Curaçao gaming licence

What is a Curaçao gaming licence?

A Curaçao gaming licence is the permission a company needs from the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) to offer games of chance in or from Curaçao. Since December 2024 it has been granted under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance, known as the LOK from its Dutch name, Landsverordening op de kansspelen. Article 1.2 of the LOK forbids organising any game of chance in or from Curaçao without a CGA licence or another legal basis.

For an online casino, the licence belongs to a company rather than to the brand you see. The casino’s terms should name that company, its registered address, its Chamber of Commerce number and its licence number, and the CGA lists the licence in its public register. Casino footers and searches call it a Curaçao casino licence, a Curaçao gambling licence, a Curaçao online casino licence or simply a Curaçao licence; all mean this permission.

The LOK also decides who may hold one. The licence holder must be a company incorporated and based in Curaçao with at least one Curaçao resident in its management, and it may not transfer the licence or let another business use it. The CGA checks who owns the company and where its money comes from, and it can suspend or revoke the licence.

For a player, the licence answers three useful questions: which company you are dealing with, which regulator supervises it and which law governs your contract. It does not show that the casino may serve players in your country, and it does not guarantee a withdrawal.

Who issues it: the Curaçao Gaming Authority

The Curaçao Gaming Authority is the island’s gambling regulator. The LOK turned the former Gaming Control Board into the CGA, so casino pages that still name the Gaming Control Board are describing the same regulator under its old name.

The system it runs is newer than many casino footers suggest. Under the 1993 ordinance that the LOK replaced, many online casinos traded under a sublicence from a master licence holder such as Curaçao eGaming, and their footers showed the master licence holder’s name and number. From November 2023 the regulator began licensing operating companies directly, the LOK took effect in December 2024, and the sublicence system ended in October 2025, when the orange seal used for sublicensed websites expired.

The CGA publishes a licence register, an enforcement register of licences it has revoked, suspended or not extended, a list of the certificates it has issued and the policies licence holders must follow. Its register of online gaming licences changes from one edition to the next. The mid-October 2026 edition has 666 entries, expired and revoked ones included: 209 with the status Indefinite, which is a full licence, and 296 still marked Assessment in progress, seven more than in the edition published two days earlier. In September 2026 the CGA disclosed unauthorised access to its online licensing portal, and in October 2026 it said the portal would not return and that the digital seal casinos use would be affected. Our guide to the Curaçao gaming licence changes sets out the full timeline.

Curaçao licence types: B2C and B2B

For online gambling, the CGA grants two kinds of licence. A B2C licence, which the CGA calls an online gaming licence, is the operating licence for a business that offers games to players: an online casino or sportsbook holds this one, and your account contract is with its holder. A B2B licence, the supplier licence, is for businesses that provide platforms or game software to licence holders. The CGA can also certify businesses that serve licence holders, such as test laboratories and dispute services, for up to three years; its certificates list includes eCOGRA.

The fees come from the CGA’s fee notice of October 2025, version 2.0, and can be changed by national decree. The operator pays them, not the player. What matters to you is the process behind them: before granting a licence, the CGA examines the company’s beneficial owners and anyone holding a qualifying interest in it.

What a Curaçao gambling licence covers, and what it does not

A Curaçao licence covers a named company and the websites certified to it. Under the CGA’s certification rules, each casino website needs its own Certificate of Operation, and the seal on the site should open a certificate on cert.cga.cw naming that exact domain. The CGA treats a certificate showing a different domain as unauthorised, so a website missing from the company’s certificates is not covered, even if it carries the same brand.

What the licence brings with it

Disclosure. The CGA’s terms-and-conditions guideline of April 2026 requires the terms to state the licence holder’s legal name, registered address, Chamber of Commerce number, licence number and issue date, and to say which products are not regulated by the CGA if the brand also uses other licensed companies.

Curaçao law. The LOK requires the casino’s contract with you to be governed by Curaçao law, with disputes going to a Curaçao court (Article 5.5); Freshbet’s terms name no governing law.

Complaints. You can complain to the licence holder free of charge within six months of an incident, and it must acknowledge your complaint in writing within a week (Article 5.3); the casino must also offer independent dispute resolution at its own expense.

Player rules. The casino must exclude a player who asks in writing for at least twelve months, may not give players credit and may not let minors gamble.

What it does not cover

Great Britain. A business offering remote gambling to consumers in Great Britain needs a licence from the Gambling Commission, wherever it is based. Our page on the Curaçao gambling licence in the UK sets the two systems side by side.

A payout guarantee. The CGA says its monitoring of licence holders includes confirming that player funds are kept in a segregated or federated account. That is not a promise that a withdrawal will be paid: the guarantee fund the LOK provides for (Article 5.7) is left to later regulations, and we found no CGA document showing it in operation.

Payment companies. The account that receives your deposit can belong to a payment agent rather than the licence holder: six of the casinos we review name a payment agent registered in Cyprus. Our bank transfer guide shows who receives your transfer at each casino.

Individual disputes. The CGA’s complaints policy says it does not mediate in individual disputes; it uses complaints to support its supervision and enforcement.

Restricted countries under a Curaçao licence

The CGA documents we read for this page, the LOK, the B2C operations manual, the anti-money-laundering rules and the terms guideline, do not attach one list of restricted countries to every Curaçao licence. The terms guideline puts the duty on each licence holder instead: without prejudice to its obligation to comply with the laws of the countries where it offers its services, it must tell players clearly where play is permitted and where it is restricted or prohibited. Each casino therefore publishes its own list, usually in its terms, and the lists differ from brand to brand. The anti-money-laundering rules of January 2025 add a risk test rather than a ban: a player’s residence, nationality and place of birth count towards the casino’s risk assessment, and countries with weak anti-money-laundering systems, significant corruption or international sanctions are to be treated as high risk, with the FATF lists among the sources to consult.

The terms and the website can give different answers, so check both. The terms tell you whether the casino accepts residents of your country; a visit shows whether the website restricts your location. In our October 2026 visits from the UK, five of the seven Curaçao-licensed casinos we review restricted access: Rolletto, Velobet, Cosmobet, Goldenbet and Freshbet. Freshbet’s terms also exclude UK residents, while Zizobet and Betmac did not restrict our visits. Among the five casinos without a Curaçao licence, Slotosport’s terms exclude UK residents, although its website did not restrict our visit.

A website that opens in your country has not shown that it may serve you there. For players in Great Britain, the legal test is a Gambling Commission licence, and a Curaçao licence does not replace it.

Curaçao licences at the 12 casinos we review

Seven of the 12 casinos we review hold a Curaçao B2C licence, through three companies. The other five do not: Wildies has an Anjouan licence, and Slotosport, Winbeast, Winplace and Legionbet name no regulator. The table shows the licence each casino names, its status in the CGA register published in October 2026 and how its website responded to our UK visits in the same month.

Only Freshbet’s licence is a full licence in the register. The five Santeda casinos and Betmac run on licences the CGA is still assessing, with expiry dates that have passed: December 2025 for Santeda International B.V. and July 2026 for Sefiarray B.V. That status means the CGA has not finished its review; neither company appeared in its September 2026 enforcement register. Our page on Curaçao gaming licence holders shows the company behind each casino and links to our in-depth profiles of three licence holders.

Checking a Curaçao licence: three sources to compare

A licence check links three sources: the company and licence number in the casino’s terms or footer, the seal and certificate for the exact website, and the entry in the CGA’s licence register. A full match means the company, the licence number and the domain agree across all three. Note the date of each source, because the register and the certificates are published separately and do not always say the same thing.

Two cautions apply in October 2026. The register is a PDF that the CGA republishes from time to time, and the CGA itself says its published overviews do not guarantee that a licence is currently valid. With the portal retired and a replacement promised but not yet described, a seal that fails to open is a reason to ask the casino, not proof either way. Our Curaçao gaming licence check guide walks through each step and shows the result for every casino we review.

What a Curaçao licence means for safety and complaints

A Curaçao licence makes a casino identifiable and supervised: there is a named company, a regulator that can suspend or revoke its licence, and written rules on complaints, dispute resolution and self-exclusion. It does not bring the protections of a UK licence, such as the Gambling Commission’s rules and its approved dispute services, and the casino’s own terms still decide much of what happens to your money: bonus wagering, withdrawal limits, dormancy fees and account closures.

If something goes wrong, complain to the casino in writing first and keep the reference. If its answer does not settle the matter, ask which independent dispute service it uses. The CGA’s policy allows only CGA-certified services to handle these disputes, at the casino’s expense, yet none of the seven Curaçao-licensed casinos we review names one in its terms. The CGA will not decide your complaint, but a casino may not stop you reporting a breach of its licence conditions to the regulator. Our guide to whether Curaçao casinos are safe compares the complaint and self-exclusion rules at each casino. If gambling is becoming a problem, GamCare’s National Gambling Helpline offers free, confidential support.

Our assessment of the Curaçao gaming licence

A Curaçao gaming licence today is a licence held by a named Curaçao company, recorded in a public register and backed by written rules on terms, complaints, dispute resolution and self-exclusion. That is a real change from the old system, in which a casino’s licence often belonged to a master licence holder rather than to the company running it.

Its weak points in October 2026 are practical. Over four in ten entries in the register are still under assessment, the CGA has retired its portal and not yet said how websites will show their licence, and none of the seven Curaçao-licensed casinos we review names the dispute service its terms are supposed to give. For players in Great Britain, the licence that matters is a Gambling Commission licence, not a Curaçao one. Treat the Curaçao licence as the start of a check: match the company, the licence number and the exact website, then read the casino’s own terms.

How we checked this page

We read the LOK in its official Dutch text (P.B. 2024, no. 157; the translations are ours) and the CGA’s own documents: the licence fee notice (version 2.0, October 2025), the register of online gaming licences (two October 2026 editions), the enforcement register (September 2026), the certificate-holder list (August 2026), the terms-and-conditions guideline (April 2026), the player complaints policy (June 2025), the anti-money-laundering rules (January 2025), the B2C operations manual (September 2026) and the seal and certificate rules on its website. Casino details come from our October 2026 checks of the 12 casinos we review: their terms, footers, seals, certificates and UK visits. We did not contact the CGA or the casinos. Fees, statuses and terms change, so check the current versions.