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Knowledge base12 min read

Online gambling licenses: MGA, Curaçao, Anjouan, UKGC, US

What a gambling license is, how MGA, Curaçao, Anjouan, Isle of Man, Kahnawake, UKGC and US state licenses differ, and how affiliates check one before promoting a brand.

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Cream certificate with ornate border and a red wax seal with gold ribbon on green felt

A gambling license is a regulator's permission for a company to offer gambling in a defined territory under that regulator's rules. It decides where an operator may legally take players and, for affiliates and media buyers, where that operator may be promoted and advertised.

Rules checked October 29, 2026. This is a summary of public regulatory documents, not legal advice.

What is a gambling license

A license ties an operator to one regulator and one territory, so "licensed" alone says nothing about the GEO you buy traffic for.

Most regimes split licenses into three layers:

  • Operator (B2C) license. Lets a company run a casino, sportsbook or poker room for players. This is the one affiliates check.

  • Supplier (B2B) license. Covers game studios, platforms and other companies that serve operators. The Malta Gaming Authority and Anjouan both issue separate B2C and B2B licenses.

  • Personal license. Covers people in key roles, such as the personal management licenses the UK Gambling Commission requires for senior staff.

A brand licensed in Curaçao or Malta has no automatic right to take players in New Jersey, the UK or Germany, because each of those markets licenses online gambling itself.

Why the license matters to affiliates and media buyers

It decides where you can promote a brand, whether ad platforms run your campaigns, and how safe your commissions are.

  • Ad platform approval. Google certifies gambling advertisers country by country and requires a valid local license for every region targeted. Meta requires advertisers to request authorization first and to show the activity is licensed by a regulator or otherwise lawful in the territory they target. Microsoft Advertising requires licensing or registration in each market, affiliate sites included. An offshore license fails that test where a country licenses gambling itself.

  • Affiliate sites on Google. Affiliates and aggregators that do not hold a license themselves must link only to entities fully licensed and authorized in the targeted region, and the site footer must state that all outbound links go to gambling entities licensed in that location.

  • Payment risk. RevShare tails and unpaid CPA balances depend on the operator's right to keep trading. If its license, or its white-label platform's license, is suspended or revoked, commissions can stop. See affiliate fraud in iGaming for the other reason payouts get held.

  • The license chain. Many brands run under a platform provider's license (white label) or, historically in Curaçao, under someone else's sublicense. The name in the footer may not be the license holder.

Casino licensing at a glance: offshore vs regulated licenses

Offshore licenses typically serve markets without a local regime; a regulated-market license is required to serve players in the market that issues it.

RegulatorWhat it licensesPublished fees we could verifyPublic registerValid for US players?Valid for players in Great Britain?
Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA)Online B2C and B2B, direct licenses since the LOK reformNot verifiedYes, CGA license registerNoNo
Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)B2C gaming services, B2B critical supplies€5,000 application; €25,000 annual B2C fee, plus 5% gaming taxYes, MGA licensee register (verify on mga.org.mt)NoNo
Anjouan GamingOnline B2C and B2BNot published on the regulator's home pageYes, with a "verify a licence" toolNoNo
Isle of Man GSCOnline gambling by Island-incorporated companiesNot verifiedNot verifiedNoNo
Kahnawà:ke Gaming CommissionInteractive gaming licenses, client provider authorizationsNot verifiedClient provider authorization listNoNo
UK Gambling CommissionOperating licenses per activity, personal licensesSet by activity and size via its calculatorYes, public registerNoYes

No foreign or offshore license lets an operator serve players in a US state; only that state's regulator can. Regulators differ in the checks they publish; the table lists only what each publishes. Most of the strictest regulators sit in Tier-1 GEOs. Fees exclude setup, compliance staff, audits and legal work, which usually cost more than the license.

Curaçao gaming license after the LOK reform

A Curaçao gaming license is now issued directly by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance, known by its Dutch initials LOK.

For years Curaçao worked through a few master license holders, each free to issue sublicenses, which is why so many casino footers showed the same handful of license numbers.

The LOK came into force on December 24, 2024 and ended that model:

  • The Curaçao Gaming Authority regulates online gaming directly; trade press describes it as the successor to the Gaming Control Board.

  • Operators apply to the regulator through its own portal instead of buying a sublicense.

  • Companies licensed when the law took effect received provisional licenses; the CGA extended them to December 24, 2025, according to trade press. We could not confirm from the regulator's site how many operators have converted to full licenses since.

  • The CGA publishes a license register on its website.

Check the CGA register, not the footer: the CGA site also announced a move to a new regulatory platform on October 7, 2026, and supplier licensing and registration under the LOK is due to take full effect on December 24, 2026 (per Curaçao Chronicle, June 2026). Legacy sublicense numbers and seals still circulate, so treat a Curaçao claim as unconfirmed until the operating entity appears in the register.

A Curaçao gambling license is not valid for US states, Great Britain or EU countries with their own online regimes. We could not verify new-regime fees on the regulator's site, so we quote none.

Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)

The MGA licenses online operators (B2C gaming service licenses) and suppliers (B2B critical gaming supply licenses), and is widely treated as one of the stricter regimes outside the big national markets.

As of October 2026, the MGA lists a one-time €5,000 application fee. A B2C license carries a €25,000 fixed annual fee (€10,000 for operators offering only Type 4, controlled skill games), plus a 5% gaming tax. On top of that comes a compliance contribution that varies by license type and revenue, per the MGA's fee guidance note. B2B fees follow a separate structure.

Banks, payment providers and suppliers read its anti-money-laundering and player-protection demands as a serious bar. It is not an EU passport: countries that license online gambling themselves, such as Germany, require their own license, and it gives no right to serve players in any US state.

Anjouan gaming license

An Anjouan gaming license is issued by Anjouan Gaming, the internet gaming regulator of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan in the Union of the Comoros, which operates under the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority.

The regulator issues B2C and B2B licenses and runs a public register with a "verify a licence" tool showing each entity's status. Licensing agents market Anjouan as faster and cheaper than Malta or the Isle of Man; the regulator's home page publishes no fee schedule, so we quote none.

For affiliates, Anjouan is an offshore license. It does not satisfy ad platforms or regulators in countries that license gambling themselves.

Isle of Man and Kahnawake

Two long-running regimes outside the big national markets.

Isle of Man. Under the Online Gambling Regulation Act 2001, the Gambling Supervision Commission licenses companies incorporated on the Island to run online gambling and supervises them, including checks on the character and finances of license holders.

Kahnawake. The Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, based in the Mohawk territory of Kahnawà:ke near Montreal, licenses interactive gaming. Its regulations (revised December 2024) let licensees use only service providers it approves as authorized client providers, and it publishes that list. This "CPA" is unrelated to the CPA deal type. The Commission also warns publicly about sites that falsely claim its license.

UK Gambling Commission (UKGC)

The UK Gambling Commission requires an operating license to provide most gambling facilities to customers in Great Britain, wherever the operator is based.

  • Licenses by activity. Remote casino, remote betting and gambling software each need the matching operating license. Senior staff hold personal management licenses, and some other roles need personal functional licenses.

  • Fees. Application and annual fees depend on the activities licensed and business size; the Commission publishes a fee calculator, not one price.

  • Taxes. Remote Gaming Duty on online casino rose from 21% to 40% on April 1, 2026. Remote betting moves to a 25% General Betting Duty rate on April 1, 2027, while remote bets on UK horse racing stay at 15%.

  • Ad rules. License condition 5.1.6 obliges licensees to follow the CAP and BCAP advertising codes. The ASA treats affiliate marketing as marketing under the CAP Code: the operator carries primary responsibility, and the affiliate can be held wholly or jointly responsible for its own ads.

For affiliates, UK traffic needs a brand with a UKGC license, and Google, Meta and Microsoft expect one before approving UK gambling ads. Promoting an unlicensed brand to UK players puts your ad accounts and payouts at risk.

How US state licensing works

The US has no federal online gambling license: each state decides what is legal and licenses operators, suppliers and, in some states, affiliates.

At the end of 2025, full online casino was legal in seven states (Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia), Nevada allowed online poker only, and 39 states plus DC had legal sports betting. See our state-by-state guide to whether online gambling is legal in the US.

  • Operators need a license from each state's regulator, such as the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement or the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

  • Vendors and affiliates can need their own approval. New Jersey runs vendor registration and casino service industry enterprise (CSIE) licensing for companies serving casinos. An early-2026 Division letter order shows where the line falls: an affiliate that had applied for a CSIE license because of a revenue-share contract withdrew the application once the deal ended, stayed a vendor registrant for its CPA marketing, and needs Division approval for any future revenue share. In Pennsylvania online casino, affiliates paid on player activity, such as revenue share, need certification, while flat-fee affiliates need the lighter registration.

  • Individuals working in gaming are often licensed or registered too (the "gaming license for employees"); rules vary by state.

An offshore license gives no right to serve players in any US state. Sweepstakes casinos are a separate case: they run without a gambling license on a sweepstakes legal theory, and several states have moved to ban them. See sweepstakes vs social casinos.

How to verify a license: an affiliate checklist

Most licenses can be checked in minutes in the regulator's public register. Do it before you sign and again before you scale.

  1. Get the holder's details from the program. Before signing, ask the affiliate manager for the legal entity, license number and regulator.

  2. Decide whether that regulator counts for your GEO. A valid license still fails if it does not cover the country or state you buy traffic in, or if your ad platform does not accept it there.

  3. Open the register from the regulator's own website. Never follow the seal on the casino page; a seal image proves nothing and can link to a fake page.

  4. Read the status line. Active, suspended, expired and revoked mean very different things for your payouts. Also scan the regulator's warnings list.

  5. Tie the license to the brand you promote. The entity in the register should match the operator in the terms, and the brand or domain should appear in the listing. In a white-label setup, confirm the platform's license actually covers this brand.

A legitimate program names its license holder and points you to the register entry.

How to get a gambling license (the short version)

How to get a gambling license depends on the jurisdiction, but most regulators ask for the same core package and differ in how closely they examine it.

Expect to form or register a company, disclose owners and source of funds, pass fit-and-proper checks on directors and key staff, submit anti-money-laundering, KYC and responsible-gambling policies, certify games and random number generators with an approved lab, and pay an application fee. Strict regulators add business plans and financial tests.

So how hard is it to get an online gambling license? Offshore paperwork is manageable for a funded company; the UK, Malta and US states mean long reviews, deep background checks and compliance costs well above the application fee.

FAQ

What is a gambling license?

A gambling license is a regulator's permission for a company to offer gambling in a specific territory under that regulator's rules. It covers only the markets that regulator controls.

How hard is it to get an online gambling license?

Getting an online gambling license ranges from moderate to very hard. Offshore regimes are marketed as quicker and cheaper; the UKGC, the MGA and US state regulators run long reviews of owners, funding and systems.

How much does a gambling license cost?

Gambling license cost varies by regulator, activity and company size. As of October 2026, the MGA lists a €5,000 application fee and a €25,000 annual fee for a B2C license, plus gaming tax; the UKGC sets fees through its calculator. Setup and compliance usually cost more.

Is a Curaçao license valid in the US?

A Curaçao license is not valid in the US. Online gambling is licensed state by state, and only a state regulator can authorize an operator to serve players there. See our US online gambling legality guide.

Is a Curaçao or Anjouan license enough to run ads on Google or Meta?

A Curaçao or Anjouan license is usually not enough for Google or Meta in regulated markets. Google requires a valid local license for each targeted country, and Meta requires authorization backed by proof that the activity is licensed or lawful in the target territory.

How do I check whether an online casino is licensed?

To check whether an online casino is licensed, get the license number and company name, search them in the regulator's own public register, then confirm the status is active and the license covers your market.

Sources

Rules and policy pages checked October 29, 2026.

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