Someone you love is gambling. What you can do

No app can make gambling impossible on an iPhone. The phone belongs to the person holding it, the Screen Time permission a blocker runs on is theirs to withdraw, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. What a circle changes is that the block cannot come off quietly: the person who agreed to hold the key is told when protection goes off, when the phone stops confirming, and when the subscription lapses.

Take the support that exists for you

Before anything about phones. Every organisation below exists for you rather than for the person who gambles. None of them is us, none of them charges, and none of them needs the person you are worried about to agree to anything.

• Gam-Anon is a fellowship of meetings for the family and friends of someone who gambles. The NHS lists it first among the places to go if you are affected by another person's gambling.
• In the United Kingdom the National Gambling Helpline is run by GamCare on 0808 8020 133. The NHS states that it is free, that it runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and that it is there for information, support and counselling. It takes calls from people affected by somebody else's gambling, not only from the person gambling.
• The NHS page on gambling names its own treatment clinics, and beside them GamFam, a lived experience support network, and Gambling with Lives, for people bereaved by a gambling related suicide.
• In the United States the National Council on Problem Gambling keeps a directory called Help by State, which in its own words connects you with local support and resources across all 50 states.

The block at the foot of this page carries the numbers again.

What you can do from outside their phone

The honest list is short, and it is short for a reason worth knowing before you spend a weekend looking for a way around it.

You cannot install Fold'em on their iPhone for them. The block runs on Apple's Screen Time controls, and only the person sitting at that phone, signed in on it, can grant an app permission to use them. There is no remote install and no family plan that seals another adult's apps.

You cannot end it for them either, and you cannot start it. A keyholder answers one question when it is asked and holds no other lever. That is not a gap in the product; it is what makes an adult willing to hand over a key at all.

A minor's phone is a different question with a real answer, and the answer is Apple's, not ours. Apple's own support pages say that Family Sharing lets a parent or guardian manage a child's device with Screen Time and parental controls, and that where it is legally required an Apple Account created for a child under 18 has to be part of a Family Sharing group. If the phone is a child's, that is the route, and the page for parents says so rather than selling you an app that does not fit.

What you can do is be asked. Somebody who seals their phone names one person to hold the key, and the point of naming you is that leaving early then costs a conversation.

What holding a key actually is

They install the app, choose which apps and sites to seal and for how long, and share an invite link with you. The link is signed and lives 72 hours. You open it, read three rows stating exactly what you will and will not see, give an email address, and type a six digit code sent to it. Every alert about them arrives by email, so the code is what proves the address reaches you. A Wallet pass then lands on your phone with their status on its face.

After that you have exactly one power. If they ask to end the term early, the request reaches you and you answer it.

Keeping the lock is one tap, from anywhere, on a page your email links to. Your phone confirms it is you before the tap counts, so a forwarded link cannot answer in your name. If you keep the lock they are told, with no reason attached, and they can ask again after 48 hours.

Letting them out is only ever done in person. There is no approve button on any page, in any email, or on the pass. Approving means they scan the code carried on your Wallet pass with the app on their phone while the two of you are standing together, and even then nothing opens that day: a wait of at least 72 hours starts from the moment you said yes.

Doing nothing is a decision, and it is the slower version of letting them out. If seven days pass with no answer, the server approves the request on its own and records it as though they had no keyholder, which starts a wait of fourteen days rather than 72 hours. Nothing about their phone changes during those seven days, and keeping the lock stays available for all of them.

At the end of any of those waits the server marks a release that they still have to take, and it holds that release for thirty days. Nothing opens by itself.

The three things you are told

Three events reach you by email, they are the same three for everybody, and neither they nor you can switch them off.

1. Protection went off. Screen Time permission was switched off on that phone, or the shield Fold'em applied is gone while a lock is still running. Your card changes to Protection off.
2. The phone stopped confirming. No reading of any kind arrived for 24 hours. Your card reads Not confirmed, and the letter says outright that most of the time this is a dead battery or airplane mode.
3. The subscription lapsed. The plan ran out, and the letter carries the date protection would end if renewal stays off.

Here is a fact most tools in this category will not tell you: one thing that weakens protection sends no letter at all. Fold'em's web shield is a DNS setting on the phone, and switching that setting off in iOS Settings sends you nothing. If their apps are sealed it changes nothing on your pass either; only a phone that sealed the web shield alone shows it there. A page that told you protection drops are always mailed would be lying to you about the one case where it is not. The full account of what reaches you sets the three letters and that one exception out side by side.

What you can see, and what you never see

A keyholder is shown eleven things, and that list is written out in full in exactly one place on this site rather than paraphrased on five. Read it before you accept: what a keyholder can see, and the same list from their side at what my keyholder sees.

The shape of it is status, counts, dates and event kinds. You never see which apps or sites were involved, anything they browse, any amount of money, or anything they typed. There is no spend figure anywhere in what the server sends a partner, so there is nothing for a page or a pass to show you by accident.

That is deliberate, and it is the reason a person is willing to name you. A tool that reported their browsing to you would be a monitoring tool, and nobody hands the key to one of those.

What none of this reaches

Fold'em holds one iPhone. A second phone, a laptop, a betting shop and cash are all outside it, and none of them produces an event you would see. A calm Wallet pass means the blocks on one phone are running; reading it as evidence about a person is the fastest way to turn a support into a surveillance argument.

It is also not treatment. Fold'em is a commitment device: it moves a decision to a calmer moment and puts a second person in the loop. The organisations at the top of this page do the other work, and they should be your first call rather than your last.

Can I block gambling apps on someone else's iPhone?

Not on another adult's phone, and not through us. The block runs on Apple's Screen Time controls, and only the person sitting at that handset, signed in on it, can grant an app permission to use them; there is no remote install and no plan that seals another adult's apps. A child's phone is a different question with Apple's own answer rather than ours: Apple's page on Family Sharing says it lets you manage a child's device with Screen Time and parental controls, and that Where legally required, an Apple Account created for a child under 18 needs to be part of a Family Sharing group. If the phone belongs to a child, that is the route, and the page for parents says so instead of selling you an app that does not fit. Source: Apple on Family Sharing, read 3 September 2026.

Will I be told if they turn the block off?

For three events, yes, and neither of you can switch those off: Screen Time permission going off or the shield disappearing while a lock is running, 24 hours passing with no reading of any kind from the phone, and the subscription lapsing. One weakening reaches you through nothing at all, and a page that left it out would be selling you something. The web shield is a DNS setting in iOS Settings; switching it off sends no letter, and on a phone whose apps are sealed it changes nothing on your pass either. The full account of what reaches you sets the three letters and that one exception out side by side.

What can I actually see about them?

Status, counts, dates and the kinds of events, and never a website, an app, an amount of money or anything they typed. The list is written out in full in one place on this site rather than paraphrased on five, and it is worth reading before you accept rather than after: what a keyholder can see. The shape matters more than any single item on it. A tool that reported somebody's browsing to the person worried about them would be a monitoring tool, and nobody hands the key to one of those.

Could I set it up on their phone without telling them?

No, and it would not survive the morning even if you could. Screen Time permission is granted by the person at the phone and withdrawn by them in iOS Settings whenever they like, so a block placed behind somebody's back lasts exactly as long as it takes them to find it. What lasts is the other shape. They install it, they choose what to seal and for how long, and they name you, and being named is what makes leaving early cost a conversation. How to ask them is the page for the part that is actually hard.

Where to go from here

By who you are: a partner, or a parent, or somebody worried about their own parent. By what you are working out: how to ask, and what happens the day they ask for the key back. And if they are ready to read something themselves, a page to send them, with a paragraph you can paste into a message.