Casino licences, regulator by regulator

A licence is a permission granted by an authority on conditions, and its value to a player can be measured with two questions: what the authority's register shows about the company, and what the authority does when the company declines to pay. We have read the register pages and complaint procedures of seven authorities on their own sites in October 2026, and this page reports what each shows and does, so that you can repeat the checks yourself.

Take a hypothetical player who has asked for a withdrawal of $3,000 and seen the operator refuse it, citing a bonus clause that he reads differently. Under each authority below the dispute follows a different road, from a regulator's unit able to investigate it to an authority declaring in writing that it handles no complaints, and the road matters more than the "seal" you see in the footer. A seal is a picture, even when it can be clicked.

The Malta Gaming Authority

The Malta Gaming Authority grants a "B2C" licence (business to consumer, officially a gaming service licence) to companies that offer games to players, and casino games belong to the "Type 1" services of that licence, next to fixed-odds betting (Type 2) and peer-to-peer games (Type 3). The framework is the Gaming Act (chapter 583 of the laws of Malta) with the directives of 2018, among which is the Player Protection Directive.

The licensee register can be searched by licensee name, status, URL and gaming service, and a separate URL Checker stands next to it. The Authority also publishes a list of "unauthorised URLs" with which it declares no connection (about three hundred, the latest notice dated 7 October 2026). Among the operators of this site, Betway Limited holds MGA/CRP/130/2006, Videoslots Limited MGA/CRP/258/2014 and Skill On Net Limited MGA/CRP/171/2009/01.

For our player's $3,000, Malta offers a written road: the operator's own complaints procedure first, then, if the answer does not satisfy, the Authority's "Player Support Unit" or another "ADR" entity (alternative dispute resolution), to which the player refers the complaint. In our view it is a route that a player can follow without guessing.

The Gambling Commission, for Great Britain only

The Gambling Commission's jurisdiction under the Gambling Act 2005 covers Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales, not Northern Ireland, where gambling is a devolved matter), and since a law of 2014 any operator whose games are used in Great Britain needs its licence, wherever it sits.

A British licence therefore covers the British site of a casino and not its other versions, which is why Videoslots, licensed in Malta, holds a separate one for videoslots.co.uk (account 39380). Its public register of businesses can be searched by business name, "trading name", "domain name" or account number, and it shows whether each licence is "active", "suspended" or "revoked", among other statuses.

For the $3,000 dispute the road is fixed in writing: the business has eight weeks from receiving the complaint, after which an ADR provider, free and independent, can take it, while the Commission itself does not decide individual disputes.

Gibraltar, under its Act of 2025

Gibraltar regulates through the Gambling Commissioner and the Licensing Authority (the designated minister), and its Gambling Act 2025 has applied since 1 April 2026 (sections 55 to 77 excepted). The register of licence holders, kept under section 14 of that Act, attaches to each company a list of "approved brands", and the one for Virtual Global Digital Services Limited (the evoke group) shows the 888 brands under B2C remote gaming licence RGL No. 112.

For our player, Gibraltar works in two steps: a written complaint to the operator, then, if two weeks pass without a satisfactory answer, the Gambling Commissioner, who receives the "Complaint Resolution Request Form" by email (British customers are sent to the British procedures). The Commissioner aims at a first reply within a week.

Alderney and its two categories

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission, which was established in May 2000, grants "eGambling" licences in two categories under the eGambling Regulations of 2009. A "Category 1" licence covers the organisation of gambling (registering and verifying players, the contract with them, their funds), while "Category 2" covers the gambling transaction itself, run on a platform in an approved hosting centre, so the company that a player contracts with is the one that holds the first.

The list of eGambling licensees gives each company's category and websites, and Baytree (Alderney) Limited appears in category 1 with nineteen domains, among them jackpotcity.com and spincasino.com. A complaint about the $3,000 goes first to the licensee, then in writing to the Commission, whose procedure (regulation 238) moves from an attempt at agreement to an investigation and a preliminary determination, with a hearing before the Commissioners if either side rejects it.

Kahnawake and its permits

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission, established in 1996 in the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, in Canada, regulates online gaming offered from a single hosting facility, which has held the only "Interactive Gaming Licence" since 1999. The operators hosted there hold a "CPA", the Commission's permit to offer games from that facility, and that is the permit in the footer.

Its list of permit holders pairs each operator with its URLs, which makes it a register you can read in seconds: Fresh Horizons Ltd. appears for most Casino Rewards domains, Rock Swift Group Ltd. for cosmocasino.com and casinokingdom.eu, Baytree Interactive Limited for the Palace brands.

Complaints go to the Commission in writing, between seven days and six months after the matter arose, and the operator must answer within seven days. The summary for 2025 (dated 15 January 2026) counts 1,143 complaints received, of which 756 were validated and 150 upheld in whole or in part in the player's favour: about one validated complaint in five! A referee exists, which is the point; in our reading it does not side with players by default.

Curaçao after the 2024 reform

Curaçao changed its frame in two stages, with a new online gaming policy in force from 15 November 2023 and then the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (the "LOK", from its Dutch name), applied since 24 December 2024. The Curaçao Gaming Authority now grants and supervises the licences itself. Under the old offshore regime a casino could hold a "sublicence" that a private master licence holder granted (one of them, Curaçao eGaming, still describes its master licence 1668/JAZ in those terms).

The register of the Authority links to a document of online licences (the version we read is dated 14 October 2026) whose lines give the number, the company, the type (B2C or B2B), the dates of issue and expiry and a status. The statuses need reading, since next to "Indefinite" the list carries "Assessment in progress" and "Expired", and the Authority warns that its overviews do not guarantee that a licence is still valid.

For the $3,000, reformed Curaçao gives the player an operator procedure with deadlines and then a free ADR provider paid by the operator, while the Authority does not adjudicate disputes. The operator has a week to confirm receipt and four weeks to answer, extendable once by four more: eight weeks before the ADR stage can open! In our view the reform is real and young, and it leaves the frame weak for a player who needs a referee.

Tobique, a list without numbers

The Tobique Gaming Commission speaks for the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada, and its list of licence holders names companies and the type of their licence but prints neither numbers nor domains, so that a number quoted in a footer cannot be matched against it; its complaints page refuses complaints sent through the Commission's own site and points the player to the "Tobique Shield" of the licensed casino, without stating a time limit. For our player's $3,000 the route therefore begins inside the operator's own procedure, and we place Tobique beside Curaçao and above Anjouan.

Anjouan, a frame without a referee

Anjouan, an island of the Union of the Comoros, has a gaming authority that describes itself on its own site as operating under the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority and the Anjouan Gaming Board, with licence administration entrusted to a private company, Anjouan Licensing Services Inc., as "designated administrator". Its pages cite only "the laws of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan". It does offer a public register and a licence check, which searches by number, company or domain.

Its policy is explicit: the authority "does not handle, mediate, or adjudicate player complaints", which go to the operator and then to an ADR provider paid by the operator. For our player's $3,000 this means that no regulator will look at the file, and we place Anjouan at the bottom of the frames on this page.

A company is not a licence

Some casino footers name only a company, registered for example in Costa Rica or Panama, which comes with an address and no authority or licence number beside it. A commercial registration proves that a company exists and is silent on who checks its games or hears a complaint, so our player's dispute would go back to the operator and stop there; the page on fake operators shows how such footers are dressed up.

The frames side by side

The eight frames fall into three groups: Malta, Great Britain, Gibraltar and Alderney, where an authority keeps a searchable register and stands behind a complaint route; Kahnawake, with a simple list and a commission that rules on complaints and publishes its figures; then Curaçao, Tobique and Anjouan, the weak frames of this page. Our list of casinos groups the operators by frame, from the strictest to the weakest, and the page on casino groups shows which companies stand behind several brands.

Where to check each licence, and where a dispute goes after the operator

Authority	Register or licence check	After the operator's own procedure
Malta Gaming Authority	mga.org.mt/licensee-hub/licensee-register	Player Support Unit or another ADR entity
Gambling Commission (Great Britain)	gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-register/businesses	ADR provider, after eight weeks
Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner	gamblingdivision.gov.gi/licence-holders	Gambling Commissioner, after two weeks
Alderney Gambling Control Commission	gamblingcontrol.org/applications-guidance/egambling-licensees	the Commission (regulation 238)
Kahnawake Gaming Commission	gamingcommission.ca/interactive-gaming/permit-holders	the Commission, from 7 days to 6 months after the matter
Curaçao Gaming Authority	cga.cw/en/133i348441001	ADR provider; the Authority does not adjudicate
Tobique Gaming Commission	thetgc.ca/license-holders (companies only, no numbers)	the "Tobique Shield" on the licensed site; no time limit stated
Anjouan	anjouangaming.com/public-register/verify-a-licence	ADR provider; the authority does not handle complaints

Questions

By the Rand Casinos editorial team · Last updated October 2026 · Online since 2007