Unlicensed Casinos and Invalid Licence Seals

An unlicensed online casino is one that holds no valid licence from the regulator of the country it serves, or that displays a licence or seal which does not check out on the regulator’s own register. On 14 October 2026 Curaçao’s official licence register listed 666 online licences, 294 of them marked “Assessment in progress”, and its enforcement register recorded 31 revocations. A footer logo proves nothing until the register agrees.

This page explains what counts as licensed, what the main offshore registers showed in October 2026, how a seal can be wrong, and what playing at an unlicensed casino means for your money. For the hands-on steps, use our guide to verifying a casino licence.

What counts as a licensed casino?

A casino is licensed for you only if it holds a licence that is valid where you live and covers the website you are using. A Curaçao, Anjouan or Malta licence lets an operator trade from that jurisdiction; it does not override the law of a country that requires its own licence, such as Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany or Australia.

That gives two separate questions. First, does the licence exist and is it in force? Second, is the operator allowed to serve your country? A casino can pass the first test and fail the second. Germany’s GGL, for example, treats any operator missing from its official whitelist as unauthorised in Germany, whatever licence it holds elsewhere, and the EU Court of Justice confirmed on 16 April 2026 (case C-440/23) that a Malta licence does not replace a German permit.

What did Curaçao’s register show in October 2026?

Curaçao moved to a new national gaming law, the Landsverordening op de kansspelen (LOK), in force since 24 December 2024, with the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) as regulator. The CGA’s online licence register, dated 14 October 2026, has 666 numbered entries: 571 consumer-facing (B2C) and 96 business-to-business (B2B) licences across the new and older numbering schemes.

“Assessment in progress” means the licence holder is still in the CGA’s review under the new rules. The register shows a validity period for these entries, and in many rows that period has already ended. Stake’s operator Medium Rare N.V. (OGL/2024/1451/0918), for example, appears as “Assessment in progress” with a period running from 9 December 2025 to 9 June 2026. The CGA’s own disclaimer says the overviews “do not guarantee the current validity of the licenses”.

The CGA has also had a security problem. It reported unauthorised access to its online gaming portal on 17 September 2026, followed up on 23 September, and posted a notice on 7 October 2026 that the portal is offline; trade press reported on 13 October 2026 that the CGA will close the portal permanently. The CGA says existing licences remain valid. In practice, the PDF register on cga.cw is the best check available while the portal is down.

Which Curaçao licences have been revoked?

The CGA keeps a separate enforcement register for actions that change a licence’s status. Its version last updated on 14 September 2026 lists 32 entries: 31 revoked licences and one licence the CGA did not extend. Recent revocations include Novatech Solutions N.V. (OGL/2024/1790/1174) from 22 May 2026 and Common Square N.V. from 10 July 2026.

Novatech Solutions N.V. is the company the Dutch Kansspelautoriteit named in March 2026 in connection with Qbet.com and 55Bet.com; we cover regulator actions on our blocked casinos page. The CGA register also shows a second Novatech licence, OGL/2024/1790/1062, as expired on 24 December 2025.

A worked example: reading one register row

Take a casino whose terms name Gareton B.V. and licence OGL/2024/165/0185. Open the CGA’s online licence register PDF and search for the licence number. The row shows the licensee Gareton B.V., type B2C, company registration number 160656, issued 24 December 2025, no expiry date (“N/A”) and the status “Indefinite”.

Now compare. The company name in the casino’s terms should match the licensee exactly, including the legal form (B.V. or N.V.). A consumer casino needs a B2C licence, because a B2B licence covers suppliers, not sites that take player deposits. Expired or revoked rows fail outright, and if a row reads “Assessment in progress”, look at its dates and note them. Watch for near-misses too: a licence number with one digit changed, or a company that shares a name with the licensee but has a different registration number, is a different entity. Finally, check that the casino’s website is the one the operator lists on its own licence page. If all four line up, the licence exists. Whether it covers your country is the separate question from the first section. Save a copy of the PDF with its date in the file name, so you can show later what the register said on the day you checked.

How can a casino seal be wrong?

A seal is a small badge, usually in the footer, that should link to the regulator’s verification page for that licence. It can be wrong in four ways: it is a static image with no link, it links to a page on the casino’s own domain, it validates a different domain or company, or it shows a status other than active.

The Anjouan licensing authority’s seal policy says operators must display the seal site-wide without modifying its code, design or destination, that it must link directly to the official verification page in the public register, and that it may appear only on domains the licence covers. Anjouan defines four statuses: Active, Suspended, Revoked and Expired, and only Active holders may run licensed internet gaming.

• No link or a dead link: a picture of a seal is decoration, not evidence.
• Link to the casino’s own domain: a “verification” page hosted by the casino can say anything.
• Mismatch: the seal validates, but for another domain or another company than the terms name.
• Bare-domain lookups: on Anjouan, a lookup by bare domain always returns INVALID, so check through the site’s own seal ID rather than reading that as a failure.

What are the risks of playing at an unlicensed casino?

The main risk is that nobody stands behind your account. Without a valid licence there is no regulator to enforce the terms, no certified dispute body, no rule on how player money is held and no check that games are fair. If the casino refuses a withdrawal or closes, your options shrink to your payment provider and, rarely, a court.

Unlicensed sites also tend to verify identity late: they accept deposits freely, then demand documents when you ask to withdraw. That pattern drives many of the delays described on our withdrawal delays page. Our rogue casino checklist covers the other warning signs.

Are offshore licences all the same?

No. The main offshore regulators differ in how they publish registers, how seals work and how complaints are handled. None of them replaces the licence a country like Sweden or Great Britain requires, but some give a player more to check than others.

A licence that cannot be checked is not a licence for your purposes. If a casino names a regulator that publishes no register at all, or a register we cannot reach, our method treats it as unverified and we say so.

What should you do if a licence does not check out?

Do not deposit, and if you already have, withdraw what you can and keep records. Screenshot the footer, the seal result and the register search, with the date. If you believe the seal is copied, report it to the regulator whose logo is used: most publish a contact for misuse, and the MGA publishes lists of URLs it has no connection with.

Then tell us what you found. We add confirmed cases to the casinos to avoid list with the wording “licence not found on the register on” and the date of the check, and we log the change in our status log.

Frequently asked questions