How to check a gambling licence

The procedure

It takes about five minutes the first time. The order matters: each step is only meaningful if the one before it held.

1. Find what the site claims, and write it down

   Scroll to the footer and open the terms and conditions. You are looking for three things: the name of the authority claimed, the licence or registration number, and the legal company name with its registered address.

   A licensed operator is generally required to identify itself. If the site names no company anywhere — only a brand — that is a finding in itself, and the rest of this procedure has nothing to work with.

2. Confirm the authority exists and regulates your market

   Two separate checks, and people usually skip the second.

   First, does the authority exist? Invented regulators with official-sounding names and plausible websites are a documented pattern. Compare the name against the regulator directory, or find the authority through a government domain rather than through a link on the gambling site.

   Second, does that authority’s licence cover you? A licence is territorial. Britain’s Gambling Commission states the position bluntly: a gambling licence issued in another country does not permit an operator to provide gambling to consumers in Great Britain. An operator can hold a genuine foreign licence and still be operating unlawfully in your market.

3. Open the official register yourself

   Navigate to the regulator’s register directly. Do not click the licence badge on the gambling site, and do not follow a link from it — both can point anywhere, including to a convincing copy of a regulator’s site.

   The licence checker holds the official register address for each jurisdiction covered here, along with what that register accepts as a search term.

4. Search the legal entity, not the brand

   Registers list licensees — the companies that hold licences. The name on the website is usually a trading brand, and one licensee often runs many of them. Searching the brand may return nothing even when the operator is perfectly legitimate, and — more dangerously — may return a similarly-named company that has nothing to do with it.

   Search the company name you copied from the terms and conditions. See brand versus legal entity for why this is the step that most often goes wrong.

5. Match the exact domain

   This is the step that decides whether the whole exercise meant anything. Several registers publish the specific domains a licence covers. A company being licensed does not establish that the website in front of you is one of its licensed domains.

   Compare what is in your address bar, character for character, with what the register lists. See the domain match.

6. Read the status and the dates

   Appearing in a register is not the same as holding a current licence. Registers carry status values, and many retain former licensees. Britain’s register, for instance, uses Active, Expired, Forfeited, Lapsed, Pending, Revoked, Surrendered and Suspended, and separately marks each domain as Active, Inactive or White label.

   Read the status. Read any validity dates beside it. A licence that lapsed last year still produces a search result.

7. Know what you have and have not established

   If all of the above matched, you have established that this website is operated under a current licence from that authority, and therefore which rules apply and who enforces them. You have not established that the operator is solvent, that its terms are fair, or that it will pay a disputed withdrawal. See what verification cannot establish.

Brand versus legal entity: the step that breaks

Almost every failed verification comes down to searching the wrong name.

A gambling website shows you a brand. The register knows a company. Between them sit group structures, white-label arrangements and trading names, and the register is organised around the company because that is what holds the licence and carries the obligations.

The domain match

The question a reader actually has is “is this website covered?” A register that publishes licensed domains answers it directly. Where a register lists companies but not domains, the register can establish that a company is licensed and then stops there — whether the authority publishes anything else that reaches as far as the domain varies by jurisdiction.

When you compare, compare precisely:

• Character for character. Substituted letters, added hyphens and extra words are the whole technique behind clone sites.
• The suffix is part of the domain. A licence covering example.com tells you nothing about example.net.
• Check what you are on, not what you typed. Read the address bar as it is now, after any redirects.
• A listed parent brand proves nothing about a sub-domain or a spin-off site unless that address is itself listed.

Licence seals and certificates

The badge in a website footer is an image file. Anyone can copy one, and copied seals are a documented pattern rather than a theoretical risk.

Some authorities issue a dynamic certificate instead: the seal links to a certificate page hosted on the regulator’s own domain, which names the specific domain it was issued for. Curaçao’s regulator operates such a system and has itself published a warning about seal misuse. Denmark requires licensed sites to display an official label.

Where a dynamic certificate exists, this is how to use it:

1. Click the seal on the gambling site.
2. Read the address bar of the page that opens. It must be the regulator’s own domain. This is the check the copied-seal technique cannot survive.
3. Confirm the certificate names the exact domain you were just on. A certificate that names a different domain is somebody else’s certificate.
4. Read the licence status shown on the certificate.

What differs by jurisdiction

The procedure above is the same everywhere. What differs is what the register will let you do — which is why the first column below matters more than the reputation of the regulator.

Open the licence checker for the full routing detail

What verification cannot establish

Verification answers one question well and several others not at all. Being clear about the boundary is what makes the exercise worth doing.

Licensed operators are sanctioned by their own regulators regularly, which is itself the clearest evidence that authorisation and good conduct are separate things. Presence in a register is regulatory information, not a recommendation — including on this site, which makes none.

If it does not check out

A failed check is not automatically evidence of fraud. Work through the ordinary explanations first, then treat what remains seriously.

1. Re-check the name. The legal entity, not the brand. This resolves most apparent failures.
2. Try the licence number, where the register accepts one.
3. Check you are in the right register. Some authorities run separate registers for remote and land-based, or for operators and suppliers.
4. Consider timing. A newly licensed operator may not yet appear; a register may be mid-update.

If none of that explains it — if the authority does not know the company, or knows the company but not this domain — then stop depositing, and:

• work through the scam checklist, which is about weighing several signals rather than acting on one;
• if you already have money there, follow the escalation route before the position gets worse;
• consider reporting it — regulators use consumer reports as intelligence even where they will not decide your individual dispute.

Common questions

Primary sources

Each link below goes to the issuing authority’s own website. Where a page could not be retrieved by our automated checks, that is stated rather than hidden.

• Gambling Commission About us — Gambling Commission
  No last-updated date shown. The page draws the Commission's own territorial distinction: it regulates 'most types of gambling in Great Britain' but regulates 'The National Lottery in the UK'. Great Britain is not the United Kingdom, and the distinction must not be flattened.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Approved alternative dispute resolution (ADR) providers
  Over a year and a half stale at the check date, and the list is volatile — the page already records one removal. It sits in the licensees-and-businesses section, not the consumer section, and the consumer-facing ADR page does not link to it. The page renders one entity as 'ADR group'; reproduce names as the page prints them.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Complain about a gambling business
  Carries the Commission's own sentence: 'We do not resolve or make decisions on complaints regarding gambling-related transactions.'
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Complain about an Alternative Dispute Resolution provider
  States that the Commission 'can't get involved with the ADR provider's decision or ask them to reconsider', and names the Chartered Trading Standards Institute as the government-appointed authority for approving and overseeing ADR bodies under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act 2024. That sits alongside the older approved-providers page (last updated 15 January 2025), which calls the Commission 'the designated competent authority for gambling' under the 2015 ADR Regulations. The two pages cite different instruments of different vintage; do not write either role as a flat present-tense fact.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Complaints — routes published by the Gambling Commission
  No last-updated date. The hub itself does not restate the Commission's limitation on gambling-transaction disputes; that sentence is on the child page.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Complaints and disputes: procedural information, provision and reporting — 5. ADR requirements
  The load-bearing qualifier most secondary sources drop: the eight weeks run 'taking into account any times that the clock on the time period may have been paused'. ADR must be free to the customer, and outcomes are binding only where the licensee's terms so provide and the customer agrees — the guidance says licence holders 'may' include such terms.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Display of licensed status: technical requirements
  Gives the exact footer wording a consumer should look for, and explains why footers show a short account number: it is 'the first block of 6 digits, removing any leading zeros' where they exist. The Commission also states the footer link must go to the licensee's own register record, not to the register's home or landing page.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Download the register of gambling businesses
  Offers a combined ZIP, an Excel workbook and four CSVs (businesses, trading names, domain names, licences). The page publishes no data dictionary — no column definitions, no status-value definitions and no stated data currency.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Full register of gambling businesses, page 2
  Recorded because it proves pagination is a path segment, not a query parameter: this URL returns page 2 of 53, and was re-tested independently. Page numbers cannot be used to link to a particular operator.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Gambling and young people
  Gives the general minimum age as 18 with the Commission's own hedge 'In most cases' — that hedge is what signals the product-by-product variation and should be preserved.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Gambling Commission — official website
  No last-updated date is shown on the homepage. The regulator brands itself 'Gambling Commission' on its own site — it does not use 'UK Gambling Commission' or 'UKGC' in its own header.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Guidance to licensing authorities — Part 16: Age restrictions
  Guidance to licensing authorities, so land-based in focus. It confirms a minimum age of 18 for category A, B and C machines and states there is 'no minimum age for players of category D machines'. It gives no age figures for the National Lottery, society lotteries, football pools, casino, betting, bingo or remote gambling.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission How to complain about a gambling business
  Sets the eight-week window for the operator to resolve a complaint. It also references the third-party tool Resolver while noting 'the Gambling Commission isn't involved in how Resolver's services work'.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission How we tackle illegal gambling
  Carries the single most quotable line for a consumer page: 'A gambling licence issued in another country does not permit an operator to provide gambling to consumers in Great Britain.' It also records the prosecution split — the Commission can institute criminal proceedings in England and Wales, while in Scotland prosecution rests with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission LCCP condition 3.5.5 — Remote multi-operator self-exclusion (social responsibility code)
  The provision requires participation in 'the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme' and does not name GAMSTOP — writing that 3.5.5 requires operators to join GAMSTOP is an interpretation, not a quotation. It applies to remote licences subject to a nine-item exception list. No version or effective date is shown on the condition page.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission LCCP condition 8.1.1 — Display of licensed status: remote operators
  Requires remote licensees to display a licensed-status statement, their account number and a Commission-supplied link to their own register record on every screen from which customers can gamble. Applies to remote casino, bingo and betting licences with named exceptions. No version date shown on the condition page.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission LCCP online — licence conditions and codes of practice in full
  Published in three parts. The page shows 'Version effective from 29 July 2026' but no separate last-updated stamp — the LCCP is versioned, so any citation must carry the version date.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission LCCP Section 3 — Protection of children and other vulnerable persons
  Index page only; the provision text lives on the individual condition pages it links to.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Licence activities — the types of gambling licence
  Lists the licence types, each split into remote and non-remote. It does not define which conduct triggers a licensing requirement in law and does not discuss combined operating licences.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP)
  Over five years stale at the check date. It gives no statutory basis, no section references, and does not distinguish licence conditions from codes of practice.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Licensing objectives
  All three licensing objectives appear in full on the page. An earlier record that two were truncated was an artefact of the first extraction, not a property of the page.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Make sure that the gambling business is licensed
  Six years stale at the check date. It contains none of the crypto, credit-card or non-sterling 'red flags' that search-engine summaries attribute to the Commission — do not cite it for those.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Opening accounts with a gambling business
  Confirms the Commission itself tells consumers they may search the public register by 'the company's name, or the name of the website or app', which matches the register's own domain-name search field.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Public register (public and players section)
  The consumer-section entry point to the register. Resolves directly, with no redirect.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Public register of gambling businesses, personal licences, premises and regulatory actions
  Links five registers — gambling businesses, personal licences, regulatory actions, public statements, premises — plus a Freedom of Information item. No last-updated date, and the page states no retention period, contrary to what search-engine summaries claim.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Public Register of licensees, premises and regulatory actions — digital service
  Service landing page with a 'Start' button into the register. Shows a build identifier ('Release-181') but no last-updated date.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Register of gambling businesses – full list
  Browsable list with activity and remote/non-remote filters applied by an 'Apply filter' button. Query-string search parameters are ignored: five patterns were tested and each returned the unfiltered list, which a reader who does not notice would mistake for a result.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Register of gambling businesses (search)
  The search field is labelled 'Search by business name, trading name, domain name or account number', so domain search is officially supported. Two caveats the register states or demonstrates itself: 'Domain names and trading names are provided by the gambling business' — the domain list is self-reported, not compiled by the regulator — and no Commission page defines what the status values (Active, Expired, Forfeited, Lapsed, Pending, Revoked, Surrendered, Suspended) actually mean. The search is form-driven: there is no link that runs it for you.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Regulatory actions register
  Searchable by 'Search by account, operator name or details'. The page states no retention period and does not enumerate the categories of regulatory action; record counts change.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Self-exclusion — Gambling Commission guidance for the public
  Distinguishes the online scheme from the area- and sector-scoped land-based multi-operator schemes, which it does not name. This refreshed page writes the online scheme's name as 'GAMSTOP ONLINE', while other Commission pages and this register still use 'GAMSTOP' — check the current branding before publication.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Self-exclusion with GAMSTOP — Gambling Commission
  Stale, and it conflicts with the LCCP: this page says 'All gambling businesses must participate in this scheme', while social responsibility code provision 3.5.5 applies to remote licences subject to a nine-item exception list. The conflict is recorded, not resolved — describe the LCCP scope and note the exceptions rather than publishing either version as settled.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Taking your complaint to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) provider
  This consumer page carries no link to the Commission's list of approved ADR providers — it routes the consumer via the operator, which 'should be able to tell you which ADR provider to use'. It also records what ADR will not take: customer service issues, and refusal to accept a bet or a customer's custom.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Tell us something in confidence — confidential reporting service
  The Commission's own reporting service, reached by following the link from its illegal-gambling page; the canonical address was confirmed in the independent verification pass after the first research pass declined to publish one. It takes reports of matters such as unlicensed operation, underage gambling and money-laundering concerns, and it carries a limitation that must travel with any mention of it: 'Complaints received by this service will not be processed.' It is not an alternative to the operator-then-ADR route.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Types of lotteries and their regulations
  Visibly stale: it still says the National Lottery age limit 'has recently been changed' to 18, five years on. The figure 18 is confirmed; the framing is not usable verbatim. Search-engine summaries still return the superseded figure of 16 for the National Lottery.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• Gambling Commission Unlicensed gambling: our approach to tackling unlicensed gambling
  The regulator's own blog, by Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes, dated 21 October 2024. Listed for completeness: no claim in the research rests on it, and it is not a third-party news source.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• GAMSTOP About | Gamstop Online
  States a range of 'from 6 months up to 5 years' with an automatic renewal option, and that 'Once you've registered, you cannot cancel your registration during the exclusion period.' It does not enumerate discrete durations and does not state an activation delay. Note what the scheme actually blocks: signing up for or using online accounts with gambling companies licensed in Great Britain. It does not make gambling websites unreachable, and copy that says so sets a false expectation.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• GAMSTOP Gamstop Online — national online self-exclusion scheme homepage
  The scheme's own site, authoritative for its corporate identity but not the regulator: it is operated by The National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, Registered No. 10504973. The site now leads with the brand 'Gamstop Online'.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · reachable
• GAMSTOP What is self-exclusion? — GAMSTOP help centre article
  Returned HTTP 403 Forbidden to automated requests and the body was not retrieved. This is the page that would settle the discrete self-exclusion durations, any activation delay and post-expiry retention; until a human opens it in a browser, none of those are stated here.
  Checked 18 September 2026 · bot-blocked