Two ways, both on the phone in your hand. Option A is free and already built into iOS. Option B is Paused, if you'd rather it happen automatically and be harder to tap past.
No download, no subscription. Apple's own App Limits can block theScore Bet specifically, and Downtime can switch it off by time of day.
Turn Screen Time on. Open Settings → Screen Time. First time? Tap Turn On Screen Time, choose "This is My iPhone", and set a Screen Time passcode — pick four digits you won't type on reflex at 11pm.
Add an App Limit. Still in Screen Time, tap App Limits → Add Limit.
Select theScore Bet. Apple sorts your apps into broad buckets and theScore Bet sits with the Entertainment apps. Tap the arrow beside Entertainment to expand it and tick theScore Bet only — or just type "theScore Bet" into the search field at the top, which is faster. Tap Next.
Set the allowance. Choose how long theScore Bet gets each day. 30 minutes is a soft cap; 1 minute is effectively off. Tap Customize Days if weekends should be different, then tap Add.
Turn on Block at End of Limit. Reopen the limit you just made and switch on Block at End of Limit. Without it, the "Ignore Limit" button hands the whole evening straight back to theScore Bet.
Add Downtime for a time-of-day block. A daily budget isn't the same as "off after 10pm". For that, go back to Screen Time → Downtime → Scheduled and set the window (10pm–7am is the classic), then check that theScore Bet is not listed under Always Allowed. During Downtime it's blocked outright — there's no allowance left to burn.
The honest catch: it works, but it's four screens deep in Settings, the limit resets its own way, and if you know the passcode you can undo it in about six seconds. That's why so many people set an App Limit once and never think about it again.
Automatic · one tap
Option B — block theScore Bet with Paused
Same Apple blocking engine underneath, built for the one job: getting theScore Bet out of your evening without you having to decide again every night.
Create a Block Schedule. Open Paused and create a Block Schedule — that's the recurring, automatic kind.
Pick theScore Bet. Choose theScore Bet from your installed apps. While you're in there, add the rest of your sports time-sinks too — Fliff, Dabble, Betr — because theScore Bet is almost never the only one.
Choose the window. Set the days and hours: 10pm–7am so the night is yours, 9–5 for work, or 7–9pm so dinner and the evening stay phone-free.
Save it and forget it. That's the whole setup. From then on theScore Bet turns itself off when the window starts and comes back on when it ends — no willpower, no remembering.
Use a Focus session when you need theScore Bet gone right now. One tap starts a Focus session: pick a length — 25 minutes, two hours, until dinner is over — and theScore Bet stays locked until the timer runs out.
Let the streak do the rest. Every day you keep the block stacks your streak. That's the part that keeps this working in week three, once the novelty of a fresh limit has worn off.
What it can see: nothing. Paused blocks through Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) framework, so it can stop theScore Bet from opening without reading your messages, your browsing, or anything you do inside the app. Your usage stays on your device.
How to get theScore Bet off your Lock Screen or the top of your iPhone screen
A score, an order tracker or a countdown that stays pinned to your Lock Screen — or sits in the Dynamic Island at the top of the screen on newer iPhones — is a Live Activity. It's controlled by Apple's switches below, for free, and blocking theScore Bet is a different job.
Clear the one that's showing. On the Lock Screen, swipe left on the theScore Bet Live Activity and tap Clear. It stays gone until theScore Bet starts a new one (the next game, order or countdown).
Stop theScore Bet starting them. Open Settings → theScore Bet (on iOS 18 and later: Settings → Apps → theScore Bet) and turn off Live Activities. That also keeps it out of the Dynamic Island, which has no Clear button of its own.
Or keep every Live Activity off the Lock Screen. Settings → Face ID & Passcode → under Allow Access When Locked, turn off Live Activities.
No Live Activities switch? Then theScore Bet isn't using one. If it's a notification, go to Settings → Notifications → theScore Bet and untick Lock Screen or turn off Allow Notifications. If audio or video is still playing, it's the Now Playing player — stop playback in theScore Bet and it disappears.
Why theScore Bet is hard to put down
Real-money bets and live odds that move during every game, so watching turns into refreshing.
Which is the point worth sitting with: you're not weak, you're up against a team of people whose job is the next tap. That's also why "I'll just be more disciplined" keeps failing and a dumb, boring wall — theScore Bet simply doesn't open between 10pm and 7am — keeps working. Put the decision somewhere your 11pm self can't reach it.
And block the neighbours while you're there. Closing theScore Bet and landing on the next sports app in the same second is the most common way this falls apart — so block the cluster (Fliff, Dabble, Betr), not the single worst offender.
