A licence badge in a casino footer tells you who regulates the operator. It does not tell you how much that regulator protects you. This guide compares the three licences you meet most often on international casino sites: the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). We use regulator documents only. Where we could not verify a figure, we say so and leave it out.
Start with the basics in gambling licences explained if you are new to the topic.
The short version
| Curaçao (CGA) | Malta (MGA) | Great Britain (UKGC) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it covers | Operators licensed by Curaçao’s regulator | Operators licensed in Malta, often serving many European and other markets | Operators serving players in Great Britain |
| Size, from the regulator’s latest figures | 666 online licences on the register of 20 October 2026: 571 B2C (casino operator) and 95 B2B (supplier) | 302 licensed companies holding 311 gaming licences at the end of December 2025 (online and land-based) | 138 active remote casino operating licences on the register on 26 October 2026 |
| Complaints | Free complaint up to six months after the incident; operator answers in four weeks, extendable once by four more | Operator’s own procedure, then an ADR body; MGA handled 3,643 requests for assistance in 2025 | Operator has 8 weeks; then free ADR |
| Self-exclusion | One operator at a time (across its domains and brands) | Operator-level in the brands we reviewed; no national scheme confirmed in our sources | GAMSTOP: one registration covers all licensed operators |
| Player funds | Not verified in our sources | Operators must hold enough funds to cover all player and jackpot balances | Not verified in our sources |
| What stands out in the documents | A public register with statuses; self-exclusion is per operator | A published player-funds duty and published complaint counts | A national self-exclusion scheme, GAMSTOP, with every licensee required to join |
“Not verified in our sources” does not mean the protection is absent. It means we could not confirm it in a regulator document we read.
What each regulator publishes about its own register
UKGC
On 26 October 2026 the UKGC public register listed 138 active remote casino operating licences, out of 4,505 licence rows of all kinds (Gambling Commission public register: business-licence-register-licences.csv, Gambling Commission, downloaded 2026-10-26). You can search it for any operator’s licence number and domain names. Our UK Gambling Commission guide explains what the licence requires.
The Commission also acts against operators that are not licensed. In its 2024 to 2025 reporting year it issued 516 cease and desist requests to illegal operators (up from 384 in 2023-24) and 352 more to advertisers or affiliates of unlicensed operators (Gambling Commission Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 (HC 759), Gambling Commission).
MGA
At the end of December 2025 the MGA had 302 licensed companies holding 311 gaming licences (Malta Gaming Authority Annual Report 2025, Malta Gaming Authority). It states that B2C licensees must hold enough funds to cover all player and jackpot funds, and that it received 1,757 monthly player-funds reports for 2025 (same report, page 48). That is a published, monitored obligation. Read more in our Malta Gaming Authority guide.
Curaçao
The CGA’s register of 20 October 2026 lists 666 online licences: 571 B2C and 95 B2B. Of the 571 B2C licences, 180 have status “Indefinite”, 260 “Assessment in progress”, 52 “Expired”, 46 “Revoked” and 33 show no status (Curaçao Gaming Authority online gaming licence register, Curaçao Gaming Authority, “Last updated October 20, 2026”).
In plain terms: a Curaçao licence number is not enough. Read the status. Only 180 of 571 B2C licences show “Indefinite”, the status our reviews of BitStarz and 7Bit Casino record. Our Curaçao Gaming Authority guide explains the statuses.
Curaçao’s annual cost to a B2C operator is EUR 47,450: EUR 24,490 licence fee to the National Treasury plus EUR 22,960 supervisory fee (License Fees under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK), Version 2.0, Curaçao Gaming Authority, p. 5). We have no verified UKGC or MGA fee figure to set beside it, so we do not rank the three on cost.
How regulators elsewhere view Curaçao
The Swedish Gambling Authority (Spelinspektionen) looked at where Swedes gambled outside Sweden’s licence system. In 2024 about 45% of traffic from Sweden to unlicensed gambling sites went to sites claiming a licence from a “third country”. Curaçao alone accounted for 38% and Anjouan for 5%. The regulator judges these jurisdictions to have very low supervision and consumer-protection requirements (Spelinspektionens lägesbild – onlinespel utanför den licensierade marknaden, Spelinspektionen, 2025-03-20; section 2.4.2, our translation from Swedish).
For the Anjouan side of that figure, see our Anjouan (Comoros) gambling licences guide. That is one national regulator’s view, about Sweden, from 2025. It is not a verdict on any one Curaçao operator, and the CGA policies we cite elsewhere in this guide are dated February and June 2025, so some may postdate the data Sweden measured. It does show why players in strict markets should not treat a Curaçao licence as equivalent to a local one.
Complaints: where you can escalate
The three regimes differ most when something goes wrong.
- UKGC: complain to the business first. It has 8 weeks. After that, you may take the dispute to an ADR provider, a free, independent service. See the Commission’s page on how to complain (read 2026-10-28).
- MGA: the regulator received 3,643 requests for assistance from players in 2025, and 1,886 complaints were referred to ADR in 2025 (1,608 in 2024). The operator’s own procedure comes first; the brand terms we read name the ADR body.
- Curaçao: players can complain free of charge up to six months after the bet is settled or the incident happened, and the operator must answer an ordinary complaint within four weeks, extendable once by four more weeks with written notice (Player Complaints Policy Guidelines, Version 1.1, Curaçao Gaming Authority).
The step-by-step version is in how to complain about an online casino.
Self-exclusion: the biggest practical difference
Under Curaçao’s rules, self-exclusion applies to one operator (across that operator’s domains and brands), not across all Curaçao-licensed sites (Responsible Gaming Policy for Licensed Operators, Curaçao Gaming Authority, p. 4). Curaçao-licensed operators must offer self-exclusion of 1 year, with options of 3, 5 and 10 years and lifetime (p. 14).
In Great Britain, GAMSTOP is a free service and all businesses licensed to offer online gambling to individuals in Great Britain must implement self-exclusion procedures. Since 31 March 2020 all gambling operators must be part of GAMSTOP as a condition of their Gambling Commission licence (GAMSTOP Terms of Use, GAMSTOP, read 2026-10-28).
So a person who excludes at one Curaçao casino is not excluded at the next. Our self-exclusion guide goes deeper, including what to do if a site lets you back in.
Example: one brand, two licences
Videoslots holds both an MGA licence (MGA/CRP/258/2014) and a UKGC licence (039380-R-319311-036), and its terms say UK facilities rely on the UKGC licence only. Its welcome offer is printed in two term sets: one for the MGA licence and one for the GB licence. The licence that applies to you decides the terms you get. LeoVegas’s Rest-of-World site is licensed by the MGA (MGA/CRP/237/2013), and a separate UK licence serves UK players only. See LeoVegas vs Videoslots for a side-by-side.
How to read a licence claim on a casino site
Footers usually name the company, the regulator and a licence number. Treat that as a claim to check, not proof. Look for three things:
- The licence number matches the register. Search the regulator’s register for the number and the company name. Our guide to checking a licence shows how.
- The domain you are on is covered. The UKGC register lists domain names for each licensee, and Curaçao’s fee schedule lists a one-time EUR 250 charge for adding a main domain to a licence (License Fees under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK), Version 2.0, Curaçao Gaming Authority, p. 6), so compare the site’s domain with the register entry.
- The status is current. On Curaçao’s register, “Expired” and “Revoked” are real statuses, as the counts above show.
If any of the three fails, do not deposit.
Which should you look for?
It depends on where you live and what you need.
- If you live in Great Britain: only a UKGC licence matters for you legally, and it is what links you to GAMSTOP. Casinos that bar UK players in their terms, as BitStarz and 7Bit do, are not for you.
- If you live elsewhere: check the operator’s restricted-country list first. Then check the licence on the regulator’s register, as in how to check a gambling licence.
- Between Curaçao and MGA: on the documents we read, the MGA publishes more about player-funds protection and complaint volumes. Curaçao publishes a detailed register with statuses and a 2025 player-complaints policy. Neither publishes average payout times. The review pages on this site record the operators’ own payout claims.
We do not rank the regulators. We describe what each publishes, so you can decide with the facts in front of you. See how we rate casinos for the checks we run on every brand. Content 18+. If gambling stops being fun, see our responsible gaming page.