Gamban canned

Gamban, the app that blocks gambling sites on the devices of problem gamblers (at their request), has been turned down for funding by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID). 

Loyal readers will recall that the gambling industry used to pony up many millions of pounds for treatment, research and education. The puritans at the Department of Health decided that this was tainted money that could only be made clean by taking it from gambling companies by force. Most of the long-term recipients of this cash went along with the idea of replacing voluntary donations with a compulsory levy because they assumed that it would guarantee them funding for life. 

It didn't quite work out that way. GambleAware were the first to be cut loose after the hardcore anti-gambling twunts and Jolyon Maugham tried to blacken their name. Despite playing up their anti-gambling credentials, the charity couldn't deny that it had received industry funding in the past and that is an unwashable sin now that gambling is a 'public health' issue.

Others have been simple victims of government incompetence. OHID is so useless that it can't even give away money without cocking it up. As Zak Thomas-Akoo has reported, treatment services, including Gordon Moody and GamCare, are in chaos because bureaucrats can't get them their grants in time. 

And now Gamban has been given the cold shoulder because it is (brace yourself) a business.

 

This year, the UK government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) oversaw the distribution of funding and decided to exclude Gamban on the basis of its entity status being a limited company.

This was not a reasonable basis to omit the best available gambling… pic.twitter.com/l9Qid6c4HU

— Gamban (@gambanapp) March 31, 2026

It is very tempting to laugh about this because it is Matt Zarb-Cousin's business and Zarb-Cousin is a Corbyn-supporting turned Polanksi-supporting socialist who is endlessly attacking industry. If only Gamban had been nationalised, eh Matt?

 

But it is seriously bad when 'public health' agencies are so anti-capitalist that they blacklist providers for trying to turn a profit, even when those providers could not be more ideologically in tune with the zealots who run the agency (and when their service is valuable, as Gamban's is). Can that really be all there is to this or is something else going on? 

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