gamAid is unique... as over 17,000 people with family and personal gambling problems have discovered over the past year alone.

We're sorry that we're unable to help you today. The problem - as you especially will appreciate - is money. Despite the huge profits made by the gambling industry, not a single penny makes its way to gamAid. And, we've run out.

Some of the more responsible gambling organisations put money into a fund supposed to help front-line services like gamAid.
The fund has over £2M in the bank. It won't give us any.

Possibly the problem is that gamAid is run by volunteers, all professionals: we have no paid fund-raisers, no lobbyists, no commercial operation.
We don't play politics. We just care, and provide lots of very practical help to people like you with a very real gambling problem, wherever you live, whatever nationality the organisation that's taken your money.

We want to continue to provide help for you and others like you, so please help us. A donation would be wonderful, but there are other things you can do...

Email Carol Stone at the fund right now to tell them to release some funds to ensure gamAid continues in its work: enquiries@rgf-rgsb.org.uk

Email Jenny Williams of the UK's Gambling Commission to say how you feel about the gambling industry not supporting gamAid: info@gamblingcommission.gov.uk

Email Jeremy Hunt, the Government Minister responsible for making sure there is support for problem gamblers and their families: huntj@parliament.uk

Contact the gambling organisation that's responsible for your problem, asking them to come to this page and donate something on your behalf!

If you want to contact us to tell what you've done or make a suggestion, you can email us here:counsellors@gamaid.com

gamAid helps people with a gambling problem wherever they are in the world. In the UK in particular, it focuses on helping families affected by the presence of a problem gambler.

gamAid has helped over 70,000 individual callers over the past four years, who between them made over 280,000 visits to the site. Almost 12,000 have sought personal assistance, and gamAid staff have succeeded in helping 1700 of these. Others, of course, have been helped by support staff in other nations: gamAid is the only problem gambling support organisation that links people directly to local sources of assistance and advice. Currently, gamAid helps about 2000 people a month on the site, of whom about 600 seek direct and personal contact. In recent months, its staff personally assisted over a hundred people a month.

gamAid has been funded by its staff and voluntary donation for the last four years, using this income to provide professional, qualified counselling (no well-meaning amateurs or self trained advisors here!), email advice, and technical support.

'Official' organisations like GamCare and Gordon Moody don't get enough support either. Unlike gamAid, they have to play ball with the gambling industry to get just enough to survive. So we have sympathy for them. But... GamCare costs £200,000 a month. gamAid costs £1000 a month. GamCare has less that four times the callers that gamAid does. You do the maths...

Over the past four years gamAid's operating costs have been met by a private donor who can no longer do so. The Responsible Gambling Fund (RGF) told us to apply to the Lottery instead: we did, but the Lotto tell us they don't support charities like gamAid. We returned to RGF for emergency funds to continue the service. RGF distribute funds collected from over 750 organisations in the gambling industry to institutions who offer treatment to problem gamblers in the UK. Despite receiving £5 million pounds to distribute and despite (according to the accounts published on 8 th July 2010) still having over £2,354,000 net current income undistributed, RGF have said 'No'. There is no reason given, just that "there us no funding stream available". It is possible, of course, that the traditional beneficiaries of the RGF - GamCare and Gordon Moody - combine in lobbying against the funding of gamAid in order to preserve their own limited income from RGF. There are many and obvious reasons why this should be resisted: it is extraordinarily important that a good mix of support services be provided for problem gamblers and their families: for instance, gamAid is the only one to focus on the problems of families, those most affected by uncontrolled gambling.

gamAid cannot be allowed to stop. It takes remarkably little to enable gamAid to continue.

All of our staff work on a volunteer basis. When gamAid is terminated it is irrecoverable - we have a website containing services such as secure online counselling that we cannot afford to re-create. In addition, gamAid's professional staff, people who are experienced in this field, will be lost to the cause. gamAid is unique in that it is the only service completely devoted to assisting the friends and families of problem gamblers. It is unique because it has a committed, experienced, and a willing group of supporters working both in its front and back offices. It is unique because we believe in the work we are doing.

gamAid is being denied access to funds that are donated for the purpose of the work we do. Please donate any amount you can! If you work for a gambling organisation that is donating money to GREaT so that it can sit in RGF’s bank account - well, you can see it's not providing value for money. Please arrange to make a donation to gamAid.

If you cannot afford to donate then please write to your MP or MEP, ask what options are available to the loved ones of problem gamblers, and ask them to apply pressure to save gamAid. Write to the Gambling commissioner. Write to RGF. Do it now. Action is needed now or this essential service will be lost forever.