Self-Exclusion: the National Register and the Account Switch

Two things are commonly called self-exclusion in Portugal and they are not the same thing at all. One is a national register run by the regulator that applies across every licensed operator simultaneously. The other is a button inside a single casino account that closes that account and nothing else. Knowing which one you need is the whole point of this page.

The RAMJ: a register, not a setting

The RAMJ — Registo de Autoexclusão — is managed by the SRIJ, the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos within Turismo de Portugal. A request is made online using Chave Móvel Digital or Cartão de Cidadão, or in person, and it enters a central register that every operator licensed in Portugal is obliged to consult. Registration blocks access across all of them at once and stops their marketing reaching you.

That reach is what makes it structurally different from anything a single site can offer. Closing one account leaves every other site untouched, and the sector is large enough that the gap is usually filled within an evening. The RAMJ closes the whole licensed market in one action, which is why it is the right tool whenever the problem is with gambling rather than with one operator.

Its limit is equally important to state. The register covers operators licensed in Portugal — the .pt sites on the SRIJ's public list. Casina is not on that list; it works under international licensing, and a RAMJ registration does not reach it. Anyone using the register as their main protection should therefore pair it with the measures in the last section below, because the register alone leaves offshore sites open.

What an operator's own tools do

Inside any individual account sits a graded set of controls, and they are worth using long before anything feels like a problem.

A deposit limit caps the money that may enter the account over a day, a week or a month; when it is reached the cashier simply stops accepting payments until the period rolls over. The asymmetry built into it is deliberate: lowering a limit applies immediately, raising one waits out a cooling-off period, so the limit cannot be moved in the moment you most want to move it. A loss limit works on net losses instead, and a wager limit caps total turnover however the results fall.

Session reminders and session limits handle time rather than money — the first interrupts play at intervals with the elapsed time and the running balance, the second ends the session outright. A time-out is a short fixed break, typically a day to a month, during which no deposit and no bet is accepted while the balance stays where it is.

Account self-exclusion is the heaviest of them: a long closure, marketing stopped, and generally no early reversal even on request. Real money in the account is normally returned; active bonuses and their winnings are usually forfeited, which is a reason to settle any open bonus first if you can do so without playing more than you intended.

Choosing between them

Use limits when you are enjoying yourself and want to keep it that way — they are maintenance, not intervention. Use a time-out when a session or a week has gone further than planned and you want a hard stop with a defined end. Use account self-exclusion when one site has become a problem. Use the RAMJ when gambling itself has, because that is the only one of the four that closes the door on more than a single tab.

The measures that reach everywhere

Because the register cannot cover offshore operators, the practical stack for anyone who needs a real stop has three more layers. Most Portuguese banks now let a card block gambling merchant categories from inside their own app, which stops payments at the source regardless of which site is asking. Blocking software installed on a phone and a computer removes the sites from reach. And removing stored cards and saved passwords adds the friction that a decided moment relies on.

Alongside that, help is free and confidential. Linha Vida answers on 1414, SICAD covers addictive behaviours as a public service and points towards local treatment, and Jogadores Anónimos Portugal runs peer groups. None of them requires you to have hit a crisis first. The wider set of safeguards is described on our responsible gambling page, and if the reason you are here is a dispute rather than control, our complaints page covers escalation.