How to check a UK Gambling Commission licence yourself

Any business offering gambling to people in Great Britain needs a licence from the Gambling Commission. A licence from Malta, Gibraltar or anywhere else does not, on its own, allow an operator to take British customers. Plenty of properly licensed UK operators are based abroad, though. Skill On Net, which runs three of the casinos we review, is a Malta company with a UK licence. Where the company sits matters less than whether the Commission has licensed it.

The routine

1. Find the account number on the casino's site

   Scroll to the footer. A UK-licensed site should say something like “licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission under account number” followed by a number, often with a link. If there is no number, or the wording is vague, that is already an answer of sorts.

2. Open the register yourself

   Go to the Gambling Commission public register directly, rather than through a link on the casino's own page. It is a small habit, and a sensible one.

3. Search by account number

   Searching by number is quicker and less ambiguous than by name. The result should show the business name, the account number and its licence status.

4. Check the status

   You are looking for an active licence. Words like suspended, revoked or surrendered mean the operator should not be taking bets from British customers.

5. Check the domain is listed

   This is the step most people skip. Licence holders list the websites and trading names they operate. Make sure the exact web address you are on appears there. A genuine account number displayed on an unlisted site is a warning sign, not a reassurance.

6. Look at the activities

   For an online casino you would expect a remote casino licence. It is a quick glance, and if the activities listed look nothing like what the site offers, dig further.

The five casinos we rank

For convenience, here are the register entries for the operators behind this month's list. Do still click through and look at them yourself; that is the point of the exercise.

What a licence means for you

A UK licence brings obligations the operator must meet: age and identity verification, safer gambling tools such as deposit limits and time-outs, participation in GAMSTOP, rules on how bonuses are advertised, and a duty to handle complaints. It does not mean the operator will always get things right, or that you will win.

If you have a dispute, complain to the casino first. If that doesn't resolve it within eight weeks, you can take it to the operator's alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider, which the casino must name. The Gambling Commission itself does not settle individual disputes, though it does want to hear about operators breaking the rules.

Red flags, briefly

• No account number anywhere on the site
• A number that leads to a different business
• The web address missing from the licence holder's listed domains
• A non-UK licence presented as if it covered British players
• Any site promising to let you play while you are self-excluded

That last one needs no register search. Legitimate UK operators are required to honour GAMSTOP, and a site offering a way round it is telling you it is not one of them.