Gambling licenses for online casino operators

When signing up to a new casino, one of the key things to pay attention to is what license the casino operator is holding, that allows them to offer online gambling, casino games, sports book or other gambling services. Unlicensed operators have extreme risk when it comes to getting your rightful winnings, the games and software might be corrupted and in general there is no upside for you as a player gambling at an unlicensed casino. There are however also differences between different gambling licenses and we will go through the most important ones for you in detail, and talk more about what makes them good, how they protect you as a player and what to look out for when choosing a new online casino to start gambling or betting.  

MGA – Malta Gaming Authority on online casinos

MGA or the Malta Gaming Authority, is the strongest non country specific gaming license on the market. And any online casino that holds a valid MGA license are under strict regulation, and have to follow clear guidelines on how to operate legitimately and in a fair manner.

The MGA is known for the wide variety of licenses they offer, which are divided into four different gaming license classes:

Class 1: A remote gaming license which includes casino games, online lotteries and skill games, and is for gambling operators responsible for the risk based on repetitive games. An online casino that offers slots and live casino will be holding this Class 1 license.

Class 2: A remote betting license which includes odds betting, pool betting and spread betting, and is for operators responsible for the risk on events based on a matchbook or sports book. An online betting site offering odds on sports or esports will be holding this Class 2 license.

Class 3: A license to promote or offer remote gaming in or from Malta which includes poker networks, Peer-2-Peer gaming and game portals.  and is for operators receiving commission from promoting and/or betting games

Class 4: A license to host and manage remote gaming operators, excluding the licensee itself, and is for software vendors.
No matter what kind of online gaming service a company intends to offer, MGA has an offer for them through the Class 4 license, unless covered by one of the above three licenses. If an online gaming site intends to offer Bingo, Casino, Lottery, Poker, Sports Betting or Sweep Stakes, all will be covered by MGA from a legal perspective.

There are also B2B licenses granted by MGA, also known as Business to Business licenses. We will not go into details about these, considering these are not relevant to any casino players, except that they are needed for Game Studios, to be able to offer and have their slots and live casino games certified for MGA licensed casinos.

If you ever need to get in touch with the MGA here are their contact details, as well as website for support questions.

Website: https://www.mga.org.mt/support/contact-us/
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +356 2546 9000

Curacao eGaming License on online casinos

Curacao is situated in the Dutch Caribbean and was formerly known as the Netherlands Antilles. This is one of the oldest running online gambling regulators, and is thus very widely used by online casinos around the world. Their licenses can be recognised by the logos you see in the top if this segment, as well as their JAZ license numbers. Most Curacao licensed casinos are reputable and choose this form of licensing because it is cheaper than MGA, as well as being known to have a more lenient process when it comes to auditing casinos. However, any casino that holds a valid Curacao eGaming license has been through the initial investigation process and should be regularly audited by Curacao authorities. Here are some key reasons why online casinos choose Curacao eGaming license:

• Getting approved for a Curacao eGaming license is very easy, and does require a lot less auditory work than other licenses. This could mean that some casino operators that are operating with this type of license are not living up to the standards of other licensing authorities, but any Curacao licensed casino promoted on Bacon.bet have been fully vetted and certified by our casino experts.
• It has a very attractive price level for getting the license and online casinos choose this option mostly due to the low costs involved.
• Very low taxes is another reason why online casinos would choose Curacao eGaming as their licencor. When an online casino is utilising this type of eGaming license, they are subjected to only 2%(!!) corporate tax, with a 0%(!!) tax on gross incoming wagers. These very beneficial tax levels are guaranteed to stay at this level through 2022 and all the way until 2026.
• They offer flexible and favourable conditions of use for the online casino, as they offer a one size fits all solution for the license.
• Curacao offers casinos a lot of financial and banking services, along with technical assistance and consulting support.
• Cryptocurrency is embraced by Curacao, which makes it great for anyone that that utilises cryptocurrency for gambling. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies flourish in the online gambling space and most of these casinos hold a Curacao license.

Website: https://www.curacao-egaming.com/
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +5999 465 1134

Spelinspektionen – Swedish Gambling Authority

The SGA or Spelinspektionen is the national regulator in Sweden, that grants licenses to operators through a strict and thorough licensing process. Casino operators that hold this type of license have to abide by strict regulation, and player protection, as well as anti money laundering rules are some of the key areas to promote safe gambling. Let's have a closer look at what makes the Swedish regulation reputable, what it means for you as a player, and why we recommend that Swedes play at SGA licensed online casinos.

You would think that the first thing any gambling licensing institution should do is to protect the players. That is not the case for all licenses, but for the Swedish national license scheme, it is a key pillar in the legislation. This at it's core means protecting your personal information and the information about your financial transactions. This means that your personal data is safe and only SGA and the online casino will ever have access to it. There are also specific layers of requirement for all online casinos that hold a SGA license, on how the casino should carefully protect your data from the likes of cyber-attacks, as well as strict laws on never to disclose or share your information. Another key part of player protection, is ensuring you are at good health and that gambling does not become a problem. Gambling addiction is according to the SGA a big problem, and thus also a key part in their strict “Duty of Care” requirements making sure that casinos don’t support problem gambling or take advantage of vulnerable players.

SGA also makes sure that all gambling that takes place at any of their licensed casinos are absolutely fair, and that all the games are fully licensed and yearly certified for their RTP and integrity. The integrity part includes, but is not limited to, that random number generators are balanced and accurate, that a the clear and true picture is given of the chances of winning in slots or live casino games.

Another part that Spelinspektionen takes very seriously is to make sure that every krona you are depositing into an online casino is guaranteed for and stays safe. Any online casino that wants to be granted a SGA license, they must demonstrate and prove how they keep your money safe, and what would happen if a “worst case scenario” would occur, and how they would still keep your funds guaranteed. There are many unlicensed casino operators targeting Sweden, and the Swedish Gambling Authority tries their best to block transactions to unlicensed casinos, by targeting payment providers and sanctioning them if they do not follow their guidelines.

The Swedish Gambling Authority is firm that it is the gambling operators responsibility to abide by their legislation. This means that they will hold any licensed casino accountable for any illegal act or any violations to their legislation. All of the casino operators are fully aware that there is no getting out of it if they are violating the regulatory guidelines and rules, which makes a licensed Swedish online casino one of the safest places to gamble for real money.

Website: https://www.spelinspektionen.se/
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone:  +46 0152-650 100

United Kingdom Gambling Commission

This is one the strictest and most secure of all the gambling licenses, and much of this is due to how the Great Britain takes online gambling activities very seriously. What also makes this one of the most secure, is that the online gambling laws are clear and well-written. They continuously update their legislation and have very strict requirements to protect players. This licensing regime is for sure one of the world’s most reputable within online gambling. Many more recent national gambling licenses have looked to the United Kingdom Gambling Commission for guidance, and used their regulations as a benchmark for the new.
UKGC regulates online gambling as well as hands out licenses to international casinos through a very strict set of rules and legislation's. The UKGC issues three different types of licenses to betting operators that wish to offer gambling services in the UK. These three licenses granted by the UKGC are an operating license, a personal management license, and a personal functional license.
The activities and services covered by the UKGC licenses are the following:

• Arcades
• Betting
• Bingo
• Casino
• Gaming software
• Gaming machines and slots
• Lotteries

As a player residing in the UK, you will be pleased to know that UKGC licensed casinos are among the safest and most regulated on the planet. Keep on reading to find out more about UKGC, online casinos for British players and what makes it a strong and reputable license. If you ever need to get in touch with the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, there contact details are here:

Website: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 0121 230 6666

Republic Of Estonia, Tax and Customs Board

As opposed to many other post-soviet countries, Estonia is a mature, regulated market. The country has been very good at working closely with the gambling industry, to ensure that the business can thrive, ensure player protection, and create revenue for the Estonian government. Estonia has also firmly stated that having a well thought through and regulated gambling legislation, diminish the negative socio-economic impact associated with excessive gambling. This all while ensuring that the service, which is a form of entertainment, is available through a legal and regulated offer to players.
Estonia offers two types of licenses, one for casinos, and another for betting companies. Both licenses require the applying company to be a trustworthy legal person, without any criminal record or history of previous illegal gambling activities.
Gambling companies that apply for the license need to have a certain share capital, which totals, €130,000 for sportsbooks, and €1,000,000 for casinos. Another reason why more and more online casinos apply for the Estonian license, is that establishing an Estonian company is not required.

Another reason for many online casinos choosing the Estonian licenses is the low taxes on the money made. Casino operators pay taxes on their “net gaming revenues”, meaning total wagers placed, minus winnings paid out. For both betting and online games of chance, which includes cards and slots, the tax rate is 5%, calculated on a monthly basis.
Besides the Gambling Act and the Gambling Tax Act, the licensing process is affected by the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act and the General Part of the Economic Activities Code Act. If you want to contact the Tax and Customs Board, or have questions relating to an Estonian license, here are the contact details:

Website: https://www.emta.ee/eng/organisation-remote-gambling
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +372 880 0811

Alcohol and Gaming Commission in Ontario

Up until this point, online gambling have been falling into something of a grey area. Canadian law does not prohibit the practice of betting via the Internet, but it does however require the online casino to be licensed or owned by a provincial government in order to be considered legal. Even if this is the law, hundreds if not thousands of online casinos have targeted Canada directly and fighting for their players over the past decades. This will now change, as Ontario is releasing their own local license, that will take effect in 2022.
For you to better understand how this can affect you, let's quickly have a look at the different provinces the great nation of Canada is divided into. There are in total ten provinces, namely: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Colombia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Each of these provinces is a self-governing entity, with power granted by the federal government. This means that each province can set their own legislation, as Ontario now have decided to do.

Ontario has the highest population of all Canadian provinces, which means that it is the province with the most gamblers as well. Gambling is also a part of everyday life in Canada, and most adults gamble, either on land based casinos or online. There are more than 30 land-based casinos that are active in Ontario, and these are either privately-owned or charitable foundations run by the government. Ontario is also the province with the highest amount of slot games and other gaming devices. Horce Racing is also a big thing in Ontario, with Standard bred, Thorough Bred and Quarter Horse racing. Sportsbetting, lottery and other forms of gambling will also fall unde the new legislation that comes into play during 2022. This will impact hundreds of online casinos that does not have any plans of applying for a license, and it also creates some challenges, as the license is only for players resising in Ontario. This means that the nine remaining provinces will be up for grabs still.

We recommend that you go to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission's website, to learn more about the new licensing regime. As it is going to change Ontario forever.

Website: https://www.agco.ca/
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +1 416-326-8700

Germany

In January of 2022, Germany’s 16 federal states agreed to a brand-new federal gambling law. This resulted in the federal states implementing an interim solution starting July 1st, 2022, where all online casino and poker services had to go under strict regulation. This included a five second spin delay between game rounds, a maximum bet of €1 per game round, €1000 deposit limit per month across all brands of any license holder, and strict rules on how to market casino and poker. This is all part of the new German Interstate Treaty on Gambling (ISTG), and the imposed 5.3% tax on turnover, have created an uproar in the iGaming community. Operators that want to apply for a German license, are forced to abide by these extreme legislations, but the result has also been that many online casinos have decided to not abide by the imposed restrictions.

Division of Gaming Enforcement in New Jersey, USA

Many American states have already started legalising online gambling, and as soon as the first state went forward with approving online gambling, many more immediately followed. There are now 24 states that have legalised online gambling in some way, not all are fully approved yet, but during 2022 these 24 states will most likely all be approved and be offering online gambling. The current 24 states are as follows: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, Washington DC, and West Virginia.
Out of these there are only Nevada, New Jersey and Louisiana that allows casino games to be offered. This is why New Jersey has become the go-to state for online casinos wanting to enter the US market.

Online gambling has already surged in 2022 and will surely continue to grow in a parabolic rate going into 2023. As COVID-19 impacted the legislators hard when it comes to tax earnings, the remaining states will surely soon follow with legalising online gambling and thus the growth will continue. We will take you through some of the states that are currently not approved or have legalised online gambling and share our thoughts on whether they will do so soon or not.

Licensing and juristiction in different countries

There are many local licenses and jurisdictions for online gambling around the world, and we want you to be aware of all of them. Naturally if you live in a country where there is gambling in some form, be it lotteries, sports betting or casino, there is some form of licensing involved. Most countries have decided to go with a local license, meaning that the government would regulate the gambling scene, and let either national or international operators offer online or land based gambling in that country. Considering that there are still nations that do not have these types of local licenses in place, licenses like MGA or Curacao are very popular among online casinos. This is mostly because they open up the possibility of offering multiple markets and countries under one and the same license. We have however seen over the most recent years, that these licenses are losing options on a yearly basis, and we predict that we will end up with a fully localised licensing regime, across the globe. If you want to learn more about different jurisdictions and licenses not discussed at Bacon.bet, you can always have a look at one of our sources, Gaming Licensing. There you will find an abundance of information, and we will also make sure to always keep you posted on the latest from the world of licensing and jurisdictions, for online betting and online casino.