A gaming licence is permission from a government regulator to offer gambling to the public. It is issued to a company, not to a website: every register we read lists holders by company name. It says what that company may offer, and the regulator can suspend it, revoke it or let it expire. It also only counts where the regulator has authority: the UK Gambling Commission says a licence from another country doesn't let a business take bets from players in Great Britain. To check one, find the company in the regulator's own register and match the name, the status, the date and the website you're on.01050815
We read four registers on 22 October 2026: the UK Gambling Commission's, the Curaçao Gaming Authority's, Anjouan's and Tobique's. They print different things, and two of them don't print a status you can rely on by itself. BullsRank isn't a law firm and this isn't legal advice. Our regulators hub shows which regulator stands behind each licence on our operator profiles.05070815
What a gaming licence covers
A licence names a holder: a company with a registration number in the regulator's jurisdiction. Anjouan's page on licence types splits them in two. A B2C licence is for "entities offering internet gaming services directly to consumers". A B2B licence is for "critical service suppliers providing platform, software, or technical services to licensed B2C operators". The casino you play at should hold a B2C licence; a game studio or platform provider behind it may hold a B2B one. Anjouan's list of permitted activities runs from online casinos and sports betting to prediction markets and "Cryptocurrency-enabled gaming operations".10
In Great Britain the conditions come from the Gambling Act 2005. The Commission's page on licensing objectives lists three: keeping gambling free of crime, "ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way", and protecting children and other vulnerable people. Every licence application has to meet them.02
Then there's territory. The Commission's page on illegal gambling says: "A gambling licence issued in another country does not permit an operator to provide gambling to consumers in Great Britain." A licence from Curaçao, Anjouan or Tobique is a licence in that jurisdiction. It doesn't make a site legal wherever you happen to be.01
Who issues the licences behind the casinos we track
Two offshore regulators dominate the casinos we track. Of the 76 operators on BullsRank, our regulators hub reports an Anjouan licence for 34 and a Curaçao licence for 23. Seven are licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, and 12 aren't counted under any regulator. Figures below are from the hub as served at 04:48 UTC on 22 October 2026.
Regulator | Profiles | What the profile header says |
|---|---|---|
Anjouan Gaming | 34, plus 4 where it's a second licence | 20 licence record verified; 7 register expiry date passed; 3 licence doesn't list this domain; 4 domain no longer listed in the licence record |
Curaçao Gaming Authority | 23, plus 3 where it's a second licence | 12 licence record verified; 8 verified, review period ended; 2 licence doesn't list this domain; 1 register lists the licence as revoked |
UK Gambling Commission | 7 | 7 licence record verified |
Not counted under a regulator above | 12 | 3 operator-stated, not verified; 9 no record in the registers we check |
Coljuegos (Colombia), MINCETUR (Peru) and Brazil's Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas each appear once, as a second licence. Winna, which names the Tobique Gaming Commission, is one of the three operator-stated profiles; our Winna article covers what Tobique's records show for it. A licence on a profile starts a check rather than ending one. Our operator catalogue, as served at 09:20 UTC the same day, puts 47 of the 76 in "Confirmed in a register", 20 in "Check twice" (expiry passed, domain not listed, revoked, or only the operator's word) and 9 in "No record found".
What each register prints
The registers don't answer the same questions. This is what each one showed when we read it on 22 October 2026, between 09:55 and 09:57 UTC.05070815
Register | Format | Size on 22 October 2026 | Status column | Websites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
UK Gambling Commission | Search plus downloadable files | 4,501 licence rows across 2,634 accounts; 681 accounts with an Active licence of the type Remote | Yes: Active, Surrendered, Pending, Revoked, Lapsed, Suspended | Own file: 2,227 domain rows, 1,061 Active, 814 Inactive, 352 White Label |
Curaçao Gaming Authority | 19-page PDF, "Last updated October 20, 2026" | 666 rows, 665 distinct licence numbers | Yes, for most: 299 "Assessment in progress", 4 "Assessment in re-evaluation", 209 "Indefinite", 54 expired, 50 revoked; the first 50 rows print none | Not in the register |
Anjouan Gaming | Web table | 1,280 entries | Every entry reads "valid" | Listed per entry; 53 entries list none |
Tobique Gaming Commission | Web list of licence holders | 195 rows, 189 company names: 172 B2C, 23 B2B | None; an expiry date and a licence type | Not in the list; checked through the site's seal |
All 50 revoked Curaçao entries say the licence was revoked "at the request of the operator". One of the 54 expired entries adds "Re-evaluating in administrative appeal". The Curaçao Gaming Authority adds a warning above its registers: they "do not guarantee the current validity of the licenses" and "no rights can be derived from these overviews". The PDF has no website column; our guide to checking a Curaçao licence explains the certificate that covers each domain.0706
The UK register is the only one of the four whose downloadable files give each website its own status. If a site you use is licensed in Great Britain, our guide to what the UK Gambling Commission does for players walks through the register with seven UK brands.0504
Anjouan: every entry says "valid"
Anjouan's own page on status definitions lists four statuses: Active, Suspended, Revoked and Expired. "Only entities with an Active licence status are authorised to conduct licensed internet gaming activities," it says. The register itself uses none of those words. All 1,280 entries read "valid", including 91 whose printed expiry date was before 22 October 2026; the earliest of those dates is 21 September 2026. The register is also shorter than it was: our census of the register counted 1,527 entries on 16 September 2026.0908
Revocations and suspensions sit on separate pages. On 22 October 2026 the revoked list had two entries, Knifex Ltd (reason given: "Fraud") and Amor 25 Limited ("Illegal sublicensing"), and the suspended list had one: Mucho Gaming Limited, a B2B holder listed with rollblock.io, for "Violation of license conditions. Failure to participate in ADR".1112
So in Anjouan's register the word "valid" doesn't tell you much. Read the expiry date, then check the revoked and suspended pages. Seven of our Anjouan profiles carry "Register expiry date passed" for that reason. Our guide to reading the Anjouan register shows where to look.
How to check a gaming licence
You need the licence holder's name, the regulator and, if it's published, the licence number. Then:
Find the company in the site's terms or footer. A logo or seal alone doesn't name the company that holds the licence.
Open the regulator's register on the regulator's own website. Go to the regulator directly, not through a page the casino hosts.
Match the company name and licence number exactly. A similar name or a sister company isn't the same holder.
Read the status and the date together. In Anjouan's register, check the expiry date and the revoked and suspended lists; in Curaçao's PDF, read the status column.
Check that the website you're on is covered. Use the UK domain file, Anjouan's domains column, Curaçao's certificate for that domain, or Tobique's validator.
Seals need care. Open a validator by clicking the seal on the casino's site, then check the address you land on belongs to the regulator. Typing the validator's address yourself isn't the same check: on 22 October 2026 Tobique's validator, opened that way, returned "Operating status: INVALID" for winna.com, while the link in Winna's own seal led to a page reading "VALID" when we followed it on 21 October.16
For a wider checklist that covers crypto casinos and certificates, see how to check a crypto casino licence.
What a licence doesn't tell you
A register entry confirms licensing and nothing more. Anjouan's registry disclaimer says inclusion "does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or approval by the Authority", and a listed domain "confirms only that the domain has been notified to the Authority". It doesn't confirm who owns the domain.13
A licence also doesn't decide your complaint for you. "We are not an ombudsman," says the UK Gambling Commission, which can't help you get your money back. Anjouan requires its licensees to use an ADR provider it approves. You complain to the operator first, which is expected to resolve it within 30 days; after that you can escalate to one of the approved providers. Its page says: "The cost of such ADR proceedings shall be borne by the licensed operator". Our complaints hub lists the route for each regulator we track.0314
What we couldn't check
Regulators outside these four. We didn't read the registers of Malta, Coljuegos, MINCETUR, Brazil or Mwali for this guide.
Change after our read. Anjouan's disclaimer says the register "is updated periodically and may not reflect changes that have occurred since the most recent update". Every count here is from our reads on 22 October 2026.
What each status means legally. Curaçao's PDF doesn't define "Assessment in progress", "Indefinite" or "Expired" itself, so we report the words as printed.