How to check a casino is licensed in Great Britain

Any site offering online gambling to people in Great Britain needs an operating licence from the Gambling Commission. Checking that a site has one takes about two minutes, and it is the single most useful thing you can do before depositing anywhere you have not used before.

Licensed operators are required to display their licensed status. Scroll to the bottom of the site and look for a statement naming:

the company that holds the licence, which is often not the brand name on the logo
the account number, a five-digit figure
a link to the operator’s entry on the Gambling Commission register

If a site offering casino games to UK players has no such statement anywhere, treat that as the end of the check.

Step two: look it up on the register

Go to the Gambling Commission’s public register of gambling businesses and search for the company name or the account number. The entry tells you several things worth knowing:

Licence status. Each licence is listed as active or otherwise, with the date it took effect. An expired or surrendered licence means the company is no longer permitted to offer that activity.

Licence types. Remote casino, remote bingo and general betting are separate licences. A company licensed for betting is not automatically licensed for casino games.

Domain names. The register lists the domains covered by the licence. This is the part most people skip and it is the most useful. If the site you are about to use is not on the operator’s domain list, the licence statement in the footer does not cover it.

Trading names. Brands operating under the licence are listed here.

White label status. Domains can be marked as white labels, meaning the brand sits on another company’s licence and platform. The brand supplies the name; the licence holder supplies the accounts, the money and the legal responsibility.

Regulatory action. The register also records enforcement action taken against a licensee. Its presence is not a reason to avoid an operator outright, since large companies attract scrutiny, but it is context worth having.

What a licence actually gets you

A Great Britain licence is not a quality rating. It is a set of enforceable obligations:

Age and identity verification before you can deposit or play, which is why you will be asked for documents.
A statement of how customer funds are protected if the company fails, rated on a published scale. Look for it in the terms; the rating varies between operators and it is not always high.
Access to alternative dispute resolution. Every licensee must belong to an approved ADR provider that can consider your complaint free of charge if the operator cannot resolve it.
Safer gambling tools, including deposit limits, time-outs, reality checks and self-exclusion.
Participation in GamStop, the national online self-exclusion scheme.
Rules on advertising and bonuses, including a requirement to present significant terms clearly.

Warning signs

“Non-GamStop” marketing. Sites advertising themselves to players who have self-excluded are, by definition, operating outside the Great Britain licensing regime. We do not list them. If you have self-excluded, these sites exist specifically to undo that decision.

A licence from somewhere else, offered to UK players. Plenty of operators hold licences in other jurisdictions. Those licences are real, but they do not authorise offering gambling to consumers in Great Britain, and they do not give you access to a UK ADR scheme.

A footer statement you cannot verify. A company name and number that returns nothing on the register is a serious problem, not a typo.

No company name at all. If you cannot tell which legal entity is holding your money, you cannot tell who to complain to.

Pressure and urgency. Countdown timers on a welcome offer, or support pushing you to deposit more to “unlock” something, are not licensing failures in themselves, but they are a reasonable reason to walk away.

How we use this

Every review on Casino Menu names the company that holds the licence and its Gambling Commission account number, taken from the register rather than from the site’s own marketing. Where a brand runs as a white label we say so, because the name on the website and the company responsible for your account are then different things.

We list only sites covered by a Great Britain licence. That is not a claim that every licensed site is good, or that any of them are a way to make money. It is the minimum standard for appearing on the list at all.

If you are checking a licence because something has already gone wrong, our guide on how to complain about a UK casino sets out the steps.

If gambling stops being fun, stop. The National Gambling Helpline, run by GamCare, is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 8020 133.