Casino licences compared: Curacao, Anjouan and Tobique
Three regulators cover almost every casino licences claim in this roster, and they are not interchangeable. Curacao now issues direct business-to-consumer permissions with a public register behind them. Anjouan issues a cheaper permission with a verification page and little else. Tobique is newer than both. The scoring here reads them at 7, 5 and 4 respectively, with one point added when a checkable number is printed.
| # | Casino | Regulator and number | Score | Open the casino |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Stake |
Curacao Gaming Authority, direct B2C licence; licence number published and checkable in the register | 8/10 | Open |
| 2 |  Winz |
Anjouan Gaming Authority; licence number published and checkable in the register | 7.8/10 | Open |
| 3 |  Shuffle |
Curacao Gaming Authority, direct B2C licence; licence number published and checkable in the register | 7.6/10 | Open |
| 4 |  Betfury |
Curacao Gaming Authority, direct B2C licence; licence number published and checkable in the register | 7.5/10 | Open |
| 5 |  Gamdom |
Anjouan Gaming Authority; licence number published and checkable in the register | 7.4/10 | Open |
The guide
What a Curacao licence means since the reform
Two things about Curacao are widely printed and both are now wrong. The regulator is the Curacao Gaming Authority, not the Gaming Control Board, and the master licence system that let one holder resell permissions to hundreds of sites is gone. Under the current ordinance an operator holds its own licence in its own company name, and that entry appears in a public register with an issue date, an expiry and a status.
Statuses are where the reading gets interesting. "Active" and "Indefinite" mean what you would expect. "Assessment in progress" means a renewal is running, and it covers hundreds of entries rather than flagging one troubled brand: Stake sits under it with number OGL/2024/1451/0918 and a listed expiry that has already passed. That is normal in the transition and it is still not the same as a clean forward date, which is why the honest phrasing is never "valid until".
Anjouan, and the recourse it does not give
An Anjouan permission comes from the autonomous island in the Union of Comoros, and it is real: the seal in the footer links to the regulator's own verification service, where the licensee, the number and the domain are listed. Gamdom checks out that way under ALSI-152406043-FI, and so does Duel under ALSI-202411026-FI1.
What the tier buys is thinner. A dispute with a Curacao licensee reaches a supervisory body with a complaints process and an appetite for enforcement. Anjouan gives you a register and a seal, and after that the operator's own goodwill is the mechanism. That gap, not the paperwork, is the whole difference between 7 points and 5.
Tobique, the newest name on the list
Tobique is a First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada, and its gaming commission issues business-to-consumer licences under its own gaming act. One operator here holds one: Winna, whose licensee appears on the commission's register with an expiry two years out. The regime is young enough that its enforcement record barely exists yet, which is the reason it sits below Anjouan at 4 rather than above it.
Checking a licence number for yourself
The method is the same everywhere and takes about two minutes. Find the licence number in the site footer or on its licensing page. Open the regulator's register or certificate portal directly, by typing the address rather than by following the seal, because a seal is an image the operator controls. Search the number, then check three things against the site you are on: the licensee company name, the domain listed on the certificate, and the status.
The domain line catches more problems than the status does. A certificate issued for one domain says nothing about the mirror you happen to be playing on, and that mismatch is the most common way a genuinely licensed brand ends up serving an unlicensed page.
When the footer and the terms disagree
Betfury is the clearest case in this roster. Its terms describe a Curacao Gaming Authority licence for the provision of online games of chance, and it publishes number OGL/2024/1494/0942. The footer of the same site says something else: that the operator works on a Certificate of Operation from the Gaming Control Board while a licence application is still being processed. Two documents, two regimes, one brand, and the operator has left both in place.
Vodka shows the other version of the problem. Its Curacao entry reads "Revoked" in the register, the footer and terms now cite Anjouan under ALSI-202412028-FI2, and a marketing paragraph on the homepage still tells readers the platform operates under the jurisdiction of Curacao. The terms are the binding document; the homepage is decoration that nobody updated.
The licence with no number to check
Winna is licensed and the register confirms the licensee, yet no licence number is printed anywhere for a reader to carry across. That is why it scores 4 here while other Tobique-style claims would score higher with a number attached. The missing digits do not make the permission fake. They make it unverifiable by you, at the moment you are deciding, which for a scoring rule is the thing that matters.
The same logic applies in reverse to dead numbers. Several brands still have regional pages quoting master licences that expired two years ago, and a number that no longer resolves is worse than none, because it looks like proof.
Where these differences show up in practice
The list weighted for licence strength doubles this parameter and reorders the roster around it. For the individual cases, the Gamdom review works through what an Anjouan permission costs a player in practice, the Betfury review covers the contradiction between its own two documents, and the Stake review shows a direct Curacao entry with a transitional status.
Questions about casino licensing
Does an offshore licence protect me at all?
It gives you a named company, a jurisdiction and a complaints route, which is more than an unlicensed site offers and much less than a European regulator provides. Treat it as a way to identify who you are dealing with rather than as insurance.
Is a licence valid for every domain a brand runs?
No. Certificates name specific domains. A mirror or regional variant may sit outside the licence entirely, which is one reason those links deserve their own guide.
What does an expired date in the register mean?
Under the current Curacao transition, often nothing dramatic: a large share of entries show a passed expiry with an assessment running. What matters is the status field, since "Revoked" and "Expired" exist as separate values and mean exactly what they say.
Next step
Know the regimes now? Rank the roster by the regulator
The offshore list orders the roster on licence tier first, with the register entry named for each so you can check it yourself.
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