A licence is a permission to operate, not a promise to you
Before a site can take a deposit it has to be allowed to, by a named authority, under a recorded licence with a scope and a status. This site is about that permission layer: what a licence is, who issues one, and how to read the record for yourself instead of trusting a logo in a footer.
Entry 1What a licence actually is
A gambling licence is a permission. A regulator — a public authority, or a body a state has delegated the job to — decides that a particular named company may offer particular gambling products, in particular places, under conditions it sets and can enforce. Nothing about that transaction promises anything to you. It is a licence to operate, not a warranty that the operation is honest, fair or solvent.
That distinction is the whole point of this site. A site can hold a real licence and still hold a bonus term you dislike, a withdrawal window you find slow, or a house edge that is simply the price of the product. A licence is the floor of legitimacy — the operator is allowed to be there — and it is not a ceiling of quality. Reading the register tells you the floor exists. It does not tell you the offer is good.
The one-sentence version
A licence proves that a named entity was given permission on a date, by a named authority, for a described scope. It does not prove that the permission is still in force, that it covers the product you are using, or that it applies where you are.
Entry 2What a licence does, and the four things it does not
The permissions layer is easier to hold in your head as a small list of things a licence is for and a longer list of things it is not.
What a licence is for
- A gate on the market. Offering gambling without a licence is an offence in most regulated markets, so the licence is what makes the offer lawful to begin with.
- A named accountable entity. The licence is granted to a legal person, not a brand; that entity is the one the authority can sanction.
- A set of conditions. Licences carry obligations — how customer money is held, how complaints are handled, what must be reported — that the authority can inspect.
- A lever for the authority. Because the licence can be varied, suspended or withdrawn, the authority has something to take away when the operator does not comply.
Entry 3The parts of a register entry
A public register is the authority's own record of who holds what. Entries vary in detail, but a workable one carries the same handful of fields. Read them in this order.
The field people most often misread is the scope. A licence that is real and current can still say nothing about the product you are playing, because the same operator may hold different licences for different products or run them from different entities.
Entry 4The layers a licence sits inside
A licence is one band in a stack, and it is not the top band. What applies to your money is decided by several layers at once, and a licence only settles the second one.
This is why a licensed operator can still be a bad experience for a particular person, and why an unlicensed one is not automatically the only risk. The licence fixes who may operate and under what conditions. The law of your own country, the terms you accepted when you opened the account, and the certification behind each game are separate matters with separate owners.
Entry 5What this site covers
Eight pages read the permission layer in order, from what a licence is to how to spot a market that has none.
Entry 6Reading a licence without being sold to
Two habits keep this topic honest. The first is to treat every licence claim as a claim until it is matched against a register — including the claims on this site, which names no operator as licensed anywhere. The second is to separate the register from the marketing that surrounds it: a regulator's seal, a "certified" badge and a support chat that answers instantly are all things a site chooses to show you, and only one of them is a record held by someone else.
A claim you can match against an authority register you reached yourself, by name or by number.
A brand name or a link that leads to a register but is not itself the record.
A logo, a badge, a "fully licensed" line or a number that returns nothing in any register you can search.
Affiliate disclosure and risk warning
Every affiliate link on this page and in the header is a sponsored link to a partner operator, and we may be paid if you open an account through it, at no extra cost to you. That link pays us; it does not make any operator licensed anywhere, it does not change the terms of any licence, and it is never a recommendation to bet. Nothing on this page is betting, financial, tax or legal advice, and no authority, register, licence number or jurisdiction described here is a recommendation of any operator. 18+ only. Gambling is a real risk of real loss. A licence is a permission to operate, not a guarantee of anything to you: it is issued by a named authority under conditions, it can be suspended, varied or withdrawn, it usually covers only some products and some countries, and the law that applies to you can differ from the law where the operator is licensed. Registers, number formats and player-protection rules differ by jurisdiction and change, so verify anything that matters against the authority's own live register rather than any summary, including this one. Gambling can cause serious financial harm, including debt and damage to relationships and mental health. Never stake money you cannot afford to lose, never borrow to bet, and never increase a stake to chase a loss. Free, confidential support is available in most countries from national gambling-harm helplines, for players and for the people around them.
Before the bonus terms, the licence
A bonus term, a withdrawal window and a game's maths all sit inside a permission that somebody granted. Start with who granted it.