How to Block Gambling Websites on iPhone
On iPhones, you need to go beyond Screen Time with options that can't be disabled by adults.
If you want to block gambling websites on an iPhone or iPad, chances are you’ve tried Screen Time or even gambling blockers, only to realize that it’s often too easy to bypass or not comprehensive enough. Gambling websites are especially difficult to block because there are so many alternatives, and VPNs & proxies can be used in a moment of weakness to bypass the protections you've put in to place. In this guide, we'll walk through the most effective ways to block gambling websites on iOS using more reliable and comprehensive techniques.
This guide is focused specifically on blocking gambling websites, but also see our dedicated guide for blocking gambling apps on iPhone too, because apps need to be blocked in a different way.
Choosing an Effective Approach to Block Gambling Websites
On iPhones, the traditional approach to blocking gambling websites is to use Screen Time or maybe some kind of gambling blocker; the only problem is that these options are often too easy to disable if you have full control over your iPhone. Even if you go to the trouble of locking Screen Time with a PIN, Apple makes it easy to recover your PIN and, as a result, unlock your device.
Even if you can set up Screen Time, you’re still limited to blocking websites by entering each URL manually, and this can be tedious to keep up with or just not practical for most people.
So, most people use a gambling-blocker app, but it turns out most of these apps use Screen Time under the hood and are just as easy to disable.
That’s why the best approach uses a DNS-based Content Policy to block gambling websites and Supervised Mode to better enforce that Content Policy. This is the ideal setup for adults because it can be set up in such a way that it’s not possible to undo on the iPhone without going through a very deliberate process.
Block Gambling Websites with a DNS Content Policy
While Apple Screen Time is a good place to start blocking gambling websites, it’s very limiting because you need to (1) manually enter each website URL and (2) Screen Time is very easy to disable! Even if you set up a Screen Time PIN, Apple makes it relatively easy to recover Screen Time settings.
That’s why the more effective approach for iPhone is to use a Content Policy that automatically blocks thousands of websites based on their category. For example, if you’re using Tech Lockdown’s Content Policy, you can block thousands of websites at once simply by adding a block for a category like this:
Then, search the list for Gambling:
New gambling sites appear all the time and can take time to be scanned, but fortunately, you can block these kinds of sites by blocking the New Domains, Newly Seen Domains, and Parked & For Sale Domains categories. These categories specifically target sites that are very new and haven’t had a chance to be scanned yet.
The CIPA Filter category is also a good idea because it blocks websites that are generally considered to be inappropriate for schools, which includes websites with gambling or adult content.
The next step is to connect your iPhone to your Content Policy, then enforce it with Supervised Mode and Config Files . Using Tech Lockdown’s Supervised Mode manager tool, it only takes a few minutes to enable Supervised Mode on an iPhone .
Config Files control how your iPhone behaves. If you're a Tech Lockdown member, one of the ways your iPhone is connected to the filter is by setting up a filtered VPN.
To protect it, you should use Tech Lockdown’s Config Generator to enforce the VPN and then block any new VPNs from being added, even if the app was downloaded from the App Store.
This ensures that you have a setup that is very difficult to disable compared to what’s normally possible to do with an app downloaded from the App Store; there’s no app to remove or permissions that you can disable!
Set Up Self-Exclusion for Gambling Sites
Some gambling websites or platforms have something called a Self-Exclusion Application process that you can sign up for, which is supposed to block you from creating or logging in to an existing account on specific gambling sites.
Depending on where you live, there are also national or state-level Self-Exclusion programs you can enroll in that automatically apply to most gambling platforms for you. Unfortunately, if you're in the United States, it usually depends on where you live, as not all States have a program you can sign up for that gambling platforms are obligated to comply with.
It’s worth noting that Self-Exclusion is supposed to prevent you from logging in to or generally using gambling platforms, but it doesn’t completely block the website or the app. If possible, we recommend using Self-Exclusion and content filtering to cover most scenarios.