Casino licences for Canadian players

A casino's licence is the answer to one practical question: if something goes wrong, who can you complain to? For players outside Ontario and Alberta, the casinos that accept Canadians are licensed outside the provincial system, by a handful of bodies with very different rulebooks. This guide compares them, shows how to check a licence yourself, and explains what none of them can do. It is part of our online gambling law guide.

Who licenses the casinos

The casinos open to Canadian players in our database hold licences from four bodies. One casino, 20Bet, lists two.

Every review on BigBadBonus.com states the licensing body and number the operator publishes. What follows is what those bodies require.

Kahnawake Gaming Commission

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission licenses and regulates gaming within and from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke, near Montreal. It enacted its interactive gaming regulations on July 8, 1999, making it one of the early online regulators. Licensed sites must be hosted at a data centre within the territory.

What its regulations require, from the current version dated March 25, 2026:

• Age. The approved age is the greater of 18 or the age required in the player's own jurisdiction.
• Disputes. The operator must run a dispute process and give a final decision within 45 days. If that fails, the player can complain to the Commission within six months.
• Self-exclusion. A player can ask the Commission to exclude them from every Kahnawake-authorised operator at once.
• Technical standards. Random number generators and systems must meet standards the Commission approves.

How to check: the Commission's permit-holder list shows each operator and its site URLs. Search the page for the casino's name and domain. Casinos such as Jackpot City, HellSpin and Lucky Days list Kahnawake licences.

Kahnawake is the only one of these regulators based in Canada, but its licence is not a provincial authorisation. Under Criminal Code section 207, only a province can authorise online casino games within its borders.

Curaçao Gaming Authority

The Curaçao Gaming Authority (formerly the Gaming Control Board) now issues online licences directly. The old system, where a few private master licence holders issued sublicences, ended on October 15, 2025. The National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK) took effect on December 24, 2024.

What current licence conditions require:

• Segregated player funds. All player funds, deposited, won or owed, must sit in a separate account.
• Certified games. Every game must be certified by a testing lab the authority approves.
• Visible seal. Licensees must display the authority's digital seal.
• Complaints. Under the player complaints policy, operators confirm a complaint in writing within one week and answer within four weeks (extendable once by four more), with a faster two-day, five-business-day track for responsible-gaming complaints such as self-exclusion, and they must offer free independent dispute resolution.

How to check: click the seal in the casino footer, then look up the licence number (format OGL/year/number) in the Online Gaming License Registry on the authority's site. The registry warns that its overviews do not guarantee current validity, so check the enforcement register too. A number in the old sublicence format, such as "8048/JAZ", is not an OGL licence and will not appear in the registry. CasinOK, Spinjo and Lucky Ones list Curaçao licences.

Malta Gaming Authority

The Malta Gaming Authority regulates under Malta's Gaming Act. Its Player Protection Directive sets rules on player funds, and operators must offer alternative dispute resolution through an EU or EEA body once their own process is exhausted.

How to check: the MGA licensee register searches by company, status, URL or game type, and the MGA seal on a licensed site links to its entry. Complaints go to the operator first, then to its dispute resolution body or the MGA's player support unit. LeoVegas lists an MGA licence.

Anjouan

Anjouan, one island of the Union of the Comoros, issues licences with numbers beginning "ALSI-". We found no official Anjouan page setting out player-funds, testing or complaint rules, and no public complaints service. Casinos such as Bitguruz and Oxibet list Anjouan licences; we state the licence on their reviews and score the absence of a published complaint route against them.

Side by side

Reading a casino footer

The licence details sit at the bottom of every casino's home page. A complete footer has four things:

1. The operating company's legal name, for example a limited company or N.V.
2. Its registered address, which should match the jurisdiction of the licence.
3. The licence number, in the format the regulator uses.
4. A seal or link that opens the regulator's own record for that site.

Cross-check all four against the register. The company named in the footer should match the company named in the register, and the register entry should list the domain you are on. A footer that names a licence but no company, a seal that opens a static image instead of a regulator page, or a company that differs from the register entry are reasons to stop. The terms and conditions page should name the same company as the party you contract with.

Testing labs and seals

Beyond the licence, many casinos show seals from independent testing labs that certify random number generators and game fairness. Curaçao's current licence conditions require every game to be certified by an approved lab, so a lab certificate is now expected at Curaçao-licensed sites. A seal is only meaningful if clicking it opens a certificate on the lab's own site that names the casino's domain. Game return figures come from those certified games; the highest payout casinos guide explains how to check them.

What a licence cannot do

• It does not make a site provincially authorised.
• It does not bring provincial self-exclusion or provincial complaint bodies into play.
• It does not guarantee a payout; it gives you a process.

The practical rule: before depositing, find the licence number, check it in the register, and note the complaint route. If a casino shows no licence number, or one that is not in the register, skip it. The casino withdrawals guide explains how to use the complaint route if a payout stalls, and the KYC guide covers the identity checks every licensed operator runs.