Skip to content

Casino licences in Ireland

No online casino holds an Irish licence yet. The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) licenses online betting only; applications for gaming licences, which will cover casino games, open during 2027 and 2028. Until then, a casino site that takes players from Ireland holds a licence from somewhere else. For the casinos on this site that means Malta, Kahnawake, Anjouan or the Tobique Gaming Commission. VivatBet, an Irish company, points to Irish licences for remote betting and for gaming on land-based premises; neither is a licence for casino games online. The licence decides what protection you actually have.

This page explains how to check each kind of licence yourself. Checked on 25 September 2026.

Where the Irish law stands

The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 (No. 35 of 2024) was signed on 23 October 2024 and is coming into force in stages, by ministerial order. The GRAI was set up under it on 5 March 2025.

  • Betting is licensed now. Remote betting and betting-intermediary licences took effect on 1 July 2026. On 25 September 2026 the GRAI’s public register listed 36 licences held by 35 companies: 32 for remote betting, three for betting intermediaries and one for in-person betting. Not one covers games.
  • Casino games are not licensed yet. The GRAI said on 30 June 2026 that applications for gaming, lottery and other licences “will be opened throughout 2027 and 2028”. The sections of the Act that create gaming licences (sections 86–89) have not commenced.
  • The old law is still on the books for gaming. The repeal of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 has not commenced, and the new offence of providing a game without a gaming licence (section 67(2)) is not yet in force, according to the commencement table on the Irish Statute Book.
  • Advertising and inducement rules are waiting too. The daytime ban on gambling ads on broadcast and on-demand services (section 149) and the ban on licensees offering an inducement to a person or a specific group of persons (section 157) have not commenced.

So when a casino site tells you it is regulated, it means regulated abroad. Nobody can truthfully claim more than that about a casino in Ireland today.

What GRAI means, and what it does

GRAI stands for the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, the State body the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 set up to license, supervise and control gambling. It was formally established in March 2025, its chief executive is Anne Marie Caulfield, and it published its first annual report, for 2025, this year. Until its licences replace them, Revenue’s older bookmaker licences are still in use, as VivatBet’s footer shows. Advertising standards sit with the ASAI. And a dispute with a casino over your account is not something the GRAI resolves on a player’s behalf (see the table below).

Playing is not an offence, on our reading of the Act, even at a casino with no Irish licence. Its offences are aimed at whoever provides gambling. Section 67(1) says a person “shall not provide, or cause another person to provide, a betting activity” without a licence, and we found no offence of taking part as a player, other than cheating (section 74). Section 71, which bars buying a “gambling product” from an unlicensed supplier, is about the trade: the Act defines a gambling product as “any machine …, equipment or software used … for or in connection with gambling”, and that section has not commenced either. This is our reading of the text, not legal advice.

For providers the penalties are heavy: on indictment, a fine or up to eight years in prison (section 67(4)). Licensed operators that break the rules face administrative fines that can reach 10% of turnover (section 206). The GRAI said in June that it has begun identifying unlicensed betting operators. It has published no date for acting against unlicensed casinos.

Who licenses the casinos that take Irish players

Regulator Licence numbers look like How to check Where a player can complain
Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) MGA/B2C/126/2006, MGA/CRP/130/2006 Licensee register and its URL Checker The operator first; then its alternative dispute resolution (ADR) body or the MGA’s complaint form
Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) OGL/2024/…, OGL/2023/…, CGA/2025/… The CGA’s licence registry, and the CGA seal on the casino’s own site The CGA says it does not handle individual complaints against gaming providers
Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) Varies; the KGC’s own certificate shows a permit category rather than a number The KGC logo on the casino’s site should open a Certificate of Good Standing Complain to the casino first; then complaints@gamingcommission.ca
Tobique Gaming Commission (Tobique First Nation) 0000091 (the licence 7Bit Casino and KatsuBet quote) The Tobique seal in the casino’s footer should open validate.thetgc.ca; the TGC also publishes a list of licence holders with each licence’s type and expiry date Only through the complaints link in the casino’s Tobique seal — the TGC says complaints sent through its own website are not reviewed
Anjouan (Union of Comoros) ALSI-… We found no official government register to check against No official route we could confirm
GRAI (Ireland) — betting only GRAI-0524-RB-26-0001 (RB appears on remote betting licences) GRAI licence register The GRAI cannot resolve disputes between players and operators

A UK Gambling Commission number is a different thing again. The UKGC says its remit covers only gambling sites that trade or advertise to customers in Great Britain.

How to check a licence, step by step

Start at the footer. A licensed casino names its operating company, the regulator and the licence number at the bottom of every page. If any of the three is missing, stop there.

Malta. Search the company name or number in the MGA register, then paste the site’s address into the MGA URL Checker. A real MGA number on the wrong website is the trick to watch for, and the URL Checker is what catches it.

Curaçao. Curaçao moved to a new licensing law in December 2024, and the CGA now publishes an online-gaming registry. Find the number there and read its status: the registry includes licences marked expired, revoked and still under assessment. Then click the CGA seal on the casino’s site — for a casino it is the “Certificate of Operation” seal, which the CGA issues only to operators licensed to offer games to players. Under the CGA’s rules the seal must take you to cert.cga.cw, and the page there must show the exact domain you are on, the operator and its current licence status. The CGA itself notes that its overviews may not show a licence’s current validity, so the seal check matters.

Kahnawake. The KGC’s public list of permit holders was last updated in 2023, so use the logo instead: clicking it should generate a Certificate of Good Standing from the Commission. On 25 September 2026 the certificate behind Jackpot City’s logo named Baytree Interactive Limited as the permit holder, with a Primary CPA (client provider authorization) running from 3 August 2026 to 3 August 2031. The casino’s footer quotes licence number 01059, which the certificate itself does not display — so the certificate, not the footer, is the thing to trust.

Tobique. Click the seal in the footer. A genuine one opens validate.thetgc.ca and shows the company, every website registered under the licence and its “Operating status”. On 26 September 2026 the seals on 7Bit Casino and KatsuBet named SAPHIRIX SOLUTIONS SRL and read “Operating status: VALID”; the TGC’s list of licence holders showed the company with a B2C licence expiring on 7 August 2027. A seal that opens anywhere other than validate.thetgc.ca is not the TGC’s.

Anjouan. We could not find an official government register or verification page for Anjouan licences. Several private websites describe themselves as the licensing body and contradict one another. An Anjouan number is the hardest licence here to check.

What an offshore licence means for a player

The licence decides who you can turn to when something goes wrong: a delayed withdrawal, a voided bonus, a closed account.

  • Under an MGA licence there is a formal route. The MGA recommends raising it with the operator first; after that, the operator’s ADR body or the MGA’s own Player Support Unit. If an ADR body rules for the player, the MGA gives the operator 20 days to comply.
  • Under Kahnawake, the Commission accepts complaints, but only after you have raised them with the casino.
  • Under Curaçao, the regulator will not take up an individual dispute.
  • Under Tobique, complaints go through the link in the casino’s own seal; the Commission says it will not review complaints sent through its website.
  • Under Anjouan, we could not find an official route at all.
  • The GRAI handles complaints about licensed betting operators only, and even there it does not settle disputes.

None of this tells you whether a particular casino pays out. It tells you what happens if it doesn’t.

How licences appear on this site

Every casino page here shows the regulator, the licence number exactly as the operator publishes it, and the date we checked it. Where an operator holds a GRAI licence, we show it. So far those are betting licences, and we label them “sports betting only” so nobody mistakes them for casino approval. Every other casino shows “No GRAI licence”, because that is true of all of them.

Tax on gambling winnings in Ireland

Winnings from gambling are not taxed as gains for an ordinary player. The Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 says “winnings from betting (including pool betting), lotteries, sweepstakes or games with prizes shall not be chargeable gains” (section 613(2)), and Revenue’s capital gains manual repeats it. Winnings “from bona fide betting, lotteries, raffles or other games with prizes” are also exempt from gift and inheritance tax, under section 82 of the Capital Acquisitions Tax Consolidation Act 2003.

The tax in Irish gambling falls on the operator instead: betting duty of 2% on bets taken from people in the State, remote bets included, according to Revenue. If gambling is a regular income rather than a pastime, ask Revenue or a tax adviser about your own position.

Is an online casino safe? What makes one trusted, and what to check

No licence makes a casino safe, and no website can promise that one is. Lists of the most trusted online casinos rank by reputation, which you cannot check. What you can check, for any online casino that takes players in Ireland, is whether it is who it says it is and where you could complain:

  • The footer names a company, a regulator and a licence number, and all three match the terms and conditions.
  • The number checks out on the regulator’s own register or certificate, for this exact domain.
  • The terms say where to complain, and the regulator named there actually takes complaints.
  • The terms are published in euro for Irish players, not only in another currency.

Then look past the brand to the company. Trusted casino sites are, more often than not, one company’s several brands: eight of the casinos on this site belong to Baytree Interactive and share one set of bonus terms, and two belong to Saphirix Solutions and share a licence. A new name from a known group brings that group’s terms and record with it. Who runs the casinos on this site.

A licence is the floor, not a verdict. It is still worth reading the terms behind any offer, which is what the rest of this site does. And the checks that protect you most are your own: a deposit limit, a bank block, a break. See responsible gambling and how to block gambling payments in Ireland.

Sources

Official pages, read on 25 September 2026: