Blocking and marketing are two different jobs
A blocker answers a door. Marketing does not come through that door. It arrives as a text from a five digit number, an email in a promotions folder, an advert inside a social feed, and a banner on a page that has nothing to do with betting. None of those are the sportsbook opening. All of them are the sportsbook talking.
The second thing worth knowing is that closing an account and coming off a mailing list are two separate acts. An account can be shut while the address that opened it sits in a marketing database with permission recorded against it. So the work below goes channel by channel, cheapest and most obvious first.
Last checked. Every setting path on this page was read at its own official source on 9 September 2026. These menus move. Where one has drifted, trust the linked source rather than this page.
The door half of this is a different job with different tools. One of the apps that does it is Fold'em, which seals the apps and the sites and makes ending that protection a request that takes days, and it leaves every switch on this page still worth flipping.
The operator's own channels
Start with the firms you hold an account with, because the switches for their marketing sit inside the account.
- Marketing preferences inside the account sit under a heading like Communication or My preferences, and that is where the permission actually lives. In Britain it is now a rule rather than a courtesy: the Gambling Commission's announcement of new rules boosting safety and consumer choice, published on 1 May 2024, says gambling businesses must let customers opt in to the product type they want marketing about and to the channels it arrives through, applying to online gambling only and in force from 1 May 2025.
- The STOP reply ends a marketing text. The Commission's page for players on stopping gambling marketing texts and emails says to follow the opt out instruction in the message, which usually means texting STOP to the number or short code it came from.
- The unsubscribe link ends a marketing email. The same page says to use it, and to contact the business directly and ask them to stop if the mail keeps coming.
- The Information Commissioner's Office is the escalation in the UK. That page tells players to report a business that carries on sending after an opt out.
- Self exclusion carries an obligation that closing an account does not. The Commission's guidance to operators on ensuring self excluded customers do not receive marketing materials requires them to remove the person from any marketing database the company or group uses, or flag them as someone marketing must not go to, within two days of the completed self exclusion, and to take all reasonable steps to stop third parties sending on their behalf.
That last one is why self exclusion is worth doing even when the apps are already sealed. It is the only step here that puts a duty on the other side of the table. GamCare's guidance on reducing gambling adverts online makes the same underlying point: you should only be receiving messages you gave permission for.
The advertising switch on the phone
iOS carries one advertising control of its own. It governs the ads Apple serves inside the App Store, Apple News and Stocks, and nothing else on the phone.
- Open Settings, then Privacy & Security.
- Tap Apple Advertising.
- Turn off Personalised Ads.
Apple's own page on personalised ads is blunt about what that buys you: it says this may not decrease the number of ads you receive, only that they may be less relevant. The same page covers location targeted ads, which are turned off under Privacy & Security, then Location Services, either entirely or by setting App Store and News to Never.
Google, Meta and TikTok
Three of the feeds have a topic control each, and each says in its own words that the control reduces rather than removes.
- Google keeps its controls in My Ad Center at myadcenter.google.com. Its help page on customising your ads experience describes a Sensitive tab that names Gambling beside Alcohol, Dating, Pregnancy and parenting, and Weight loss, and lets you limit it. Google states the ceiling on that plainly: "Customizing your ads doesn't block ad topics or brands."
- TikTok holds both controls in one place. Its Privacy Center page on ads and your data points to Settings and privacy, then Ads: a Personalised ads toggle decides whether your activity on and off TikTok is used to target you, and the topics themselves sit under How your ads are personalised, where each can be set to See less. TikTok says you will still see ads with personalisation off, only less relevant ones.
Meta's is the longest walk, so here it is in full. It works from Facebook or Instagram and covers both.
- Open Settings and privacy, then Settings.
- Go to Accounts Centre, then Ad preferences.
- Open the Customise ads tab.
- Choose See all beside Ad topics.
- Find the topic, open it, and choose See less.
Meta's help page on seeing less of certain ad topics says the preference is applied to every account in the same Accounts Centre, so doing it once covers a linked Facebook and Instagram pair. It also says you may still see some ads related to a topic you have turned down.
Filters and blocked senders
Unsubscribing is what stops the sending. Filtering is what you do about the mail already in flight, and about senders who ignore the first step.
- Blocking a sender takes a few taps. Apple's guide to flagging or blocking emails says to open a message from the sender, tap their email address, tap View Contact Card, then tap Block this Contact. Everyone you have blocked is listed under Settings, Privacy & Security, Blocked Contacts.
- A rule moves mail before you ever see it. Apple's page on setting up filtering rules in Mail on iCloud.com walks the path: Settings from the top of the Mailboxes list, then Rules, then a new rule that files or bins anything from a named address. It notes that a change can take up to fifteen minutes to apply and that an account can hold up to five hundred rules.
A blocked sender is not an unsubscribed sender. The message still leaves their system, and their records still count you as a live address that never objected. Unsubscribe first, filter second.
One place where the law is moving
The Australian Government's Department of Infrastructure records on its gambling reforms 2026 page that the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 passed Parliament on 19 August 2026, restricting wagering advertising and banning the direct marketing of inducements to customers at risk, with the reforms commencing from 1 January 2027.
That is a dated fact and not a plan for your week. If you are in Australia, self exclusion in Australia covers BetStop and what the register does and does not reach.
What none of this reaches
No app on a phone, Fold'em included, can strip a gambling advert out of a live broadcast, a podcast read, a hoarding at a ground, a group chat, or somebody else's screen held up in front of you. An advertising preference reduces targeting. It does not remove the category, and all three platforms above say so in their own help pages. This is a reduction, not a wall. What it does is bring the volume down far enough that what is left is somebody talking near you rather than somebody talking to you by name.
If what you want is the door rather than the mail, how to block betting sites on iPhone covers that, and it is a different job with different tools. What can Fold'em not block sets out the edges of the blocking half, and how Fold'em's notifications are delivered is the nearest thing to this page inside the app itself.
