Internet gamblers will be able to sign up to the Global Self Exclusion Database (GSED) website, which will prevent them from opening an account with an online gaming site.

The Global Self Exclusion Database has been developed by a US ID verification company called Aristotle, backed by Rupert Murdoch and Hambrecht, the financial services group, and will be launched next Tuesday (20 June 2006).

About 80 percent of gambling sites licensed in the already use Aristotle's ID verification system.

Should an individual whose name is on the list attempt to open an account with a participating gaming site, the database will block the user's access to the site. Gamblers can sign up for as long they like and, after a seven-day cooling-off period, can remove themselves from the database.

John Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, said that the internet was making it easier for people to gamble and could make addicts of those who did not even know they had a gambling problem.

The launch comes at a time of sharp growth in online gambling. Its audience has grown almost 50 per cent in the past year, with 10 million users visiting gambling websites in the three months to April, according to Nielsen Net Ratings. While gamblers are predominantly men, more women are signing up for online gambling services - females now accounted for 40 percent of the total, said the research company.

According to GamCare, the gambling charity, a quarter of addicts using the charity's online message forum are female. Women represented only 2 per cent of its counselling clients in 2000. This grew to 18 per cent last year. The overall number of people contacting GamCare's forum has also been increasing, with more than 40 000 people visiting the site in the three months to December.