Crypto Casino Licences Explained: Curaçao, Anjouan and How to Check One

The two licences you will see most

• Curaçao. The Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) licenses online operators under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance, the "LOK". Its new online policy took effect on 15 November 2023 and replaced the old master-licence system, under which a handful of master licensees issued sublicences that nobody outside could easily check. New licences are numbered like OGL/2024/687/0427 or CGA/2025/2452/1255, and the CGA publishes its register as a downloadable PDF.
• Anjouan. Anjouan Gaming, under the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority, issues licences numbered like ALSI-202410011-FI1. Its public register is searchable by company, licence number or domain, and lists each licence's status, issue and expiry dates and the domains it covers. It held 1,278 licences when we searched it.

Malta (MGA), the UK (UKGC) and similar onshore regulators are much stricter, and you will rarely see them on crypto casinos, because their rules on payment methods, player funds and markets do not fit the crypto model.

What a licence does and does not do for you

An offshore licence means a named company has been vetted to some degree, has anti-money-laundering obligations (which is why casinos run identity checks before withdrawals), and can be suspended or revoked. It gives you a regulator to complain to.

It does not guarantee fair odds, fast payouts or that the company will still be solvent next year, and offshore dispute processes are slow and limited. A licence is the floor, not the ceiling: pair it with a long operating record, a provably fair floor and a public payout history.

Reading the register statuses

• Indefinite (CGA) or Valid (Anjouan): the licence is current. On Anjouan, still check the expiry date: one register entry we checked was marked Valid with a term that had already ended.
• Assessment in progress (CGA): the licence term has ended and a renewal is under review. The operator may keep trading while the CGA decides, but the licence is not confirmed as current. Two casinos in our directory sit here, Cloudbet and Thunderpick.
• Expired, sometimes with a note such as "Re-evaluating in administrative appeal": the term ended and was not renewed. Rollbit's old Curaçao licence carries exactly this note; Rollbit now cites a valid Anjouan licence instead.
• Revoked: the regulator withdrew it. The CGA keeps a separate enforcement register for these; it lists the Curaçao entity linked to BC.Game as revoked from 6 December 2024.

How to check a casino licence in two minutes

1. Read the footer. Note the company name, its registration number and the licence number. A footer that names none of these is the first red flag: Duelbits' says it is licensed in Curaçao without naming a company or number.
2. Open the regulator's own register, never a "verify" link inside the casino's footer, which can point anywhere. Use the Curaçao Gaming Authority site (its licence register page links the current PDF) or the Anjouan Gaming licence register.
3. Match all three: company, licence number and, on Anjouan, the domain. A typo is worth noticing, but a different company is a different licence. If the register search comes up empty, try the regulator's validator: Flush's licence is missing from the Anjouan register search but shows VALID on the Anjouan Gaming Board's validator. If you reach a validator through a footer seal, check it is on the regulator's own domain (Anjouan's is anjouangamingboard.org) and that the company and domain match.
4. Check the status and the term, as above.
5. Check for extra entries. Registers sometimes show a second licence for the same domain under another company that the casino does not mention (we found this for Roobet and Thunderpick). It is not necessarily a problem, but the licence that protects you is the one the casino says it operates under.

We run exactly this check for every casino we list, publish the result in the licence ledger, and only award the Licensed badge when the register shows the cited licence as current.