Verify an Offshore Casino Licence Before You Sign Up

Spot the Licence Number First

Start at the bottom of the site. Most operators display a licence reference, an issuing authority, and sometimes a corporate entity name in the footer. Note all three exactly as written.

Be wary if any of these are missing, blurred into an image so they cannot be copied, or phrased vaguely (“licensed and regulated” with no number or authority named). A genuine licence is specific and verifiable. A vague badge is not.

The corporate entity matters as much as the number. The company that holds a licence is often different from the brand a player sees, and a quick note of the entity name lets you confirm later that the register record actually belongs to the site in front of you. Where a brand and its stated operating company do not align, that gap is worth pausing on.

This step matters because the jurisdiction named tells you which register to use, and the regimes differ sharply, as set out in our comparison of licensing jurisdictions.

Verify the Number Against the Register

Once you have the number and the authority, go to that regulator’s own register rather than any link the site provides. The destination depends on the jurisdiction.

For Malta, the Malta Gaming Authority publishes a public register at mga.org.mt where a licence and its status can be checked directly. For Curacao, the licensing portal introduced under the 2024 LOK reform records licences issued directly by the Curacao Gaming Authority. A displayed number means nothing until it is matched on the register, with the operator name and status both lining up.

Two warnings here. First, Costa Rica has no gaming register to check against at all, because it has no gambling-specific regulator. Second, even a verified offshore licence does not grant UK consumer protection, a point the UK Gambling Commission and GamStop set out clearly for unlicensed operators serving UK players.

Spot the Red Flags That Void a Licence

Several patterns signal that a licence claim is worthless even when a number is shown.

Lapsed or expired licences

A number that the register shows as expired or revoked offers no protection. Check the status field, not just the existence of a record.

Unverifiable numbers

If a number cannot be found on the issuing register, treat it as fictional. Some sites display numbers that simply do not exist on any public record.

Entity and name mismatches

If the brand on the site does not match the company the register lists against the number, the licence may belong to a different operation entirely.

Licence rotation

Independent iGaming trade reporting has documented corporate networks that rotate entities and licences to wipe the slate clean when redress pressure mounts. A recently changed entity behind a familiar brand is a reason for caution, not reassurance.

Spot the Costa Rica Trap

Costa Rica deserves its own warning because of how often it appears in offshore listings. There is no gambling regulator and no gaming register, so a site claiming to be “licensed in Costa Rica” is relying on a general business permit, not a gaming authorisation.

This means the normal verification routine breaks down entirely. There is no register field to confirm, no status to check, and no authority to escalate a complaint to. A Costa Rica “licence” is therefore unverifiable by design, which is itself the answer: there is nothing to verify.

If a site offers only a Costa Rica permit as its credential, the honest conclusion is that it carries no meaningful gaming oversight. Weigh that against everything covered in our wider look at the jurisdiction credibility ranking before going any further.

Verify What a Check Cannot Fix

Even a perfect verification result has limits. A valid offshore licence confirms only that an operator is authorised in that jurisdiction, under that jurisdiction’s rules.

It does not give a UK player access to the UK Gambling Commission’s dispute resolution, fund-segregation guarantees, or affordability safeguards. The kinds of operators you encounter, and the risk each category carries, are mapped in our breakdown of how operators differ.

So verification is necessary but not sufficient. It removes the worst cases, the fake and lapsed licences, but it cannot manufacture protection that the jurisdiction never provided.

Verify It Yourself Rather Than Trust a Badge

Most commercial pages in this space assert that an operator is licensed without ever showing how to confirm it. A trust badge, a regulator logo, or the phrase “fully licensed” is presented as if it settles the question. It does not.

Badges can be copied, logos can be displayed without permission, and a number can be invented. The only reliable confirmation is the one you run yourself, on the regulator’s own register, matching the number, the status, and the entity. That single habit separates a verifiable operator from a convincing-looking claim.

Doing the check costs a few minutes and removes the worst outcomes before any money is involved. It will not turn an offshore site into a UK-protected one, but it will stop you depositing against a licence that never existed or expired long ago.

Verify With a Quick Checklist

Run through these before depositing anywhere outside the UKGC.

• Locate the licence number, authority, and entity in the footer.
• Open the issuing regulator’s own register, not the site’s link.
• Confirm the number exists, is active, and matches the brand and entity.
• Treat a missing, expired, or mismatched record as a stop signal.
• Remember that a valid offshore licence still means no UK protection.