Why blur instead of block?
Blocking breaks pages and hides that anything was there at all. Blurring keeps every site fully usable — the layout stays intact, and you always have the choice to reveal something deliberately. For many people avoiding gambling, removing the ambush is what matters; the control stays with you.
What counts as gambling content?
Content that promotes, advertises, or depicts real-money gambling: casino and slot videos, sports betting ads and odds, bookmaker promotions, poker for money, lotteries, and links to gambling sites. Casual language ("I bet you can't"), gambling-recovery communities, and news about the gambling industry are recognized as not-gambling and stay visible.
What do I need for the AI to work?
Chrome 138 or newer on a reasonably capable computer. Chrome downloads the Gemini Nano model once (a few gigabytes) when you enable it from the GambleBlur popup. If your machine can't run the model, GambleBlur falls back to a conservative keyword engine that never blurs on a lone ambiguous word.
Does it slow down my browsing?
Page scanning is lightweight and instant. AI checks run in the background and in parallel, with results cached permanently — so a page you've seen before is protected with no AI work at all. Deep scan mode is heavier by design and entirely optional.
Is my data collected?
No. There are no servers, no accounts, no analytics. The AI runs inside Chrome on your device, and the only things stored are your settings and a local cache of blur/show verdicts — which you can clear anytime from the popup.
Can it catch every single gambling ad?
It catches the overwhelming majority through layered detection — text, brands, links, ad frames, and image analysis. The honest edge case: ads drawn entirely inside canvas or video elements with no fetchable image can't be visually analyzed. Detection improves as the underlying model does.
Are you maintaining the list of gambling brands?
Yes — the extension ships with a curated list of major bookmakers, casinos, sweepstakes casinos, and gambling domains, and it's updated with every release. But the brand list is only the fast path, not the safety net: content from brands that aren't on any list still gets caught by the AI layer, because the AI judges what the content actually is — the wording, the offer, the imagery — not just whose name is on it. A brand new casino nobody has heard of gets blurred the same way.
Does it detect lottery sites and lottery content?
Yes. Lotteries are gambling, and GambleBlur treats them that way: lottery and lotto terminology, jackpot promotions (Powerball, Mega Millions and similar), scratch cards, and links to lottery sites are all detected and blurred. If you have a legitimate reason to use a specific site, you can pause GambleBlur on just that site from the popup — everything else stays protected.
How does it compare to blockers like Gamban, BetBlocker, or GamBlock?
They solve different halves of the problem. Site blockers stop you from reaching gambling sites — a hard wall, and if that's what keeps you safe, keep it. GambleBlur deals with the gambling that comes to you: the betting ads on sports sites, the slot videos in your YouTube feed, the promos on news pages — places a site blocker can't touch because the page itself isn't a gambling site. They work well together: a blocker as the wall, GambleBlur as the filter for everywhere else. And GambleBlur is completely free, with no account or subscription.
