The UKGC licence explained, and how to check one

A UKGC licence is permission from the Gambling Commission to offer gambling to people in Great Britain. For an online casino the document in question is a remote casino operating licence, and without it the site is breaking the law by accepting British players. With it, the operator signs up to a rulebook that covers your money, your identity, the games and what happens when things go wrong. You can check any casino's licence yourself in about two minutes, and you should.

What "remote operating licence" means

"Remote" is the Gambling Act's word for gambling by internet, phone or any other distance communication. "Operating" separates the company's licence from the personal licences held by its senior managers. Licences are granted by activity, so a company that offers slots, a sportsbook and bingo holds a remote licence for each. The company named on the licence is the licensee. It is often not the name on the logo, a point we come back to below.

The requirement to hold one follows the customer, not the company. Under the law in force since 1 November 2014, an operator based in Malta or Gibraltar needs a Gambling Commission licence if its site is used in Great Britain. Our UK gambling law guide has the background.

What the licence obliges a casino to do

The conditions run to hundreds of pages. These are the ones a player actually feels.

Tell you how safe your balance is

An online operator that holds customer money must keep it in accounts separate from its own business accounts. That sounds reassuring, but read the label. The Commission's rating system has three levels. Segregation alone is rated "not protected", because the money would still be treated as company assets in an insolvency. "Medium" means there are arrangements, such as insurance, intended to get the money back to customers. "High" means a formal trust account, legally separate from the company and checked by an independent trustee or auditor.

The casino must state its level in the terms and show it to you at your first deposit, with something for you to acknowledge. Since 31 October 2025, operators at the "not protected" level have also had to remind customers of that every six months. A licence, then, does not guarantee your balance. It guarantees that you are told. We would not leave a large sum sitting in any gambling account, and a "not protected" rating is a good reason to withdraw winnings promptly.

Know who you are

The operator must verify your name, address and date of birth before you can gamble, and it has anti-money-laundering duties that can lead to questions about where larger sums came from. Details are in our verification guide.

Take part in GAMSTOP and offer its own tools

Every licensed online operator must be part of GAMSTOP, the national self-exclusion scheme, and must offer its own self-exclusion, time-outs and limits, including a prompt to set a deposit limit before your first deposit. See what GAMSTOP is for how the scheme works.

Give you a free route to dispute resolution

A complaint that is not settled within eight weeks can go to an independent ADR provider, at no cost to you. The operator's terms must name the provider.

Keep terms fair and bonuses within the rules

Terms have to comply with consumer law and be set out plainly. Bonus wagering is capped at ten times, and the significant conditions of an offer must be shown with it. Our wagering guide covers the detail.

Use tested games

New games and random number generators must be tested by a test house approved by the Commission, and they can be released only once the report has gone to the Commission. Testing covers the randomness of the RNG and whether the game returns what its rules say it returns. Changes that affect fairness mean a retest.

How to check a casino on the public register

The Commission publishes a searchable public register of every licence holder. Checking takes a couple of minutes.

1. Scroll to the footer of the casino's website. A licensed site must state that it is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission, name the licensee and give an account number.
2. Click the account number. It is supposed to link straight to that licensee's own record on the register, not to the Commission's home page. If there is no link, or it goes somewhere vague, treat that as a warning.
3. Better still, do it independently. Open the register yourself, choose the register of gambling businesses, and search for the casino's web address. The search accepts a business name, trading name, domain name or account number.
4. On the record, check that the licence status is active and that a remote casino licence is among the listed activities.
5. Check the domain names listed on the record. The exact address in your browser should be there. Copycat sites borrow real account numbers, and this step catches them.
6. Look at the regulatory actions section to see whether the licensee has been sanctioned, and for what.

The account number

Each licence holder has an account number, the first block of digits in its full licence number. It identifies the company on the register, and the same number appears on every brand that company runs. We only print an account number in a review when we have looked it up on the register ourselves. Where we have not, the review names the licensee and leaves you to search for it.

One licensee, many brands

Plenty of casino brands do not hold a licence of their own. Under a white-label arrangement, a licensed platform company runs the site, the games, the payments and the compliance, while a partner supplies the name and the marketing. Dozens of brands can sit on one licence.

The Commission's position is that responsibility for every site on a licence "sits with the licence holder and cannot be transferred to any other party". For you, that has two consequences. Your contract is with the licensee, so that is who you complain to and whose fund-protection rating applies. And sister brands on one licence tend to share terms, payment rules and support teams, so a new logo does not always mean a new casino. Our casino reviews name the licensee behind each brand for that reason.

Malta, Gibraltar, Curacao: how offshore licences compare

Many operators licensed in Britain are based in Malta or Gibraltar and hold licences there as well. That is unremarkable. What matters is which licence covers you, and for a customer in Great Britain only the Gambling Commission's does.

A casino that takes British players on a Malta, Gibraltar or Curacao licence alone is operating illegally here, however respectable the other regulator may be. In practical terms you would be playing without the British rules: no 10x wagering cap, no slot stake limits, no GAMSTOP, no required fund-protection disclosure, no ADR scheme approved in Britain, and a regulator overseas with no duty to look after a customer its licensee should not have accepted. Sites that advertise themselves as casinos not on GAMSTOP are in exactly this position.

What enforcement looks like

The Commission can open a formal licence review. At the end of one it may take no action, give advice, issue a warning, add conditions to the licence, impose a financial penalty, suspend the licence or revoke it. Many cases end instead in a regulatory settlement, where the operator admits the failings, agrees to fix them and makes a payment. Outcomes are generally published and show up under regulatory actions on the register.

Most published cases concern failures in anti-money-laundering controls and in spotting customers at risk of harm, not rigged games. A past fine is not an automatic reason to avoid a brand, since the largest operators have the longest records, but a recent one for the same failing twice tells you something. It is one of the things our safety mark takes into account, as set out in how we rate.

Questions people ask