Non GamStop No Deposit Bonus and the Real Cost of an Unregulated Offer

A non GamStop no deposit bonus is a small free balance from a casino that holds no Gambling Commission licence, so UK self-exclusion and UK player protections do not apply to it. The free chip is not the point; the wagering multiple, the maximum cashout cap and the decision-making belong to whoever wrote the terms.

I write about UK gambling for a living, and the phrase I keep meeting in this corner of it is "free". Free spins, free chips, free balance, no deposit needed. It is a word chosen rather than earned. Behind it sits a number — a wagering multiple, a cashout ceiling, a maximum bet while the requirement runs — and behind that sits a company that holds no licence from the Gambling Commission and therefore sits outside the one rulebook British players can actually point a regulator at. That is the whole story, and it is worth 1,900 words of detail. The scheme's name is often typed "gamestop", which says something about how casually it enters a person's head, but it is written GamStop on anything official.

For a moment, the offer looks like arithmetic: nothing in, something out. The arithmetic is wrong. A no-deposit bonus carries the stiffest terms on the menu, because the operator has staked money with no deposit of yours to recover it from, and it replaces that missing deposit with conditions. Meanwhile the UK-licensed market — where Gambling Commission figures, published 17 September 2026, put total Great Britain gross gambling yield at £17.5 billion for April 2025 to March 2026 — has spent five years being told exactly what a bonus may and may not do. From 19 January 2026, Social Responsibility Code 5.1.1 caps wagering requirements at ten times and bans incentives that mix two or more types of gambling product. A bonus from a site without a GB licence is not bound by any of it. Where the sheet has no number, the terms usually do not either.

Underneath all of it runs the theme of this site: where a complaint can go and who decides it. That single question sorts this market better than any bonus table.

What a Non GamStop Casino No Deposit Bonus Actually Is

A non GamStop casino no deposit bonus is an incentive offered by an operator with no Gambling Commission licence, typically a small credit, a handful of free spins or a fixed cash sum, in exchange for registering and confirming an email or phone number. Nobody checked whether the person registering is excluded elsewhere, because that operator is not connected to the scheme.

The scheme itself is not vague. GamStop Online is the UK's national online self-exclusion scheme, run by The National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, company number 10504973. It is free to use, it has been live since 27 April 2018, and in November 2025 it was renamed Gamstop Online while the betting shop scheme formerly called MOSES became Gamstop Betting Shops. You may register for six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal. Signing up takes a few minutes; the block can take up to 24 hours to bite.

Three facts about it matter here, and none of them is negotiable. Once registered, the exclusion cannot be cancelled or deactivated during the term, and it stays in place after that term unless the person contacts GamStop to remove it. Under terms last updated 20 May 2026, auto-renewal may only be switched off in the final six months of a five-year term, and where nobody deactivates, GamStop holds the data through a further automatic seven-year self-exclusion period during which operators are told of the earlier exclusion. The Group's 2025 annual report devotes a section to its refusal to remove registrations early. An offshore casino is never a way round that, because the exclusio[…]

Where the obligations land is licensing. Since 31 March 2020 every online gambling operator must be part of GAMSTOP as a condition of its Commission licence, under Social Responsibility Code 3.5.5 of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice, which states that licensees must participate in the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. In April 2020 the Commission added a requirement to check the whole customer base for GamStop registration at least every 24 hours, which also stopped registered people receiving direct marketing. In April 2020 two online operators, one licensee and Sportito, had their licences suspended for failing to integrate by the deadline.

A site holding no GB licence is not a party to any of it. Gambling Commission guidance states plainly that GamStop Online can only exclude a person from participating operators and cannot prevent access to services run by organisations that do not participate. Trade and press sources put it more bluntly — that offshore operators are not connected to the scheme — a claim stated in the trade and press rather than on a regulator's page, though it is consistent with GamStop's own terms of use.

Non GamStop Casinos No Deposit Bonus Terms and Where the Money Goes

A non GamStop casinos no deposit bonus is best judged by four clauses, and none of them is advertised: the wagering multiple, the game-weighting chart, the maximum cashout cap, and the maximum bet allowed while the requirement runs. Each one can turn a credited £10 into a withdrawal of nothing.

Take an operator's published terms as a specimen rather than a warning. Ignition Casino states that casino bonus amounts carry a 25× playthrough requirement before winnings derived from them may be withdrawn, and publishes a contribution chart in which slots and specialty games count 100%, table games 20%, video poker and blackjack 10%, roulette and baccarat 5%, and craps, Hot Drop Jackpots and live dealer games 0% unless stated otherwise. BlueChip Casino states that for a deposit bonus the required bet amount is the bonus multiplied by the wager, with the deposit itself excluded from the calculation, and reserves the right to limit what may be withdrawn from bonus-generated winnings to 300% of the credited bonus, voiding the excess. Both also cap the maximum bet while wagering — €5 for regular players and €10 for VIPs at BlueChip, and at Ignition a casino maximum of 20% of the deposited amount, breach of which "may result in account closure, forfeit of the Bonus, and any winnings generated during the wagering of the Bonus".

Note the shape of that sentence. The decision is the operator's, the sanction is retrospective, and no third party is named who could look at it.

A 2026 casino-guide comparison describes offshore welcome bonuses typically at 35× to 50× and no-deposit bonuses at 40× to 60× with a €50–€100 cashout cap, though that compilation is a secondary source and should be read as a market sketch rather than a regulator's figure. What is not secondary is the contrast. Under the UK cap in force since 19 January 2026, ten times is the maximum anyone licensed here may apply, and the Commission chose that level precisely because "some licensees currently apply up to 60 times wagering requirements".

The cashout cap is the clause that kills free chips quietly. A player meets a 50× requirement on a £10 credit, arrives at £600, and discovers the ceiling is £100, with the rest voided — and there is no term requiring anyone to explain why.

The Identity Check Rule That Explains the Whole Page

The single thing this marketplace turns on is identity verification, because that is the mechanism that decides when money leaves. If a site verifies on the way out and not on the way in, then every clause above becomes enforceable at exactly the moment the player has something to lose.

In the UK, the order is settled. Licence Condition 17 has required since 7 May 2019 that a licensee obtain and verify information establishing a customer's identity before that customer is permitted to gamble, and the information must include name, address and date of birth. The Commission's stance, restated in a blog posted 12 August 2026, is that identity and age checks should be brought forward to before a deposit or a stake, and that onboarding on incomplete or inaccurate information — initials rather than full names, nicknames, commercial addresses instead of residential ones — is not good enough. A middle name used in place of a forename can create mismatches with records held elsewhere, including GAMSTOP, which weakens the exclusion itself.

Money laundering rules bite at a threshold, not at the door. Under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, which came into force on 26 June 2017, remote casinos must identify and verify a customer when deposits to take part in remote gambling, or withdrawals of funds or winnings, reach €2,000 or more. The threshold applies to a single transaction and to linked transactions — transactions that form part of the same customer's overall activity during a single logged-on session are linked, for example. A remote casino may identify a customer and verify age at registration and defer full verification until the €2,000 threshold, which the Commission calls the hybrid approach.

What protects a British player is not the threshold but the sequencing rule attached to it. Licence Condition 17.1.1 says a customer's withdrawal request must not result in a requirement for additional information if the licensee could reasonably have requested that information earlier — the carve-out being information it must obtain at that point under another legal obligation, such as an anti-money-laundering rule. Where a business delays a withdrawal over insufficient ID, the Commission states it may be in breach of Licence Condition 17 and open to regulatory action. Over a quarter of complaints reaching its Contact Centre concern identity verification, and the Commission names "fuzzy matching" through third-party providers — onboarding customers on partial or equivocal verification — as a specific concern.

Offshore, the first time is usually frictionless and the second time is not. Registration and the free chip go through on an email address. The documents request arrives when a withdrawal is attempted, or on the second or third withdrawal, or after a change of payment method. The warning signs are consistent and worth memorising: verification demanded only at withdrawal; a term permitting the operator to request documents "at any time" with no stated deadline; a requirement to wager the bonus before any verification will be considered; a maximum bet clause discovered after the fact; and a cashout cap that appears in the general terms but not on the offer page. Ignition's published terms add another wrinkle — a deposit made while a no-deposit bonus is active does not clear it, and the wagering and maximum cashout of the no-deposit bonus still apply.

None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary mechanics of a business that answers to a regulator with no power over the customer's complaint.

Five Signs an Offshore Casino Can Be Trusted With a Bonus

It Names a Regulator, and the Licence Check Survives Checking

A regulator named on a footer is a claim, not a fact. Curaçao is the test case worth knowing. The National Ordinance on Games of Chance took effect on 24 December 2024, replacing the master-licence and sub-licence model with direct licensing by the Curaçao Gaming Authority, and the legacy "orange" sub-licence certificates ended on 15 October 2025. Licensing ceased for Gaming Curaçao (365/JAZ) on 18 August 2024, Curaçao eGaming (1668/JAZ) on 1 October 2024, one licensee (8048/JAZ) on 1 November 2024 and Curaçao Interactive Licensing (5536/JAZ) on 31 January 2025. A historic /JAZ number is not proof of a current licence. The quick check is the seal: clicking a CGA Certificate of Operation Seal must redirect to cert.cga.cw, and if the certificate behind it shows a different domain from the site being viewed, the site is displaying someone else's paperwork.

Its Terms Are Readable Before Anything Is Deposited

The Commission's fair-terms guidance says simply including information in website terms and conditions is not sufficient. A trustworthy operator puts the wagering multiple, cashout cap, maximum bet and time limit on the offer page itself, with full terms no more than one click away — the standard LCCP SR Code 5.1.9 sets for marketing incentives, and the standard the Committee of Advertising Practice guidance published with the Commission applies to free bets and bonuses. If the headline is "£10 free" and the multiple is on page four of the general terms, that is the answer.

The Cashout Clause Has a Ceiling You Can Actually See

A maximum cashout cap is not automatically dishonest, but an invisible one is. Compare it to what UK terms may not do: operators may not impose, use, enforce or rely on any term placing a maximum limit on what a consumer may withdraw from their deposit balance — the Commission's own example of a prohibited term being "You may withdraw up to £50 per day and up to £500 per week". Under the CMA undertakings, firms must not deny customers access to their own money, must not remove funds from accounts unused for a period, and must not confiscate customer funds for failure to supply identity documents. Check whether the cap is expressed as a multiple of the bonus or as a flat sum, and whether it appears where the offer appears.

The Complaint Route Is Named, With a Body Behind It

Anjouan requires licensees to designate an Authority-approved ADR provider and to publish its name and contact details in player-facing terms, with operators expected to resolve a complaint within 30 days before escalation; the approved providers currently are EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and one licensee. Kahnawà:ke employs a full-time Dispute Resolution Officer. The quick check: find the dispute clause and ask who decides, how long it takes, and whether it costs anything. If the answer is a contact form and the operator's own goodwill, the term "ADR" is decoration.

Player Funds Are Segregated, and the Rating Says So

Anjouan's published standards require operators to segregate player funds from operational funds, to use random number generators certified by an approved independent testing facility, and to implement AML/CTF controls and age verification. In the UK the disclosure is a licence condition: customer funds must be kept in a separate client bank account, and businesses must choose one of three ratings — "not protected", "medium protection" or "high protection" — state which applies in their terms, and, if "not protected", remind the customer every six months that the funds are not protected in insolvency. The quick check is whether the site says anything at all. Silence is an answer, and a poor one.

Evaluating an Offer in Six Steps

1. Write the bonus's cash value next to the requirement. A £10 credit at 50× needs £500 of wagers before a penny is withdrawable. The only figure that matters is the amount that must be turned over, and it is rarely on the banner.
2. Find the maximum cashout before registering. Read the promotion's own terms, not the general terms, and if the cap is absent from both, assume the operator reserves a discretion it has not published. A cap of €50–€100 on a free chip is the norm in this segment.
3. Multiply by the game weighting. On the published charts, roulette can count 5% and live dealer 0%, so £500 of wagering may mean £10,000 staked at the table. Slots usually count 100%, and that is what a free-chip offer is priced around.
4. Check the maximum bet while wagering. A €5 cap on a £10 bonus, with bets above it rejected or worse, retrospectively voided, is a trap disguised as a rule. Ignition's variant — 20% of the deposit, breach punishable by forfeiting the bonus and its winnings — shows how much room the wording leaves.
5. Establish who decides a dispute before the dispute exists. Name the ADR provider, note the deadline for escalating, and keep the terms as they stood on the day of the offer; Anjouan's approved bodies and Kahnawà:ke's Dispute Resolution Officer are concrete examples of a named decider. Where there is none, the money has no route back.
6. Decide whether the UK-licensed alternative is worth the deposit. A ten-times cap under UK rules is a worse headline and a better deal, and it comes with a regulator, a statutory complaints route and a scheme that actually blocks the account.

Why Unregulated Bonuses Appeal to Players

There is a reason this phrase gets typed, and the Commission has already described it in a warning notice. On 20 January 2025 it issued an industry warning about casino games supplied by licensed operators appearing on unlicensed websites available to GB consumers, noting that such sites often target customers who have excluded via GAMSTOP and may have inadequate social responsibility and anti-money-laundering controls. Non GamStop casinos UK no deposit bonus searches sit at the modest end of that market at ten monthly searches, and the readers behind them are not described by a search volume.

The scale is not in doubt, even if its measurement is contested. The Commission's analysis published 5 November 2026 estimates that among respondents who had gambled online in the past four weeks, 2.5% had engaged with illegal gambling websites, with a further 1.5% in the past twelve months, while across the whole population 94.4% showed no indication of using one. Its dashboard recorded 586 illegal gambling websites accessible to GB consumers in September 2026, and 311 sites had disruption action taken against them in the second quarter of 2026–27, with 77% of disrupted sites showing a reduction in estimated traffic. Market-intelligence firm H2 Gambling Capital estimates £16.6 billion was staked with illegal operators in the UK in 2025, up from around £5 billion in 2019, with the share of gambling happening legally falling from 97% to 92%.

The enforcement toolkit has sharpened and also narrowed. Since April 2024 the Commission's Illegal Markets team has issued 3,140 cease and desist and disruption notices, comprising 2,032 cease and desist notices, 774 registrar referrals, 402 host referrals and 3 payment provider referrals, and referred 447,778 Bing and Google URLs, securing 287,961 removals. Across 160 illegal gambling websites it found an average 32% decrease in engagement after disruption, with registrar blocks producing a 91% average fall and GEO IP blocking 60%. The counterweight is in the prosecutions column: across April 2025 to March 2026 every quarter recorded 0 or 1 prosecutions commenced, one in total. Cease and desist notices are letters, not arrests.

And what of the player's own exposure? Under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 it is an offence to provide facilities for gambling without an operating licence, punishable on summary conviction by up to 51 weeks' imprisonment, a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or both. That offence attaches to the operator, not the adult customer; the Act's general gambling offences attach to those who provide facilities. The Commission states plainly that it is illegal for anyone to offer commercial gambling services to consumers in Great Britain without a Commission licence, including where the operator holds a licence in another jurisdiction. The practical risk to a player is not a summons. It is a balance that cannot be withdrawn.

Where a Complaint About a Free Chip Can Go

This is the site's angle, so it gets its own section: not whether a complaint is justified, but who is competent to decide it.

Start with what the Commission can and cannot do. It is a regulator, not an ombudsman. It cannot resolve individual complaints or help a consumer get money back, though it records all complaints and typically refers disputes to an independent third party. That is a website licence worth understanding: the body British players instinctively appeal to has, by design, no power to order a payout.

Where a GB-licensed operator is concerned, the route is defined. LCCP Social Responsibility Code 6.1.1 requires licensees to have arrangements for a customer to refer a dispute to an ADR entity free of charge if it is unresolved to the customer's satisfaction within eight weeks, and the consumer must first have gone through the operator's own complaints procedure — the operator may issue a deadlock letter confirming the wrong route is closed. Licence holders should let customers complain for at least six months from the incident, acknowledge within 24 hours where they offer 24-hour gambling facilities, complete the whole process including internal escalation within eight weeks, and answer ADR requests in full within ten working days. Operators on the Commission's approved list include IBAS and eCOGRA, and ADR bodies may consider disputes about account management or access to funds, including compensation for expenses and inconvenience.

That machinery produces decisions. eCOGRA's report for 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 records 911 disputes received, 150 valid "Deposits & Withdrawals" disputes, an average of 31 days to resolve domestic disputes, and 17.8% of completed disputes ruled for the consumer against 82.2% for the operator. Notably, 361 of 499 invalid disputes — 72.3% — had not been through the operator's internal procedure first. IBAS's 2024-25 report records 3,721 domestic disputes, 217 categorised as Banking/Financial, 20 days average completion, 65 consumer complaints upheld by written decision and 100% operator compliance with decisions in the consumer's favour in both 2023-24 and 2024-25. The gap between 17.8% and a near-total compliance rate is the whole value of a named decider.

Offshore, the question becomes sharper. Anjouan requires a designated, Authority-approved ADR provider named in player-facing terms, and gives operators 30 days before escalation. Kahnawà:ke's rules require the licensee's relationship with players to be contractual and free of unfair terms, let a player set limits including zero, and provide a permanent, irrevocable voluntary self-exclusion — with a player who breaches it forfeiting deposits and winnings to a third-party charity chosen by the Commission. Neither is a British regulator. Neither applies UK consumer law.

The last lever is the one most players never pull. The Commission's financial disruption strategy includes reporting payment transaction data to the Visa Operator Scheme, described by the Commission as critical and still early-stage; it made its first referral to Visa in January 2025 after a test purchase on an unlicensed website, and has since made three more covering three separate unlicensed sites. A card scheme is not a court, but it can decline the transaction, and that is more than a contact form will do.

What the Rules Look Like When They Do Apply

It is worth being concrete about what a British player gives up, because the difference is not ideological. Under UK rules, wagering requirements must not apply to play with a deposit balance; deposit and bonus balances must always be displayed separately; and players must be allowed to withdraw their deposit balance at any time, including when a bonus is pending or active. The Commission may not impose, and licensees may not rely on, a term limiting what can be withdrawn from a deposit balance. Un-staked deposits remain the customer's, and a licensee may not have a term allowing confiscation of money deposited but not yet staked.

Complaints are not the only mechanism English law supplies. The CMA's do's and don'ts tell operators to let customers exit a promotion at any time with their remaining deposit plus winnings from play with that deposit, to ensure customers can tell bonus funds apart from their own money, and not to change the deal on a "free bet" once play has begun. The CMA's investigation of the remote gambling sector ran from 21 October 2016 to 29 April 2019 and produced written undertakings from six firms — Ladbrokes, William Hill, PT Entertainment, BGO, Jumpman Gaming and Progress Play — including promises not to place a maximum limit on withdrawals and not to remove funds from accounts unused for a set period. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 brought the unfair commercial practices provisions into force on 6 April 2025, with prohibitions broadly similar to the earlier 2008 Regulations.

Then there is the wagering cap itself, and the Commission's stated reasoning: it chose a cap over a ban partly because licensees would otherwise be highly likely to introduce terms preventing customers cashing out bonuses, and because the limit "will take out extreme levels as some licensees currently apply up to 60 times wagering requirements". Read that as an admission about the domestic market. Now consider that the cap stops at the licence, and a free chip from a site without one carries no number at all.

Offline Protection Still Works

Worth remembering, because it is genuinely effective and costs nothing. GamStop signposts blocking software: BetBlocker, a 501(c)(3) non-profit registered in Delaware, states it blocks over 1,368,000 gambling websites and 3,100 apps, requires no registration and is free worldwide. Gamban blocks licensed and unlicensed sites and is designed to be as difficult to remove as possible; its free UK licence scheme, TalkBanStop, ended on 31 March 2026, leaving it free in Wales but £4.99 per month or £29.99 per year in England and Scotland after a seven-day trial.

Bank blocks are the other lever, and the Commission's list last updated 16 October 2026 names Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, Monzo, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Starling. They work by declining payments to merchants categorised under gambling Merchant Category Codes, cover online casinos, betting websites, gaming apps and physical venues, and are applied at card level, so each card must be activated separately. Most banks use a cooling-off period of either 48 or 72 hours before gambling transactions are allowed again, and a block does not affect a credit score.

And self-exclusion, again, as a fact rather than an option: a GamStop registration holds for its full term, cannot be cancelled during it, and stays in place afterwards until the person contacts GamStop to remove it. A no-deposit bonus from an operator outside the scheme does not end it, circumvent it or shorten it. It simply sits outside the part of the market where any of this machinery exists. If gambling is causing harm, the National Gambling Helpline is run by GamCare and is free on 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day, every day of the year — callers in Wales are given 0808 2819 265. GamFam supports families, NHS gambling treatment services exist, and Citizens Advice helps with the debt that usually arrives first.

Questions About the Non GamStop No Deposit Bonus

Is a no deposit bonus casino non GamStop offer worth claiming?

Only as an experiment in reading terms, because the free amount is small and the requirement is large. A £10 credit at 50× needs £500 of wagers, and a cashout cap of €50–€100 often makes the arithmetic pointless. Worth it if the terms are published on the offer page and an ADR body is named; not worth it otherwise. The deposit's absence is real; the risk's is not.

Do free no deposit bonus non GamStop offers mean the site is unlicensed in Britain?

Usually, yes. Offering commercial gambling to consumers in Great Britain without a Gambling Commission licence is illegal, and the Commission says so explicitly, including where the operator holds a licence elsewhere. Some sites hold a Curaçao, Anjouan or Kahnawà:ke licence and accept UK players regardless. Check the Commission's public register and confirm the domain and activities match before treating any licence claim as meaningful.

What protection do UK players lose at a casino outside GamStop?

Three things. Self-exclusion no longer reaches the account, because the scheme binds only participating operators. Licence Condition 17.1.1 no longer stops documents being demanded at withdrawal after the fact. And the ten-times wagering cap that came into force on 19 January 2026 does not bind the operator at all. What remains is the operator's own contract and whichever ADR body it has nominated.

Can a complaint about an offshore casino reach the Gambling Commission?

It can be recorded, and that is the extent of it. The Commission is a regulator rather than an ombudsman and cannot resolve individual complaints or recover money. For a GB-licensed operator it will generally point to an approved ADR provider such as IBAS or eCOGRA. For an offshore one, the named ADR provider in the operator's terms is the only forum, and it may not exist.

Which offshore licence is strongest to see on a free-chip site?

Malta's authority is the most structured, publishing an Unauthorised URLs list and requiring separate application and annual fees with minimum paid-up capital. Curaçao's is now direct rather than sub-licensed, but its previous seals and /JAZ numbers are no longer proof. Anjouan's validity is disputed: a former attorney-general of the Comoros was reported calling the licensing seller an illegal entity. None of them is a substitute for a GB licence.

Does a claimed free chip ever cost money?

Yes, in two ways. Time spent meeting a requirement that a cashout cap will void, and fees on the money's return journey — Skrill and Neteller both charge 2.80% of a withdrawal with a minimum around €3.50 or USD 3.50 as of 12 January 2026, and accounts unused for six months face a €5.00 or USD 5.00 monthly service fee. A £100 cashout can arrive noticeably under £100.

How do I check whether a licence is real before registering?

Click the seal and follow it. A Curaçao Gaming Authority Certificate of Operation Seal must redirect to cert.cga.cw, the certificate must show the same domain as the site being viewed, and a mismatch means the site is displaying another operator's paperwork. Anjouan certificates carry a licence number and QR code linking to a public register. If neither the seal nor the register check works, assume the claim is decoration.

The Free Chip Is Free the Way a Sample Is

The short version: a non GamStop no deposit bonus is a marketing cost a company outside British regulation has decided to spend, and the price it charges for that sample is a wagering multiple between 40× and 60×, a cashout cap somewhere near €50–€100, and a dispute decided by whoever wrote the terms — which is why the more useful question than "what can I get for nothing" is "who, exactly, would rule on this if it went wrong". British-licensed sites are not generous, but they are answerable, and answerability is what the free chip is buying out.

That is the trade in a sentence, and the numbers behind it are these: 614,738 consumers were on the GamStop register as of July 2026, more than half of them on the maximum five-year term, and not one of them is blocked by a casino that never joined the scheme. The National Gambling Helpline, free on 0808 8020 133, is open all day, every day, and unlike the terms of a free chip it does not expire when the wagering requirement ends.