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My son is gambling. What can I do

If they are an adult you cannot block their phone, but you can be the person they name.

Updated October 2026

If they are an adult, the phone is theirs

You may be hoping this sentence is wrong, so it is worth saying exactly why it is not.

An app that seals gambling apps on an iPhone does it through Apple's Screen Time controls, and an app can only use those on the phone it is installed on, with permission granted by the person signed in there. Nothing you install on your phone reaches theirs. There is no account setting, no shared plan and no support call that would seal an adult's apps on your say so.

The practical version of that is worth holding on to. Anything you set up without them can be undone in Settings in under a minute, and they will see that you did it. You would spend the trust you need for the next conversation and get nothing lasting for it.

What does last is an arrangement they enter. They seal the phone themselves, with no end date on it, and they name one person who has to be asked before it can end. If that person is you, then the block cannot come off quietly, which is the only durable thing an outsider can add.

If the phone belongs to a child, the answer is Apple's

This is a genuinely different situation and it deserves a straight answer rather than a sale.

Apple's own support page on Family Sharing states that it 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 belong to a Family Sharing group. Apple's page on parental controls states that once Family Sharing is set up and the child's account is in the group, you turn on Content and Privacy Restrictions, which is what controls the apps and content they can reach. That is the mechanism, it is built into the phone, it costs nothing, and it is designed for exactly this.

Fold’em is not that. It is a commitment device an adult puts on their own phone with a second person named on it, and it has no parental mode and no child account. If your child is a minor, set up Family Sharing and use Apple's controls, and treat anything on this site as background reading rather than the tool for the job. Saying so costs us an install and it is the truth.

What being named actually gets you

If your adult child does seal their phone and names you, this is the whole of your part in it.

They invite you, and you accept in Fold’em on your own iPhone, signed in to your own account; if you do not have the app yet, their link opens a short page saying who asked and that a supporter account costs nothing, then takes you to the App Store. Before you accept, the app shows you exactly what you will and will not see. After that, their protection shows on the card you hold for them, and you are only ever asked to answer a request: to end protection, to end a Lockdown sooner or to pass the key on.

Asking to end protection, when you have a keyholder You ask to end protection. Your keyholder has seven days to answer: their page can say no, or show the code you scan in person. Two arms leave that decision and end the request: a no, and seven days of silence. The third arm is a yes, given in person, which starts a wait of 48 hours. At the end of that wait the request is ready, every shield still applied, and you can end protection. A ready request stays available for seven days and then closes, with your protection carrying on. ASKING TO END PROTECTION You ask to end it Mom decides 7 days to answer Say no SHE AGREES IN PERSON 48 h 48 hoursfrom her yes It closes she says no, or 7 days of silence It is ready and you can end protection Available for 7 days then it closes, and protection carries on Asking to end protection, when you have a keyholder You ask to end protection. Your keyholder has seven days to answer: their page can say no, or show the code you scan in person. Two arms leave that decision and end the request: a no, and seven days of silence. The third arm is a yes, given in person, which starts a wait of 48 hours. At the end of that wait the request is ready, every shield still applied, and you can end protection. A ready request stays available for seven days and then closes, with your protection carrying on. ASKING TO END PROTECTION You ask to end it Mom decides 7 days to answer Say no SHE AGREES IN PERSON 48 h 48 hoursfrom her yes It closes she says no, or 7 days of silence The request is ready and you can end protection Available for 7 days then it closes, and protection carries on
With a keyholder, asking to end protection runs: you ask, they have seven days to answer, and a no or seven days of silence closes the request. An agreement given in person starts a 48 hour wait, and then the request is ready and you can end protection. A ready request stays available for seven days, and if you never use it, it closes and your protection carries on.

Saying no is one tap in your app, and your phone confirms it is you first. If you say no they are told, with no reason attached, and the request closes there. A denial is a denial. They can ask again 48 hours later, and that is a fresh request rather than the one you closed coming back.

Letting them out cannot be done at a distance at all. Your app shows an approval code and they scan it with the app on their phone while you are together; no web page and no email can do it. Even then a wait of 48 hours starts from the moment you said yes.

And if you say nothing, the request closes after seven days and their protection carries on unchanged. Silence is not a yes. Not answering is not the safe middle it looks like either: it leaves them waiting a week to be told nothing. It is the one part of the role that surprises people, so it is worth reading what happens if you do nothing before you accept.

Whether any of this is your fault

It is not, and the design of the role is the argument rather than a reassurance.

Holding a key gives you one power, which is to answer a request. It applies to the blocks on one iPhone and to nothing else. You cannot start their protection, end it, or shorten or cancel a wait, and nothing you are shown would tell you whether anybody gambled: no app or site names, no browsing, no amounts of money, and no text they typed ever reaches a supporter at all.

That means a green card is not proof that things are fine and a turned card is not proof that they are not. It reports whether the blocks on one phone are running. It is easy to read the card as a daily verdict on a person, and it cannot carry that weight. The help page on responsibility states the same thing from inside the app.

If it is your parent who gambles

Everything above applies with the roles reversed, and one thing gets harder.

The mechanism is identical, because it never depended on who is older: an adult seals their own phone, names one person, and that person answers one question when it is asked. A daughter or a son can hold a key exactly as a parent can, and the app has no notion of which of you it is.

What is harder is the asking. A parent is used to being the one who sets terms, and being asked to hand a child the ability to say no to them is a real reversal, not a formality. It helps to be concrete: you are not asking to be told what they spend or where they browse, because none of that is ever sent to you. You are asking to be the phone call that stands between a bad evening and an unlocked app.

If you are the one who would be asked, or the one asking, the page on how to ask carries the wording and the moment the request lands.

What none of this reaches

One iPhone, and only for as long as they leave it sealed. A second phone, a laptop, a betting shop and cash are all outside it, and none of them produces an event that anybody sees.

It is also not treatment or advice, and it is not a substitute for the support that exists for families. The organisations on the page for people beside someone who gambles are named there first for that reason, and they are for you rather than for the person you are worried about.

Not the page you came for?

The help center answers how the app behaves, screen by screen. If your question is not there, write to us. A person reads it and answers within two working days.

Email support@foldem.app

If you need someone now

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Gam-Anon is a community for people supporting someone who gambles.