What this is, and what it is not.

Last updated 8 August 2026

1. About these terms

Guardian is a mobile application operated by Detect The Bet ("Guardian," "we," "us," or "our"). These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a contract between you and us covering the Guardian mobile app, the Guardian website, and everything we provide through them (together, the "Service").

You accept these Terms by creating an account or using the Service. If you are accepting on behalf of anyone else, you represent that you have the authority to do so.

2. You must be 18 or older

Guardian is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly permit anyone under 18 to create an account. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it and delete the data associated with it.

3. What Guardian does

Guardian reports gambling charges it can identify on the accounts you connect. It is a detection tool, not a guarantee. It reads; it never writes. It cannot block a transaction, move money, or change anything about your account. If you need charges actually blocked, that control sits with your bank.

What Guardian shows you is our opinion about what a charge appears to be, formed by comparing the description your bank gave us against a registry of gambling and gambling-adjacent merchants that we maintain. Merchant descriptions are frequently ambiguous, abbreviated, recycled between unrelated businesses, or deliberately disguised. A charge we flag may be innocent. A charge we do not flag may not be.

4. We never touch your money

This is the most important operational fact about the Service, so we state it as a term and not only as marketing:

• We request read-only transaction data from your financial institution and nothing else. We do not request the permissions that would let us initiate a payment, move funds, or read the account and routing numbers used to do so.
• We cannot deposit into, withdraw from, transfer between, freeze, close, or place a hold on any account you connect. We have no mechanism to do any of those things, not merely a policy against it.
• We are not a bank, a credit union, a money transmitter, a money services business, a broker-dealer, a payment processor, or a lender. We hold no customer funds of any kind, and we do not issue cards.
• We cannot block, decline, reverse, or dispute a charge. Only the institution that issued your card or holds your account can do that.

5. Finding nothing is not proof that nothing happened

A clear screen means nothing matched on what we could see, over the window your bank released. Cash is invisible to us. So is an account you have not connected, and money moved inside an app we are not connected to. Gambling operators also change the names they bill under specifically to avoid being recognized. The app states this where it reports results, and you should read it the same way here.

You agree that you will not treat an absence of findings as evidence that no gambling occurred, and that you will not rely on the Service as your only means of knowing what is happening in your household.

6. Your accounts, and your authority over them

• You must be the legal accountholder of any card or account you connect.
• If you label an account as belonging to someone in your household, you must be the parent or legal guardian of that person, and the account must still be yours.
• You may not connect an account belonging to another adult without their knowledge and permission.
• You represent and warrant that you have every right and authorisation necessary to connect each account you connect, to permit us to receive its transaction data, and to direct us to analyse that data. You are responsible for the accuracy of that representation, and we rely on it.

7. Connecting accounts through Plaid

You connect accounts through Plaid Inc. ("Plaid"), a third-party service that communicates with financial institutions on your behalf. When you connect an account, you authorise and instruct Plaid to obtain transaction information from the institution you select and to provide it to us.

You enter your bank credentials directly into Plaid's own interface. We never see, never receive, and never store them. Because that exchange happens inside Plaid rather than inside our systems, we are not responsible for it, even though it takes place during a session in our app. Your use of Plaid is governed by Plaid's own terms and privacy policy, which you should read.

You should understand the limits of data obtained this way:

• It can be late. Data reaches us after it reaches your bank, sometimes by days. Pending charges may change or disappear.
• It can be incomplete. Institutions release different fields and different amounts of history. Some accounts cannot be connected at all.
• It can break. Connections expire, banks change their systems, and a connection can stop delivering data without either of us being told promptly.
• It is not the official record. Your bank's own statement is. Where the two disagree, your bank is right and we are wrong.

We are not responsible for the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of information we receive from Plaid or from your financial institution. You remain responsible for monitoring your own accounts directly.

You can disconnect any account at any time from Settings. When you do, we stop receiving data for it and delete the data we hold for it.

8. The people you are watching for

Guardian exists to help a parent or guardian notice gambling activity on an account they own that someone in their household uses. That means the Service will often produce information about a person who is not you, including a minor.

• The account must be yours. Guardian analyses transactions on accounts you legally hold. It does not connect to an account held by your child in their own name.
• Labels you apply are yours. When you name a card after a person, that name is a label you chose for your own reference. We do not verify it and we do not ask you for that person's identity documents.
• You are responsible for how you use what you learn. Laws about monitoring family members vary by state and by the age and legal status of the person involved. You are responsible for complying with them.
• We do not sell information about the people in your household, and we do not sell your transaction data. See our Privacy Policy.

9. Sharing with a second adult

You can give one other adult access to the findings on one child. They see the charges we flagged and nothing else on your card. They cannot invite anyone else, and you can end their access at any time. They must be 18 or older, and before they can accept they have to confirm it themselves, on the same terms you did.

You are responsible for who you invite. By inviting someone, you confirm that you are entitled to share this information with them.

10. What Guardian costs

Guardian is currently free. There is no charge for monitoring, findings, or alerts during this period.

We may introduce paid plans in the future. If we do:

• We will tell you before any charge, and you will have to affirmatively agree to it.
• If you choose not to subscribe, we may stop monitoring your accounts and stop sending alerts. Your historical findings and your ability to delete your data will remain available to you.
• Any subscription purchased through the Apple App Store is billed by Apple and governed by Apple's terms, including its refund policy. We cannot issue refunds on Apple's behalf.

Your mobile carrier may charge you for data used by the app. That is between you and your carrier.

11. Notifications and electronic communications

By creating an account, you consent to receive communications from us electronically, including by email, in-app message, and push notification. Electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that a communication be in writing.

The Service is built around alerting you. If you turn off notifications, whether in the app or in your device settings, you may not learn about a finding until you open the app. We are not liable for anything that follows from an alert you chose not to receive, or from an alert that your device, carrier, or operating system failed to deliver.

Notifications may reveal sensitive information on your lock screen. Managing who can see your device is your responsibility.

12. Your account and its security

You are responsible for keeping your login credentials and your device secure, and for everything done through your account. Tell us promptly at support@detecthebet.com if you believe someone else has gained access to it.

You may not share your account, sell it, or transfer it to anyone else.

13. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Connect an account you do not legally hold, or that you lack authority to connect.
• Use the Service to surveil, stalk, harass, or control an adult who has not agreed to it, including a partner or former partner.
• Use the Service to make decisions about anyone's credit, employment, housing, insurance, or eligibility for any benefit. Guardian is not a consumer reporting agency, its output is not a consumer report, and it must not be used for any purpose covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, scrape, or attempt to extract our merchant registry, detection logic, or any part of the Service, or use the Service to build a competing product.
• Probe, overload, or interfere with the Service or its infrastructure, or attempt to access data belonging to anyone else.
• Use the Service to break any law, or to facilitate anyone else doing so.

We may suspend or close an account that we reasonably believe is being used this way.

14. Our property, and your licence

The Service, including its software, design, text, and in particular our merchant registry and detection methods, belongs to us and is protected by intellectual property law. We grant you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the Guardian app for your own household's use, subject to these Terms. Nothing else is granted, by implication or otherwise.

Your transaction data is yours. Nothing in this section gives us ownership of it.

15. Feedback

If you send us ideas or suggestions about the Service, we may use them freely, without obligation or compensation to you. Please do not send us anything you consider confidential.

16. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, what we do with it, and what we never do with it. It is part of these Terms.

17. What Guardian is not

It is not financial advice, legal advice, therapy or a clinical assessment. It reports what it found on a bank statement. If gambling is harming you or someone in your household, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-522-4700, free and confidential, 24 hours.

Guardian does not diagnose a gambling disorder, does not measure the severity of one, and does not tell you what to do about what it finds. Decisions about your family are yours. If you need professional help, seek it from a professional.

18. Availability

We do not promise the service is uninterrupted. Bank connections break, banks change their systems, and data arrives late or not at all. Where that affects what we can tell you, the app says so rather than showing you a number it cannot support.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. If we discontinue the Service entirely, we will give you reasonable notice and an opportunity to export or delete your data.

19. Ending it

You can disconnect any card, or delete your account and everything we hold, at any time from Settings. Deletion is permanent: we cannot recover a deleted account, and neither can you. It leaves the live service immediately, and encrypted backups rotate within 30 days, which the Privacy Policy sets out in full.

We may suspend or terminate your access at any time if you breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue the Service. Where the circumstances allow it, we will tell you.

Sections 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, and 20 through 27 survive termination.

20. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE SERVICE, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE.

WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL DETECT ANY PARTICULAR TRANSACTION, THAT IT WILL DETECT ALL GAMBLING ACTIVITY, THAT WHAT IT FLAGS IS IN FACT GAMBLING, THAT IT WILL BE AVAILABLE OR UNINTERRUPTED, THAT ALERTS WILL BE DELIVERED OR DELIVERED ON TIME, OR THAT DATA RECEIVED FROM PLAID OR FROM YOUR FINANCIAL INSTITUTION WILL BE TIMELY, COMPLETE, OR ACCURATE. YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES, SO SOME OF THESE EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

21. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, NEITHER WE NOR OUR OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, AFFILIATES, OR SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE, UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY HARM ARISING FROM: GAMBLING ACTIVITY THAT THE SERVICE DID NOT DETECT OR DID NOT DETECT IN TIME; A CHARGE THE SERVICE FLAGGED THAT WAS NOT IN FACT GAMBLING, INCLUDING ANY CONSEQUENCE OF A DECISION YOU MADE IN RELIANCE ON IT; ANY ALERT THAT WAS NOT SENT, NOT DELIVERED, OR DELIVERED LATE; ANY FAILURE, DELAY, OR INACCURACY OF PLAID OR OF YOUR FINANCIAL INSTITUTION; ANY ACT OR OMISSION OF ANY PERSON IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD; OR ANY CIRCUMSTANCE BEYOND OUR REASONABLE CONTROL.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO SOME OF THESE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. NOTHING IN THESE TERMS LIMITS LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED BY LAW, INCLUDING LIABILITY FOR FRAUD OR WILFUL MISCONDUCT.

22. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Detect The Bet and its officers, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates from any claim, demand, loss, or expense, including reasonable legal fees, brought by a third party and arising out of your breach of these Terms, your violation of any law or of anyone's rights, your connection of an account you were not entitled to connect, or your use of what the Service told you.

23. Dispute resolution; class action waiver

23.1 Talk to us first

Most problems can be solved quickly. Before starting arbitration, please email support@detecthebet.com describing the problem and what you want. Give us 30 days to resolve it. This step is a requirement, and it applies to us as well as to you.

23.2 Agreement to arbitrate

THESE TERMS ARE GOVERNED BY THE FEDERAL ARBITRATION ACT. EXCEPT AS STATED IN 23.4, YOU AND WE AGREE TO RESOLVE ALL DISPUTES BETWEEN US BY INDIVIDUAL, BINDING ARBITRATION RATHER THAN IN COURT. A "DISPUTE" MEANS ANY CLAIM OR CONTROVERSY RELATING IN ANY WAY TO THE SERVICE, YOUR ACCOUNT, THESE TERMS, OR OUR RELATIONSHIP, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, STATUTE, TORT, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, INCLUDING CLAIMS THAT AROSE BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED THESE TERMS. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NO JUDGE OR JURY IN ARBITRATION AND THAT REVIEW OF AN ARBITRATION AWARD IS LIMITED.

Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. If your claim is for $25,000 or less, you may choose to have it decided on documents alone, by telephone, or by video. Any in-person hearing will be held in the county where you live, or somewhere else you and we agree on. The arbitrator may award any relief a court could award to you individually.

23.3 Class action waiver

YOU AND WE AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE MORE THAN ONE PERSON'S CLAIMS. IF THIS PARAGRAPH IS FOUND UNENFORCEABLE AS TO ANY CLAIM, THAT CLAIM ALONE WILL PROCEED IN COURT AND THE REST OF SECTION 23 WILL STILL APPLY.

23.4 What is not covered

Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court. Either of us may seek an injunction in court to protect intellectual property or to stop unauthorised access to the Service. Nothing here prevents you from reporting anything to a government agency.

23.5 Your 30-day right to opt out

24. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. For any dispute not subject to arbitration, you and we agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in New York County, New York. If you are a consumer, nothing in this section deprives you of the protection of the mandatory laws of the place where you live.

25. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms. If a change is material, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and we will change the date at the top of this page. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept it. If you do not accept it, delete your account.

A change to section 23 will not apply to a dispute we already knew about.

26. Notices

Notices to you may be given in the app, by push notification, or by email to the address on your account. Notices to us must be sent to support@detecthebet.com.

27. General

• Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service, and replace anything said before.
• Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is severed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stays in force.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision, we have not waived it.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• No third-party beneficiaries. Except for the Apple terms below, these Terms are between you and us alone.
• Apple. These Terms are between you and us, not Apple. Apple has no obligation to provide support for the app and is not responsible for any claim relating to it. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

28. Contact

support@detecthebet.com