What a casino licence seal proves, and where it stops

A casino licence seal is a claim until clicked. Working Curaçao and Anjouan seals each opened a page naming the visited domain and its licence holder. Test one in 3 steps:

An overseas licence is not permission to offer gambling in Great Britain. It does not guarantee a payout.

A seal ties one licence to one domain, on the date it is checked, and says nothing about payouts or complaints.

Betportal’s seal script uses 3 values:

domainthe address of the page carrying the seal.
seal_idthat seal’s identifier.
stampa third value, sent alongside.

Click the seal and check the host it opens: cert.cga.cw for the CGA, the authority’s validator for Anjouan.
Match the domain on that page with your address bar.
Read the status words: “Active” on the CGA certificates, “Operating status: VALID” on Betportal’s Anjouan validator page.

Seal check state

Seal checks as they stood:

CGA seal links: still opened certificates printing “Active”, after the CGA’s notice.
CGA notice: A CGA notice of 7 October 2026 says the availability of the current digital seal “will be affected”, with an alternative mechanism to follow “shortly”. It gives no date for that mechanism. The change “does not affect the validity of existing licenses”, it says, and further information is targeted for no later than 9 October 2026.
Anjouan seal links: VALID from the casino’s own page.
Anjouan typed lookups: INVALID, even for “Valid” rows.

How can you check a casino licence yourself?

Start with the 3 seal steps above. A typed address proves nothing. 2 more steps finish the check:

Search the register by number, company or domain.
Date each step: registers change between checks.

These steps rest on the pages checked for this guide. Rerun them on the day a seal matters to you.

A seal check stops at any of these results:

Different domain: the certificate or validator names another site.
Wrong destination: no regulator page opens.
Suspended or Invalid: the Anjouan seal’s own state.

Some results prove nothing either way:

A domain typed into the Anjouan validator: INVALID for listed and unlisted domains alike.
CGA certificate search: its page printed “Error 404” on 3 October 2026, and again when re-read. Certificates are reached from the casino’s own seal or link instead.
A CGA registry row: a company, never a domain.

The Curaçao check guide walks the CGA steps with a sample certificate page, and the method page explains each filing. Each check’s date is under sources.

What is a casino licence seal?

A footer badge. Clicked, it should open the regulator’s own check page, under seal rules that the CGA and the Anjouan authority each publish.

CGA seals

CGA seals come in 2 kinds. The policy calls them “distinct types of seals”.

Certificate of Operation Seal: only B2C operators receive it.
Where it may sit: a player-facing site whose domain is “approved and registered”.
Display rule: “exactly as issued by the CGA”.
License Certificate Seal: “not domain-specific”, for corporate sites.
Swapping them: they “are not interchangeable”.

Anjouan seals

Anjouan’s seal is “an embeddable code snippet issued to licensed operators”, says a resource page. It shows Valid, Suspended or Invalid.

Its seal policy sets these conditions:

While shown: the licence “remains active and in good standing”.
Removal: “immediately upon licence suspension, revocation, or expiry”.

The badge is the casino’s claim. Only the page it opens speaks for the regulator.

How should a seal link to the regulator?

Straight to the regulator. Each policy spells out how:

Anjouan: the seal “must link directly to the official licence verification page in the public registry”.
CGA: a click “must redirect the user” to cert.cga.cw, the CGA’s certificate site.

CGA seal links took 2 paths:

A “Certificate Seal” page: its only link leads on to the certificate.
Old cert.gcb.cw addresses: forwarded to cert.cga.cw.

Certificate addresses carry a long coded token, not a domain, so nobody can type one in from a casino’s name. The seal was the way in at the time of these checks.

Anjouan seal links

Links are dated. One opened a day after it was generated drew an expiry warning, not a result.

Can a licence seal be copied or faked?

Anyone can copy the image. Its check follows the domain, so a seal on the wrong site gives itself away on the regulator’s own page.

Borrowed seals

CGA certificate, other domain: one showing “a different domain name from the website being accessed” belongs to another operator, the policy says.
What the CGA calls that site: “unauthorized or fraudulent”.
Anjouan seal values, other domain: Betportal’s values, paired with a different domain, printed INVALID.
Wrong CGA seal: the License Certificate kind “does not authorize the operation of player-facing websites”.
Seal with no link: a badge that opens nothing ties no licence to the site.

Stale links

Old Anjouan links expire. Its expiry warning points to “a webpage loaded more than 20 minutes ago”, and treats a warning surviving a refresh as suspect. It labels that case “an indication of possible misuse or attempted fraud”.

What does a valid seal not tell you?

Who would settle a payout dispute. Neither regulator handles individual player complaints, according to the pages each one published.

Open questions after a working seal:

Compensation: “cannot order gaming operators to compensate players”, says the CGA.
Complaint coverage: Anjouan’s policy lists “Complaints from players in excluded territories” among items “not subject to regulatory review”.
Excluded territories: the United Kingdom is on Anjouan’s list.
Domain ownership: an Anjouan listing “confirms only that the domain has been notified to the Authority”.
Matching records: a CGA certificate can print “Active” while the registry prints another status word and date.
Expiry: 339 of 1,543 Anjouan register rows read “Valid” past their printed expiry date.
CGA overviews: these “do not guarantee the current validity of the licenses”.

Effect on a withdrawal: limits, document checks and payout timing all sit in the casino’s own terms, never in its seal. Each hub has its register: Anjouan, Curaçao.

How do Curaçao and Anjouan seals differ?

In where they land. A CGA seal opens a certificate for one domain, while an Anjouan seal feeds the page’s own domain to a validator.

Seal check

CGA (Curaçao)

Opens: the CGA certificate for that domain, on cert.cga.cw
Prints: domain, operator, company number, licence number, grant date, status
Status word seen: “Active”
Typed lookup: search page printed “Error 404”
Old links: cert.gcb.cw redirected to cert.cga.cw

Anjouan

Opens: a validator page, with domain, seal_id and stamp
Prints: operating status, company, registered website(s), licence number
Status word seen: “VALID” through the seal
Typed lookup: INVALID, even for listed domains
Old links: expiry warning, with a refresh as the next step

Sources: CGA policy and certificate pages, the Anjouan validator and the CGA notice, all of them checked together. CGA seals still worked at the time.

Registers beside the seal

Curaçao’s 2 October 2026 registry edition has no domain column, so only a certificate links a licence to a site. Anjouan’s register differs. Each row lists the holder’s notified domains.

Licence numbers look different on each side:

CGA: every row of that edition prints an OGL/ or CGA/ number.
Anjouan: ALSI-202601040-FI2 on Betportal’s validator page, for example.

Can someone help if gambling feels hard to stop?

A seal can’t tell you whether your own gambling is still under control. If it’s slipping, nobody expects you to fix that by yourself. One number covers calls and WhatsApp, 0808 8020 133, and GamCare runs it as the National Gambling Helpline.

Live chat runs on GamCare’s website too. Living in Wales, you’ve got a second number: NHS Wales, 0808 2819 265.

You can set a GAMSTOP exclusion yourself, with 6 months the shortest and 5 years the longest. Once that period ends, it doesn’t lapse by itself. Without a request to GAMSTOP to remove it, the block stays put for 7 more years.

Licence File’s safer gambling page lists further support. You’ll find every page here written for adults aged 18 and up.

Licence seal FAQ

Does a working seal make a casino legit?

Not by itself. A working seal links that domain to a named licence holder on the day it is checked, nothing more. Licence File rates nothing further.

Can an 8048/JAZ licence be verified?

Not on the register. Every number in the CGA registry’s 2 October 2026 edition takes an OGL/ or CGA/ form, never /JAZ. Only a seal’s certificate names a domain.

Does a cert.gcb.cw link still work?

Yes, when Licence File checked it. That older address then forwarded to the certificate on cert.cga.cw. Date every later check.

Is a licence number lookup possible without a seal?

Yes. CGA rows name no domain. Anjouan’s search takes a number, company, domain, type or status, and its rows carry the domains each holder notified.