Who regulates your casino?
Type a casino's name or paste its web address to see who licenses it, its licence number, whether GamStop covers it, and where a complaint about it actually goes.
Type at least two characters of the casino's name or web address to search.
The licence decides where your complaint can go
Every online casino answers to whoever issued its licence, and to nobody else. That one fact decides most of what happens after a withdrawal stalls: which rules the operator has to follow, which complaints body will hear you, and whether any regulator will hear you at all. A licence from the UK Gambling Commission carries the full UK framework, including GamStop participation, an approved dispute-resolution route and the Commission's conduct rules. An offshore licence from Curaçao, Malta, Gibraltar, Kahnawake or Anjouan swaps that framework for something thinner, and each regime runs its own complaint route with its own expectations of the operator.
GamStop is where the confusion usually starts. The scheme only covers sites licensed in Great Britain, so if the casino in front of you holds a Curaçao or Anjouan licence, a GamStop self-exclusion does not block it and the UK dispute-resolution framework does not apply to it. Some sites hold no licence at all: a Costa Rica company registration, for instance, is not a gaming licence, whatever the terms and conditions claim. With no regulator behind the site, a claim runs on preserved evidence and the operator's own contractual terms instead.
Checking the licence is therefore the first practical step towards getting money back, because it tells you where the pressure points are and which routes are dead ends. Search the checker above to see what our research holds, browse the full operator directory, or read how gambling loss recovery works before you spend weeks writing to the wrong inbox. And if you already know the licence type, the complaint route finder turns it into a step-by-step escalation path. All of our free tools for players in a casino dispute sit together in one place if you would rather see the set.
How we compile the files
Every result on this page comes from our own research files, not a live register lookup. We build each file from the operator's published terms, licence validators and regulator registers, plus any public rulings or clearly labelled third-party reports, and every documented issue is stored with its issuing body, date and source link. The dataset behind this checker covers 62 operators and was last reviewed on 2 July 2026. If a casino you searched is missing, send it through the form that appears after a search and our team will research it.
Licence questions, answered straight
Why does the licence matter if the money is already lost?
Because the licence decides where a complaint can go. A UK Gambling Commission licence gives you the operator's complaints procedure and then an approved dispute-resolution route. An offshore licence such as Curaçao or Malta gives you that jurisdiction's own process instead. Where there is no licence at all, there is no regulator to escalate to, so a case runs on your evidence, the operator's own published terms and, where appropriate, regulated legal partners.
Does GamStop block casinos with offshore licences?
No. GamStop only covers operators licensed by the Gambling Commission in Great Britain. A site licensed in Curaçao, Anjouan or Kahnawake sits outside the scheme, so a GamStop self-exclusion does not block it. If an offshore site accepted you while you were self-excluded, keep the account and payment records: that history is often central to a recovery claim.
The casino says it is licensed in Costa Rica. Is that a real licence?
No. Costa Rica issues no gaming licence of any kind; operators based there hold a general business registration and answer to no gaming regulator. Terms that claim a Costa Rica gaming licence are a misnomer. There is no licence condition to enforce and no complaints body behind the site, which changes the route a claim has to take.
Licence found. Now check the case.
Knowing the regulator is step one. A free eligibility check tells you whether what happened in your account is worth pursuing, in confidence and with no obligation.
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