If a casino you used displays an Anjouan licence, here is the plain position. The licence is issued by a private operation in the Union of the Comoros whose authority is seriously disputed, it gives you no state-backed regulator and no compensation scheme, and none of the UK’s protections reach the site: no GamStop, no Gambling Commission, no UK dispute route. That does not mean nothing can be done about money the casino is holding. It means the realistic routes run on your own records rather than on the licence, and this guide sets out both the process the licensing operation publishes and the reasons to treat that process with caution.
What is the Anjouan licensing operation, actually?
Anjouan is one of the islands of the Union of the Comoros, off the East African coast. Online gambling licences are sold there under the name Anjouan Gaming, through anjouangaming.com, which presents itself as operating under the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority. A single licence can cover casino games, slots, sports betting and crypto gambling at once, and the operation markets itself to operators on cost and speed. Brands move here too: the crypto casino Gamdom migrated its licensing from Curaçao to Anjouan in 2025, and our Gamdom operator file records what that meant in practice.
Whether any genuine state regulator stands behind the name is another matter. Investigative reporting, covered below, has concluded that the licensing infrastructure is run by a private company rather than by a working arm of the Comorian state, and the Comoros’ own central bank characterised the offshore authority in 2022 as a fictitious structure without real control capacity. Throughout this guide we therefore describe Anjouan Gaming as what the evidence shows it to be: a private licensing system operating under the Anjouan name, whose authority and enforceability are disputed.
How does an Anjouan licence compare with a UK licence?
The gap is the whole story. A UK Gambling Commission licence carries continuous supervision, mandatory GamStop participation, detailed responsible-gambling duties and a free, approved dispute route through bodies such as IBAS. An Anjouan licence carries none of that for a UK player. Unlike Curaçao, which since the end of 2024 has run a public regulator with a searchable register and a certified ADR requirement, Anjouan offers no state-run register to check a licence against. The licence is best read as a statement about which rules the operator chose to sit outside. Many sites carrying it are the same non-GamStop casinos that UK players reach after self-excluding at home, which is exactly why the evidence checklist further down matters more than the paperwork.
What complaint route does the Anjouan system publish?
The private licensing system operating under the Anjouan name publishes the following process; its authority and enforceability are disputed, so read it as the operators’ stated policy rather than as a right you can enforce.
Complaints must go to the operator first, and only through one channel: the complaint function on the interactive licence seal displayed on the casino’s own site. The published policy warns that complaints sent through other channels may not be accepted. The time limits are short. A dispute about a game outcome must be raised within 14 calendar days of the session; a dispute about the account, which covers payments, suspensions and bonuses, within 30 calendar days. The operator is then required to investigate and respond within 30 calendar days.
Only after 30 days without resolution may the player escalate to an approved alternative dispute resolution provider. Four are listed on the operation’s authorised ADR page: EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and CADRE B.V. The policy states that ADR participation is mandatory for licensed operators and that the operator bears the cost of the proceedings, so the route is free to you. What the licensing operation does not do is hear anything itself: its own policy states that “the Authority does not handle, mediate, or adjudicate player complaints”.
The seal route is the operators’ stated policy, not a right you can enforce. Treat every deadline in it as real anyway, because missing one hands the casino an easy refusal.
Why is the licence’s credibility disputed?
In early February 2026 the French newspaper Le Monde, working with a Dutch investigative site, examined the Anjouan regime after a subsidiary of the French operator FDJ took an Anjouan B2B licence. As relayed by trade press, Le Monde concluded that the regulatory infrastructure was not a genuine state apparatus, reported that the so-called regulator’s website appeared to be managed by a private company, Anjouan Licensing Services Inc., and linked the regime to practices unlawful under Comorian law. The reporting also cited the Comoros central bank’s 2022 assessment of the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority as a fictitious structure without real capacity to supervise anything. The coverage is at SBC News; Le Monde’s original article sits behind a paywall.
On 31 December 2025 the Australian broadcaster ABC published its own investigation into fake and questionable corporate licences issued in Anjouan’s name (ABC News). A 2024 report by the Financial Action Task Force noted that gambling is prohibited under the Comorian penal code, and Comoros federal authorities have issued warnings about Anjouan licences. Put together, the practical implication is stark: an Anjouan licence gives a player no state-backed regulator, no compensation scheme and no realistic enforcement route. The complaint process described above is whatever the private licensing operation and its operators choose to honour.
What evidence should you preserve?
Because the licence gives you nothing to lean on, your own record is the case. Capture it while everything is still visible:
- The casino footer and licence seal, screenshotted with the date visible, plus the seal’s validation page and the licence number exactly as printed.
- The terms and conditions as they read today, saved in full, because published terms change once disputes start.
- Your complete transaction history from the casino cashier: deposits, wagers, withdrawals and any reversals.
- Bank, card and wallet statements showing every deposit, with the merchant descriptors as they appear.
- Every chat transcript, email and support ticket, including any refusal and the exact term relied on.
- Your self-exclusion history, GAMSTOP confirmation included, and any marketing the site sent you afterwards.
What can a UK player realistically do?
Start with the honest baseline. Loss alone is not a claim: money gambled and fairly lost is simply lost. And even where the operator or its licensing system broke its own published rules, a regulatory breach does not automatically create a right to repayment. What a breach does is supply evidence, and evidence is what every realistic route runs on.
The sequence that protects your position looks like this. Preserve the evidence above first. Then put your complaint through the site seal within the published windows, in writing, with dates and amounts, because even a disputed process is worth exhausting when it costs nothing and a missed deadline hands the operator an easy refusal. If 30 days pass without resolution, refer the dispute to one of the listed ADR providers at the operator’s cost. Keep every response, and every silence, on file.
Beyond the published route, the realistic leverage is payment-evidence-led. How you paid shapes what exists: card payments, bank transfers and crypto each leave a different trail, and reconstructing that trail is where a serious assessment starts. If you were self-excluded when the losses happened, read getting money back after gambling on GamStop, because that history changes the shape of the case. The wider offshore picture, including what tends to work and what does not, is in getting money back from an offshore casino. And before you rely on any seal from any jurisdiction, our free casino licence checker returns the licence position our research files record; for the contrast with a regime that now runs a public register, see checking a Curaçao casino licence.
A free eligibility check is the honest way to find out whether your records support more than a complaint. We assess the evidence, tell you plainly where it stands, and where a case has merit we work with regulated legal partners. No outcome is ever assured, and anyone who promises you one should worry you.
Where to get support
If gambling is causing you harm, free and confidential help is available now. Call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133, any time, or chat to GamCare (gamcare.org.uk). To stay excluded from UK-licensed operators, register with GAMSTOP (gamstop.co.uk), and to block gambling sites across all your devices, BetBlocker (betblocker.org) is free. The money questions can wait until you are safe; these services exist so you do not have to handle either alone.
Last reviewed: 30 August 2026.
Sources
- Anjouan Gaming, third-party complaint policy and authorised ADR providers (anjouangaming.com), cited as the operation’s own published policy.
- SBC News, 6 February 2026, relaying Le Monde’s investigation into the Anjouan regime (sbcnews.co.uk).
- ABC News (Australia), 31 December 2025, investigation into licences issued in Anjouan’s name (abc.net.au).
- UK Gambling Commission, on the protections a UK licence carries (gamblingcommission.gov.uk).
General information, not legal advice. We are not solicitors or a law firm. We connect clients with regulated legal partners.