handle positive results: document account closure, open-bet treatment and fund return for each jurisdiction.
- Respect removal rules: never restore access on an operator's own schedule when the register requires the person, the regulator or a waiting period.
- Log evidence: retain query timestamps, responses and outage handling for supervisory review.
- Date every rule: Sweden's 10-day option, SIFS 2026:3 and Brazil's revocation update show how quickly the requirements move.
National self-exclusion registers share one purpose but not one rulebook. A reliable comparison keeps the legal basis, scope, periods, removal mechanics and statistics of each system attached to that market.
Frequently asked questions
Does GAMSTOP block gambling in British betting shops and casinos?
GAMSTOP is the national online scheme that most remote licensees must join. Land-based casino, bingo and betting licensees, and adult gaming centres, must offer local multi-operator self-exclusion through one or more available schemes under a separate code. A person seeking to block both channels therefore needs to check which schemes apply.
Can a family member exclude someone from gambling?
It depends on the market. In Germany, relatives and other people may apply for an OASIS block, and the affected person must be heard first. In the Netherlands, a family member, employer or operator can ask the KSA to consider an involuntary Cruks registration. No equivalent route was identified in the British, Swedish or Brazilian sources reviewed.
Can a self-exclusion be cancelled early?
Usually not before a minimum period. Spelpaus exclusions cannot be ended early. GAMSTOP says registrations cannot be cancelled during the chosen period. OASIS requires a written application after the minimum period. Cruks allows cancellation only after six months plus eight days, and Brazil requires 12 months and a psychiatrist's report for indefinite exclusions.
Does registering in one country's register block gambling elsewhere?
No. Each register binds operators licensed in its own jurisdiction. None of the official sources reviewed describes mutual recognition between GAMSTOP, Spelpaus, OASIS, Cruks and Brazil's platform. Operators licensed in several markets must query each relevant register separately under that market's rules.
Does a register connection prove that an operator is licensed?
No. A register integration is an operating requirement for licensees, not a permission to offer gambling. Licence status should be verified through the regulator's public records for the exact legal entity, brand and website. A claimed connection to GAMSTOP, Spelpaus, OASIS, Cruks or SIGAP does not replace that check.