What a Casino Licence Actually Gives You

A licence does not give you fair play. It does not guarantee fast payments, and it does not mean that a slot machine "pays better today." A licence gives you several specific things: an address to write to when an operator refuses to pay, and a legally open route for your money from your bank account to the casino. Everything else is marketing. Our list contains 48 casinos, and six of them have a Latvian licence. The other 42 operate under foreign licences - and almost all offer larger cash bonuses. That is the choice you are actually making, and this article lays it out clearly, with numbers.

What a Licence Gives You - and What It Does Not

Let's start with what a licence actually gives you. Not theoretically, but practically, in your everyday use.

Four things a licence gives you:

A complaints address. If an operator refuses to pay out your winnings, a licence gives you a regulator you can write to. Without a licence, you do not even have a formal authority to hear your complaint.

A legal payment route. Latvian banks and payment institutions are not allowed to cooperate with operators that have not received a Latvian licence. A licence means that your money can legally travel from your card to your gaming account at all.

Age-verification and self-exclusion obligations. Licensed operators have a legal obligation to verify your age and offer self-exclusion options. Foreign operators may do this voluntarily, but for Latvian operators it is mandatory.

The regulator's power to impose penalties. The regulator has the right and the obligation to examine complaints and penalise operators for violations. This means your complaint is not simply ignored at the procedural level.

Two things a licence does not give you:

Fair games. A licence does not guarantee that a slot machine's return-to-player percentage (RTP) is set at a level favourable to you. That is determined by testing the gaming software, not by the licence itself.

Fast payouts. A licence does not determine how quickly an operator pays out your winnings. There are licensed operators with slow payments and foreign operators with fast payments. This is a separate metric.

The most important point: a licence is not a quality mark. It is a legal obligation. And, as you will see below, that obligation comes at a price.

Five Licences in Our List

Our list contains 48 active casinos operating under five different licensing systems.

Curaçao: 25 casinos operate under a Curaçao licence. The regulator is the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), and complaints can be directed to the CGA public register. There is a complaints process, but the register itself acknowledges that it cannot guarantee the validity of licences.

Anjouan: 14 casinos operate under an Anjouan licence. The regulator is the Anjouan gaming regulator. We are not aware of any publicly available complaints page.

Latvia (IAUI/VID): Six casinos operate under a Latvian licence. The regulator is the State Revenue Service (VID), and complaints can be directed to the VID complaints page. This provides a clear complaints process, and bank payments are legal.

Tobique: Two casinos operate under a Tobique licence. The regulator is the Tobique Gaming Commission. It is a very small system with limited information.

Malta: One casino operates under a Maltese licence. The regulator is the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), and complaints can be directed to the MGA complaints page. It is a recognised European system, but it appears in only one casino in our list.

The first difference you will notice is that the Curaçao licence is the most common - 25 of the 48 casinos. But Curaçao is not one single system, as some people think. Our CMS records this licence in two ways: "Curaçao" (21 casinos) and "Kirasa (Curacao)" (4 casinos). It is the same licence, just labelled differently. The second-largest group is Anjouan, with 14 casinos. Only six have a Latvian licence, and it is the only system in which there is a legally open route from your bank account to your gaming account.

How to Check a Casino Licence

You can check a licence yourself, but each system works differently.

Curaçao: The CGA maintains a public register where all licensed operators can be searched. The register is freely available, and you can enter the casino's name or licence number. But be careful - the disclaimer at the bottom of the register states that the overview "does not guarantee the current validity of licences" and that "no rights can be derived from it." A register that includes such a disclaimer is an honest measure of how much this licence actually gives you. The CGA also publishes an "Enforcement Register" and "Public Warnings," which are worth checking before registering.

Latvia: The Latvian regulator is no longer a separate institution. Gambling supervision has been incorporated into the structure of the State Revenue Service, and the old iaui.gov.lv address redirects to VID. On the VID website, you can check whether an operator is licensed and whether it is included in the blocked-operator list.

Anjouan: Here, we have nothing to recommend. Fourteen casinos in our list operate with an Anjouan licence, but we are not aware of a public register or regularly updated regulator website to which we can direct you. We say this openly - the regulator you cannot point to is the most important finding about this system.

Malta and Tobique: Malta's MGA is a well-established system with a public register and complaints process. Tobique is a small and lesser-known system - here too, we do not have clear public information on how to file a complaint.

The Latvian Licence - What You Gain and What You Lose

Now we come to the core issue. The data in our list shows a clear trade-off that no other industry article will tell you about.

Of the six Latvian-licensed casinos - Laimz, Optibet, LVBet, Klondaika, Tonybet and Betsafe - three (LVBet, Klondaika and Betsafe) do not offer any cash bonus at all. The other two (Optibet and Laimz) offer cashback rather than a bonus: up to EUR 300 and EUR 1,000 respectively. Tonybet is not included in this summary, but the overall picture is clear.

All 42 foreign casinos publish cash bonuses ranging from EUR 500 to EUR 3,500, depending on the offer. On average, foreign bonuses are several times larger than the cashback offered by Latvian operators.

But there is an important nuance that must not be confused. Latvian operators are not "stingier" overall. They compete with free-spin offers, where they actually outperform the foreign average: around 500 compared with approximately 220, and all six publish a clear number of free spins. The difference is only in the cash bonus, not in generosity. The licence costs you a bonus.

So this is a trade-off: you exchange the right to complain and a legal banking route for a cash bonus. With a Latvian licence, your payment from your bank to the casino is legally protected. If the casino refuses to pay, you have VID, which can intervene. But you receive less cash up front.

Foreign casinos give you a larger bonus, but the payment route is closed. And this brings us to the next question.

Are Foreign Casinos Without a Latvian Licence Legal?

The short answer: you are not prohibited from playing. There is no law that prohibits a Latvian resident from registering with and playing at a foreign casino. But there is one important "but" that changes everything.

The State Revenue Service's register of blocked operators states that Latvian credit institutions and payment institutions are prohibited from cooperating with operators that have not received a Latvian licence. This means that your bank or payment service - for example, card payments - cannot legally transfer money to a foreign casino account.

In practice, this means that when you try to make a deposit, your bank may block the transaction. Some operators accept cryptocurrencies or other payment methods, but that is not the same as a legal bank transfer.

So foreign casinos are not "illegal" in the sense that you would be punished for playing. But the payment route is closed, and that is the most concrete thing a Latvian licence buys you. Without it, your money cannot legally travel from your bank to your gaming account.

And this is precisely why all 42 foreign casinos in our list can so easily offer large bonuses - they buy your attention, but they cannot offer you what a Latvian licence provides: a legally open payment route and a supervisory authority that can penalise an operator for violations.

Curaçao After 2024

You may have read that "a Curaçao licence means nothing." That was true until recently, but the situation has changed since the end of 2024.

The Curaçao Gaming Act (National Ordinance on Games of Chance, LOK) came into force on 24 December 2024. The law replaced the old master-licence and sub-licence system, in which large operators issued licences to smaller ones and no one really knew who was responsible. Licences are now issued directly by the Curaçao Gaming Authority and are recorded in a public register. This is a real improvement - the old system was genuinely unclear, and now there is one central authority to which you can write.

But there is an important disclaimer, which we have already mentioned. The CGA public register itself contains a disclaimer: the overviews "do not guarantee the current validity of licences" and "no rights can be derived from them." A register that includes its own disclaimer is an honest measure of how much this licence is worth to a player. Yes, the process is clearer now, but it is still not a Latvian licence.

A Curaçao licence is not a quality mark, but it is no longer "nothing" either. It gives you a formal complaints route to the CGA, but without the legality of bank payments and with a register that itself acknowledges its limitations.

Anjouan and the Rest

Fourteen of our 48 casinos operate under an Anjouan licence. Anjouan is an autonomous region of the Comoros Islands that has become a popular alternative to Curaçao in recent years. But we must be open about this: we do not know of a regulator's website to which we could direct you for filing a complaint. The Anjouan system is less transparent than Curaçao after the LOK reform, and that is a fact we cannot ignore.

We cannot tell you how safe or unsafe an Anjouan licence is, because we simply do not have enough information about how it operates in practice. We can tell you only this: 14 casinos operate under this licence, and in this article we cannot point to a regulator that supervises them. If you are considering playing at a casino with an Anjouan licence, you must decide for yourself whether this uncertainty is acceptable.

Of the remaining systems - Tobique (2 casinos) and Malta (1 casino) - Malta can be considered the most developed regulatory system in Europe, but it appears in only one casino in our list. Tobique is a small system with little information.

Speed Is Not a Licensing Issue

One of the most common misconceptions is that licensed operators pay out faster. Our data shows a different picture.

Our payout index shows that all six Latvian-licensed operators are consistently fast - that is true. But the fastest published payout time in our entire list belongs to a casino with a Curaçao licence. Licence and speed are two different dimensions.

A licence does not determine how quickly an operator processes your payout request. That is determined by the operator's internal processes, payment-processing providers and financial flows. You can find a slow Latvian operator and a fast Curaçao operator. Therefore, when choosing a casino, you need to evaluate each metric separately: bonus, payout speed, game selection and the importance of the licence to you personally.

What Does "Without a Latvian Licence" Mean?

Before we go any further, here is the transparent section that applies to all foreign casinos in our list. We will also use it in all our future reviews of operators without a Latvian licence.

Foreign licence - transparent section. This casino operates under a Curaçao / Anjouan / Tobique / Malta licence, not a Latvian licence. This means:

Complaints route: If a dispute arises, you submit a complaint to the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), not to Latvian authorities. The process may be less clear and longer than the Latvian VID complaints process.

Payments: Latvian banks and payment institutions are prohibited from cooperating with unregistered operators. Your bank transfer to this casino may be blocked, and a legal route for money from your bank to your gaming account is not guaranteed.

Protection obligations: The operator is not legally required to comply with Latvian age-verification, self-exclusion or responsible-gambling requirements.

This licence does not mean that the casino is unsafe. But it does mean that you do not have the protection of a Latvian regulator. Consider this information before registering.

We will not try to convince you that foreign casinos are dangerous or that they are safe. We will simply tell you what changes: your complaints address, your banking route and the operator's legal obligations towards you. The decision remains yours.

FAQ

What does a casino licence give you?

A casino licence provides a legal basis for operation, a complaints address in the event of disputes and certain player-protection obligations for the operator. Without a licence, you have no formal authority to write to about problems.

Is a foreign casino legal?

Playing at a foreign casino is not directly prohibited, but Latvian banks and payment institutions are prohibited from cooperating with unregistered operators. This means that a legal bank transfer to such casinos is not possible.

Which licence is better for a casino?

A Latvian licence gives you the clearest complaints process and a legal banking route. Curaçao has improved after the 2024 reform, but it is still not equivalent to a Latvian licence. Anjouan is the least transparent licensing system in our list.

How do you check a casino licence?

For a Latvian licence, check the VID blocked-operator list. For a Curaçao licence, check the CGA public register, but take note of its disclaimer about licence validity. For an Anjouan licence, we are not aware of a public register.

What does a Curaçao licence mean after 2024?

Since December 2024, Curaçao licences have been issued directly by the Curaçao Gaming Authority and are visible in a public register. The old sub-licence system has been replaced, but the register itself acknowledges that it cannot guarantee the validity of licences.

A licence is not a quality mark, nor is it an empty formality. It is an agreement about whom you call when something goes wrong, and about whether your money is legally allowed to travel to the gaming table at all. A Latvian licence gives you one thing: a legally open route and a supervisor who can penalise the operator. A foreign licence gives you another: a larger cash bonus and, often, a wider selection of games. You choose which side to value more. Our job is to show you both sides - with numbers, without marketing.