Licences and fairness
Gambling regulators: what each one publishes and what a player can use
A regulator is worth what it publishes and what it lets you do. Of the gambling regulators on this page, Curacao publishes a register and a per-domain certificate; Anjouan a validator; Malta a directive with a payout clock; Great Britain a wagering cap; Poland a blocklist. Here is what each gives a player at the brands we review, and nothing about bodies we have no documented fact for.
Which regulators license the brands we review
Two, in practice: the Curacao Gaming Authority and the Anjouan Gaming Board. Every rated brand in our catalogue holds one or the other, and a few hold both. The other bodies on this page matter because they set the rules readers compare offshore terms against, or because they decide what a Polish player can reach.
| Regulator | What it publishes | What a player gets |
|---|---|---|
| Curacao Gaming Authority | PDF register with number, licensee, type, status; certificate per domain on cert.cga.cw | A complaint route in Willemstad; no home regulator for a European player |
| Anjouan Gaming Board | A domain validator and a licence register page; some numbers cannot be found | A validator to check the seal; no recourse a European player can use in practice |
| Malta Gaming Authority | A player protection directive with a five working day ceiling on moving funds | A regulator inside the EU with written player rules; none of our brands hold it |
| Gambling Commission, Great Britain | Licence conditions capping bonus wagering at ten times and technical standards for slot speed | The strictest written bonus and game rules; binds GB licences only |
| Ministry of Finance, Poland | The register of blocked domains and the list of licensed sites | One legal online casino; offshore brands are blocked, not regulated |
| Tobique Gaming Commission | A licence number quoted on the brand's own page | Less regulatory weight than Curacao; no European recourse |
Curacao Gaming Authority: the register and the seal
The regulator most of our brands answer to. Under the national ordinance on games of chance the licence is direct and issued to a company with a statutory seat on the island; the old master licences and their JAZ numbers have expired; the register is a public PDF with number, licensee, B2C or B2B type, dates and status; and the seal on a licensed site is a green box that opens a certificate on the regulator's own domain naming the exact site. The authority publishes warnings about sites forging its seal, which is more than most offshore bodies do.
What it does not give a European player is a home regulator. A dispute escalates to Willemstad, and the local presence rule in the ordinance is not yet enforced. Vavada, 1xSlots, Play Fortuna, Bitstarz, Riobet and the Galaktika family of brands hold this licence; the Curacao guide reads the register row by row.
Anjouan Gaming Board: the validator without the recourse
The autonomous island of Anjouan in the Union of the Comoros licenses under its own computer gaming act, and the brands that moved there from Curacao cite the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority or Anjouan Gaming in the footer. The board runs a validator that shows the company, the number and the domain: Duel, BC Game and Fairspin resolve on it, and Unlim and Auf appear on the register page with a valid status and an expiry.
The weaknesses are real. Not every number can be found: Cryptoboss's could not be, so its review says the casino states the licence. Vodka moved to a Belize company with an Anjouan licence, which leaves no regulator a European player can appeal to. And an investigation documented a network selling fake corporate and gaming licences in Anjouan's name, so the jurisdiction's name proves nothing and the validator proves the seal. Cactus, Cat, Spinbetter, Daddy Casino, Weiss, Gama and Kent are among the brands on this licence.
Note
Anjouan's mandatory block list is short and does not include Poland, which is why Polish players meet so many Anjouan-licensed brands. That is a market decision by the brand, not a protection for the player.
Malta Gaming Authority: the directive we measure payouts against
No brand in our catalogue holds a Malta licence, and the authority still matters as a yardstick. Its player protection directive obliges a licensee to move funds within five working days of a player's request where practicable, with the clock extended for identity verification, security checks and internal procedures. That is a ceiling on the obligation rather than a promise of speed, and it is the closest thing to a written standard against which an offshore brand's pending window can be read. Most of the brands we review would pass it on coins and e-wallets and fail it on card and bank rails; the withdrawal guide has the numbers.
Gambling Commission: the rules offshore terms are compared with
Great Britain's regulator writes the strictest player rules we can point to, and none of them bind our brands. Its licence conditions forbid a wagering requirement that makes a customer play through bonus funds more than ten times, and require bonus terms to be clear, transparent, fair and accessible; the codes we list run at 40x and 45x, which is the gap the wagering guide measures. Its technical standards set a minimum of two and a half seconds between a spin and the next, ban features that shorten the time to the result, and ban celebrating a return that does not exceed the stake. Offshore lobbies keep turbo spin; the standards explain why some readers find the British version of the same slot slower.
Ministry of Finance, Poland: a blocklist, not a regulator for offshore play
For a Polish reader the ministry is the body that decides what loads. It publishes the list of legal sites, with one licensed online casino run by the state lottery company and a set of licensed betting sites, and the register of blocked domains. A listed domain is removed from ISP DNS within 48 hours and payment providers must stop serving it within 30 days, with fines on both. Since the BLIK scheme began checking the register before authorisation, a listed domain cannot take BLIK from any acquirer.
None of that supervises an offshore brand. The ministry blocks the address; it does not read the terms, hear a complaint or order a payout. The player's side of the law, the penalty on winnings and the tax rules, is on the Polish law page and the register page.
The small commissions
Winz states a Tobique Gaming Commission licence next to its Anjouan one after leaving Curacao. We have one fact about that body, the number on the brand's page, and no register we could open, so the review treats it as a statement by the casino and the trust mark is set on the Anjouan validator instead.
Apply it
A Curacao licence with the number on the register
Bitstarz holds an OGL number that resolves on the authority's register, with per-transaction payout caps and a zero fee on every rail printed on the review.
Keep reading
Curacao gaming licence
The ordinance, the dead JAZ numbers, the register statuses and the green seal.
How random number generators are verified
The labs, the standards and the certificate that should sit behind a fairness badge.
Is online gambling legal in Poland
The monopoly, the register, the penalty and the tax, from the statutes.
Quick answers
Which gambling regulator is the strictest
On written player rules, the British Gambling Commission: its licence conditions cap wagering on bonus funds at ten times and its technical standards set a minimum spin time and ban celebrating a return below the stake. Those rules bind sites licensed in Great Britain only, and none of the brands we review holds that licence.
Is an Anjouan licence worse than a Curacao one
It carries less weight. Anjouan runs a domain validator and a register page, and the brands that moved there from Curacao validate on it. What it lacks is a body a European player can appeal to in practice, and an investigation documented fake licences sold in its name, so the validator check matters more than the jurisdiction name.
Why do casinos move from Curacao to Anjouan
The Curacao ordinance made the licence direct, costlier and tied to a company with a seat on the island, with the register showing revocations at the licensee's request. Several brands in our catalogue, Cryptoboss, Unlim, Auf, Vodka and Fairspin among them, now cite Anjouan only. The reviews say which.
What does the Polish regulator do for a player at an offshore casino
Nothing directly. The Ministry of Finance runs the register of blocked domains and lists the single licensed online casino and the licensed betting sites; an offshore brand is blocked at the ISP and the payment provider, not supervised. There is no Polish body to complain to about an offshore payout.