How we check a casino’s licence and terms
We read each casino’s own pages, its regulator’s records and dated copies of its terms. Every line names its check date. No line comes from our own play.
An overseas licence is not permission to offer gambling in Great Britain. It does not guarantee a payout.
What do we read for every casino?
Records only, each filed under its check date, with every finding kept in its own field:
- Casino pages: the footer, the terms, any licence page and the seal link.
- Regulator records: registry editions, certificate pages and validator pages.
- Domain records: the registration record of each casino domain.
- Archive copies: earlier footers and terms, each with a first seen and a last seen date.
Licence fields
- Licence claim: the company, regulator and number the casino’s own pages print.
- Domain match: whether a regulator page prints the exact domain the reader is on.
- Register status: the status words of a registry row or certificate, with its edition.
- Mechanism state: whether the regulator’s own check worked on the check date.
No badge. Each page keeps these fields apart, because a footer claim and a register entry can disagree on one date.
Wording cases
Each result has its own wording:
| Case | Field | How a page words it |
|---|---|---|
| Footer claim only | Licence claim | The company, regulator and number in the footer, with the check date |
| Company register row | Register status | Name, number, edition and status, with the check date |
| Assessment in progress | Register status | Those words exactly, with the registry edition |
| Certificate Active, registry different | Register status and domain match | Both documents next to each other, each dated |
| No row found | Register status | Which register, which field and which date were searched |
| Validator down or limited | Mechanism state | The limit, and the date it was met |
A search that returns no row is reported as that search, with its register, field and date. It is never written up as “unlicensed”.
How do we match a seal to a register?
Through the exact domain. A seal counts only when its link opens a regulator page that prints the domain the reader is on. That page then sits beside the registry, and each keeps its own words.
Curaçao
- Certificate page: the CGA’s policy says it must display the exact domain, the licensed operator and the current licence status.
- A different domain: the same policy treats that certificate as another operator’s.
- Seal mechanism: 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.
Dates matter here. Every Curaçao seal check carries its own date, together with the state of the CGA’s mechanism on that same day. The Curaçao licence check guide tracks that state.
Anjouan
- Proof: the validator page opened from the casino’s own seal link.
- Domain-only look-ups: on 7 October 2026 they printed INVALID even for domains listed as Valid.
- Register domains: notified by the licence holder, and a listing confirms only that notice.
Never a bare domain. Licence File does not cite a domain-only look-up, and the licence seal guide walks through each step.
How do we decide which casinos are sisters?
By a named company. Casinos are sisters here only when one named licensee or operator appears for both. Its number must sit in the same role, on each brand’s own documents or a register entry.
- Same licence row: brands that share a register row, without a company named on their own pages.
- Ties: a shared address, agent or bare company number. Ties carry that label and sit below the sister grid.
- Counts: a sister count is a minimum on its check date.
Limits apply. One licensee does not prove a common owner, a shared balance or a shared self-exclusion. The same number under another name does not prove a rename.
How do we date a claim?
By the day of the check. Each claim carries that date, written as checked 8 October 2026. Pages print dates only, never where or how a copy was taken.
- Archive copies: a first seen and a last seen date, bounding what the archive caught.
- Copies of one document: told apart by date, with a time of day only when both share a day.
- Copies that differ: both stay on the page, each with its date, and neither is picked.
- Superseded copies: kept on file behind the line they once supported.
What do we leave out, and why?
Anything without a dated source, since an unknown field is dropped and never filled with a guess:
- Offer figures: no bonus amounts or offer multiples. Bonus terms appear only where they limit a withdrawal.
- Unsourced data: no payout percentages, game counts or provider lists without a record.
- Test claims: no deposits, games or withdrawals of our own.
- Rankings: no score, no “best” and no recommendation.
- Casino links: no affiliate, tracking or plain links to a casino.
Some links stay. Regulator and complaint-body pages are linked, because readers need them to check a record for themselves.
How do we correct a mistake?
A report, then a fresh read. The source is read again before anything changes. To report, write to hello@licencefile.com with the page and the line.
Report: name the page, the line and what you saw, with its date.
Re-read: the source is read again, and the new copy is filed under its own date.
Change: a corrected fact moves the page’s updated date. A wording fix leaves that date alone.
Reports alone change nothing. A line moves only when a new dated copy says otherwise, and the contact page lists what else helps a correction along.